Larry Birnbaum received his Ph.D. in computer science from Yale University in 1986 and joined the Northwestern faculty in 1989. His research in artificial intelligence and computer science has encompassed natural language processing, case-based reasoning, machine learning, human-computer interaction, educational software, and computer vision. Birnbaum has authored or coauthored more than eighty articles. He was the program cochair of the 1991 International Machine Learning Workshop and has been a member of the program committee for numerous other conferences and workshops.

Navjit Bhasin is a visionary expert in strategy, technology, operations, and change management. As a veteran entrepreneur and an active angel investor, he has worked in hands-on roles for several global retailers and consumer brands. He has a keen eye for creative ways to fund growth initiatives and increase profitability. Navjit has built his career as a natural problem solver, having helped some of the retail industry’s biggest brands navigate the changing industry landscape so they can achieve peak operational efficiency, transform their customer experience, and enhance their profitability.

In 2011, Navjit founded Newmine, a technology firm comprised of seasoned retail transformation experts. In 2018, he laid the foundation of the retail industry’s first Applied AI SaaS platform, Chief Returns Officer®, to tackle the most expensive problem in retail, merchandise returns.

Shawn leads global strategy and business development for Turing.ai's retail and hospitality vertical. Prior to Turing.ai, Shawn led North American go to market for Zebra Technologies’ Robotics Automation business unit in North America. Shawn’s passion rests in meeting the needs of customers; through integrating human-centered thinking, with brick-and-mortar and digital retail technology. Shawn has been involved with store systems, ecommerce, and order management technologies for 20 years, having held leadership positions in, or consulted to, numerous Tier -1 retailers including, TJX Cos, Staples, BJ’s, O’Reilly Auto Parts, and Uniqlo (Fast Retailing). In addition, Shawn founded a luxury menswear brand, which was most known for designing and manufacturing high quality clothing for corporate executives, and professional athletes across the country.

Before retail, as VP of Product Management & Global Operations, Shawn helped to start e4eNet. e4eNet was a cloud-based enterprise platform that managed the design for manufacturing process for printed circuit boards (PCBs), e4eNet was ultimately sold to IBM. Before, e4Enet Shawn worked for IBM in several technical capacities.

For 8 years Shawn honorably served in the Army National Guard as an infantry soldier and armored personnel carrier (APC) driver. Shawn earned his MBA from Babson College, and bachelor's degree in management information systems from the University of Massachusetts.

Kris is a researcher in the areas of human-machine interaction, context-driven information systems, and artificial intelligence. Kris currently sits on a United Nations policy committee run by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Prior to joining the faculty at Northwestern, Kris founded the University of Chicago’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. from Yale.

Diego Klabjan is a professor at Northwestern University, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences. He is also Founding Director, Master of Science in Analytics and Director, Center for Deep Learning. After obtaining his doctorate from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering of the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999 in Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization, in the same year, he joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2007 he became an associate professor at Northwestern and in 2012 he was promoted to a full professor.

His research is focused on machine learning, deep learning and analytics (modeling, methodologies, theoretical results) with a concentration in finance, insurance, sports, and bioinformatics. Professor Klabjan has led projects with large companies such as Intel, Baxter, Allstate, AbbVie, Federal Express, General Motors, United Continental, and many others, and he is also assisting numerous start-ups with their analytics needs. He is also a co-founder of Opex Analytics LLC, an LLamasoft company.

Han is a computer scientist and statistician, using computation and data as a lens to explore science and intelligence. His research focuses on data-centric robotics, data science, and artificial intelligence. He has received numerous research awards including the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the Alfred P Sloan Fellowship in Mathematics, the Tweedie New Researcher Award, the Noether Young Scholar Award, and the NSF CAREER Award. He received his Ph.D. in Machine Learning and Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Malthouse is the Erastus Otis Haven Professor and a research fellow at the Media Management Center, a partnership between Medill and Kellogg. He is also the research director of the Medill IMC Spiegel Research Center. His research interests center on media marketing, database marketing, advertising, new media, and integrated marketing communications. He develops statistical models and applies them to large data sets of consumer information to help managers make marketing decisions. He received his Ph.D. Statistics from Northwestern University.

Adam Pah is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the Kellogg School of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University. He also serves as the Associate Director of and an Assistant Research Professor at NICO, the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. He received his BS from Arizona State University, Ph.D. from Northwestern University, and has worked industrially as a Data Scientist.

His research is largely focused on two different areas: healthcare and conflict. His work in healthcare is focused on innovation adoption and leveraging Electronic Health Records (EHR) data to improve targeting for change management approaches. His research on conflict is split between studying gun violence at schools in the United States and modeling the organizational dynamics of terrorist organizations and the impact of those dynamics on attack lethality and frequency.

Drew is a part of the team that is building the transformative data services strategy and business for Zebra pertinent to the data services platform Savanna. This includes technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain.

He has a background in developing and leveraging IoT solutions in manufacturing, retail, and healthcare. He was a member of the team that disrupted the hearing healthcare industry by leveraging technology to drive automation into the manufacturing and supply chain processes. Within the 1,600 retail locations, the team developed an omnichannel strategy to enhance the in-store experience through mobile applications, WLAN, data analytics and sensors.

Dr. Michael L. Thompson lead technical capability development applying Bayesian Machine Learning in the Procter & Gamble Company, R&D, Data & Modeling Sciences department. His degrees are in Chemical Engineering: B.S., Northwestern University, ’82; M.S., MIT, ’84; and Ph.D., MIT, ’96, with minor in Statistics and Artificial Intelligence.

He has extensive experience in the process industry, having worked for Dow, Alcoa, Amoco, and Mitsubishi Chemical (Japan). Since joining P&G in 1999, Michael has applied his expertise in Bayesian Analysis, especially Bayesian networks, to deliver results spanning business functions including R&D, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and business analytics. He has authored journal articles ranging from fluidized bed reactors to hybrid probabilistic and first-principles biochemical models to optimal consumer product design.