Featured Speakers
Please check back as more speakers are confirmed!
Keynote Speakers
Noor Aftab
Amazon Web Services
Noor Aftab is a triple-award-winning AI technologist, data scientist, and global technology leader with more than 16 years of experience across AI, data, cloud, finance, and enterprise transformation. For the last four years, she has led global cloud, data, and AI programs at Amazon Web Services.
Aftab serves as chair of the NumFOCUS Board of Directors, helping steward more than 60 open-source projects that power modern data science and AI, and is an IBM Champion and leader of the IBM Women in AI user group. She leads Skilium AI, a platform helping professionals master AI through practical skills and applied learning.
Aftab also created She Ships AI to help women move from learning AI to building, shipping, and gaining visibility for real AI work. She has delivered more than 100 talks and programs; trained more than 1,000 professionals; spoken across PyData, SciPy, IEEE, IBM TechXchange, TEDx, and global technology forums; and served as a NASA Space Apps Navigator. BBC, Hindustan Times, and Martha’s Vineyard Times have covered her work and leadership.
Robert B. Gramacy
Virginia Tech
Robert B. Gramacy is a professor of statistics and head of the department of statistics in the college of science at Virginia Polytechnic and State University, where he also serves as affiliate faculty in the computational modeling and data analytics program and core faculty in the Center for Ecosystem Forecasting. His research interests include Bayesian modeling methodology, statistical computing, Monte Carlo inference, nonparametric regression, surrogate modeling, uncertainty quantