Congressman Don Beyer

U.S. Representative, Virginia's 8th District

Congressman Don Beyer serves as the U.S. Representative from Virginia's 8th District, representing Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and parts of Fairfax County. He serves on Congress' Joint Economic Committee, and also serves on the House Committee on Ways and Means. He was the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1998, and was Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein under President Obama. Rep. Beyer has spent four decades building his family business in Northern Virginia after a summer job at a car dealership in 1974.

Presenting: Lunch and a Conversation

Yi Cao

Assistant Professor of Accounting, Costello College of Business

Yi Cao is an Assistant Professor of Accounting in the Costello College of Business at George Mason University. Yi has a broad range of research interests that relate to corporate voluntary disclosure channels, the interaction of labor economics and financial reporting quality, and capital market study using novel tools such as LLM and other machine learning and textual analysis techniques. Cao's research interests include corporate voluntary disclosure, product market competition, financial disclosure quality, and textual analysis, and has been published in Contemporary Accounting Research.

Presenting: George Mason AI Research Showcase

Long Chen

Accounting Area Chair and Associate Professor of Accounting, Costello College of Business

Long Chen is Accounting Area Chair and Associate Professor of Accounting in the Costello College of Business at George Mason University. She conducts empirical archival research on topics related to financial reporting and disclosure, corporate social responsibility, executive profiles, artificial intelligence, and international accounting.

Presenting: George Mason AI Research Showcase

Missy Cummings

Professor and Director of Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center, College of Engineering and Computing

A naval officer and military pilot from 1988–1999, Cummings was one of the U.S. Navy's first female fighter pilots. She is now the director of Mason's Autonomy and Robotics Center (MARC) and a professor at George Mason University. She holds faculty appointments in the Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computer Science departments. She is an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Fellow and recently served as the senior safety advisor to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Presenting: AI Literacy at George Mason

Tina Eliassi-Rad

Joseph E. Aoun Professor, Northeastern University

Tina Eliassi-Rad is the inaugural Joseph E. Aoun Professor at Northeastern University. She is also an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute and the Vermont Complex Systems Institute. Prior to joining Northeastern, Eliassi-Reed was an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Rutgers University; and before that a member of the technical staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She earned her PhD in computer sciences (with a minor in mathematical statistics) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Eliassi-Reed works at the intersection of AI and network science and is interested in the impact of science and technology on society. Her algorithms have been integrated into systems used by governments, industry, and open-source software. Eliassi-Reed received an Outstanding Mentor Award from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science in 2010, became an ISI Foundation Fellow in 2019, was named one of the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics in 2021, received Northeastern University's Excellence in Research and Creative Activity Award in 2022, was awarded the Lagrange Prize in 2023, and was elected Fellow of the Network Science Society in 2023.

Presenting: Opening Keynote

Nancy Holincheck

Associate Professor of STEM Education; Associate Director of Education, Mason's Quantum Science and Engineering Center, College of Education and Human Development

Nancy Holincheck is a teacher educator and education researcher focused on STEM teaching and learning. In her current work, she leads research aimed at making complex, emerging technologies accessible to K-12 students and teachers. A former high school physics teacher, Holincheck is currently PI on NSF-funded projects exploring quantum teaching and learning from elementary through high school. She explores how the critical thinking skills needed for quantum science and AI literacy overlap, focusing on demystifying these black box technologies for all learners. She teaches about the pedagogical affordances and ethical implications of AI in education in the new graduate certificate in AI in Teaching and Learning.

Presenting: AI Literacy at George Mason

Jamil N. Jaffer

Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia Law School

Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program.

Presenting: Convergence and Coordination

Jesse Kirkpatrick

Research Associate Professor, Co-director, Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center, College of Engineering and Computing; Department of Philosophy, College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Jesse Kirkpatrick co-directs the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center and is International Security Fellow at New America. He has received various honors and awards and is an official "Mad Scientist" for the U.S. Army. Kirkpatrick's research focuses on responsible, reliable, and assured AI.

Presenting: AI Literacy at George Mason

David Lattanzi, PhD, PE, FSEI

Professor, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering, College of Engineering and Computing

David Lattanzi, Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing at George Mason University, is a licensed bridge engineer who puts his professional experience to work in the development of the next generation of infrastructure inspection technologies. Responding to the crisis of our nation's aging infrastructure, Lattanzi's group focuses on a multidisciplinary combination of data analytics, robotics, artificial intelligence, and structural engineering to help civil engineers make safer and more reliable life-cycle assessments. Some of his current initiatives include the use of digital image analysis for rapid post-disaster assessments and how to combine autonomous robotic inspection with ultra-high resolution 3D imaging to create virtual worlds for inspectors.

Presenting: George Mason AI Research Showcase

Yikuan Li

Assistant Professor, Department of Health Administration and Policy, College of Public Health

Yikuan Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy of the College of Public Health at George Mason University. He earned his PhD in health and biomedical informatics from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, where his thesis research on heart failure prediction was supported by the American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship. His research interests include leveraging multimodal machine learning to build clinical predictive models, applying large language models to advance health interoperability, and using reinforcement learning to optimize health policy and decision-making.

Presenting: George Mason AI Research Showcase

Elizabeth Phillips

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Elizabeth "Beth" Phillips is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology in the Human Factors and Applied Cognition Group of the College of Humanities and Social Science at George Mason University. Phillips is the director of the Applied Psychology and Autonomous Systems (ALPHAS) Lab and the co-director of the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Lab. Her expertise is in human interactions with robots, autonomous systems, and related technologies like augmented and virtual reality. She studies how we can design these systems to be better partners and teammates for people in the near future.

Presenting: George Mason AI Research Showcase

Katherine Scafide, PhD, RN, FAAN

Associate Professor, School of Nursing, College of Public Health

Katherine Scafide, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAAFS, is a tenured Associate Professor in the School of Nursing within the College of Public Health at George Mason University. She is an internationally recognized nurse scientist whose work integrates forensic science, health equity, digital health, and artificial intelligence to improve the detection and documentation of injuries, particularly among populations historically underserved by clinical and forensic systems. Scafide is a Principal Investigator and co-Director of the Injury Analytics Lab, an interdisciplinary research environment spanning nursing, engineering, computer science, biostatistics, forensic science, and public health.

Presenting: George Mason AI Research Showcase

Padmanabhan (Padhu) Seshaiyer

Professor of Mathematical Sciences and Director of Center for Outreach in Mathematics Professional Learning & Educational Technology (COMPLETE), College of Science

Padmanabhan (Padhu) Seshaiyer has served in multiple leadership positions at George Mason University, including the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Director of the STEM Accelerator Program and Director of the Center for Outreach in Mathematics Professional Learning and Educational Technology. His scholarly work spans computational mathematics, scientific computing, data science, machine learning, AI, STEM education, and design thinking, with a focus on modeling, analysis, and simulation of real-world problems. During the last decade, he initiated and directed a variety of research, educational and outreach programs including faculty development, post-graduate, graduate and undergraduate research, K-12 outreach, teacher professional development, and enrichment programs, to foster the interest of students and teachers in Mathematics education at all levels. He currently serves as a gubernatorial appointee to the Virginia STEM Advisory Board, which he chairs, as well as the Virginia Workforce Development Board. He has served as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation and also co-chaired the first AI for Education Conference in 2025 at George Mason. He helped to lead the VDoE higher education taskforce for Data Science Standards, Curriculum and Implementation for Virginia and was an author on the 2024 NCTM Position Statement on Teaching Data Science in High School.

Presenting: AI Literacy at George Mason

Amarda Shehu

Vice President and Chief AI Officer, George Mason University

Amarda Shehu is the inaugural Vice President and Chief AI Officer at George Mason University, where she leads institution-wide AI strategy spanning research, education, workforce development, and external partnerships. She is the architect of George Mason's AI education and literacy pipeline, including the university's MS in AI and the general-education "AI for All" course, and she chairs the university's AI-in-Government Council, convening academia, industry, and public agencies to advance responsible, mission-driven AI. Her national service includes work as an NSF Program Director in the CISE Directorate (2019-2022), where she helped shape AI, data science, biotechnology, and innovation agendas across academia, government, and industry.

J.P. Singh

Distinguished University Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government

J.P. Singh is Distinguished University Professor at George Mason University, where he is also Director of Center for AI Innovation and Economic Competitiveness Council. He is Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow with the Robert Bosch Academy, Berlin, and member of the Loomis Innovation Council at the Stimson Center, Washington, D.C. He works at the intersection of political economy, technology, and culture, and most of his 10 books and over 110 scholarly articles have addressed these issues. Recent publications on global AI governance have appeared in journals such as International Affairs, International Studies Quarterly, and AI and Ethics. He is the Co-Editor of the journal Global Perspectives and Editor of Stanford's book series "Emerging Frontiers of the Global Economy."

Presenting: George Mason AI Research Showcase

Vadim Sokolov

Associate Professor, Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research, College of Engineering and Computing

Vadim Sokolov works on building robust solutions for large-scale complex systems analysis, at the interface of simulation-based modeling and statistics. This involves developing new methodologies that rely on agent-based modeling, Bayesian analysis of time series data, design of computational experiments, and development of open-source software that implements those methodologies. Inspired by an interest in urban systems, he co-developed a mobility simulator called "Polaris" which is currently used for large-scale transportation network analysis by both local and federal governments.

Presenting: AI Literacy at George Mason

Janusz Wojtusiak, PhD

Professor of Health Informatics and Director, Machine Learning and Inference Laboratory, College of Public Health

Janusz Wojtusiak, Professor of Health Informatics and Director of the Machine Learning and Inference Laboratory in the College of Public Health at George Mason University, has expertise that spans machine learning, health informatics, artificial intelligence in clinical decision support and knowledge discovery in medical data, and a wide range of applications of these fields in health care. His particular area of interest is in developing algorithms that derive simple, transparent and usable models from complex health data to predict patient and population outcomes. He studies how to create and evaluate reproducible, unbiased, and trustworthy algorithms and models.

Presenting: George Mason AI Research Showcase and AI Literacy at George Mason

Xuesu Xiao

Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering and Computing

Xuesu Xiao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science of the College of Engineering and Computing at George Mason University. Xiao (Prof. XX) directs the RobotiXX lab, in which researchers (XX-Men and XX-Women) and robots (XX-Bots) work together at the intersection of motion planning and machine learning with a specific focus on developing highly capable and intelligent mobile robots that are robustly deployable in the real world with minimal human supervision. Xiao's work has been deployed in real-world robot field missions, including search and rescue effort in the Mexico City earthquake and the Greece refugee crisis, decommissioning effort in the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and multiple search and rescue exercises in the US.

Presenting: George Mason AI Research Showcase

Chaowei (Phil) Yang

Professor of Geographic Information Science, College of Science

Chaowei Phil Yang is a Professor of Geographic Information Science (GIS) in the College of Science at George Mason University. His research focuses on utilizing spatiotemporal principles to optimize computing infrastructure to support science discoveries and engineering development. He is the founder and directs the George Mason CISC and the NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation Center to build the spatiotemporal infrastructure for advancing human intelligence through spatiotemporal thinking, computer software and tools through spatiotemporal computing, and the human capability of responding to deep scientific questions and grand engineering challenges through spatiotemporal applications. A pioneer in GIS research, Yang has advanced the discipline from a computing perspective, introducing key concepts such as geospatial cyberinfrastructure, spatial cloud computing, spatiotemporal computing, and most recently, geospatial digital twins.

Presenting: George Mason AI Research Showcase

Pat Yongpradit

General Manager of Global Education and Workforce Policy, Microsoft

Pat Yongpradit is Microsoft General Manager of Global Education and Workforce Policy and has over a decade of experience across computer science education, workforce development, and national policy as previous Chief Academic Officer of Code.org.

Presenting: AI Literacy at George Mason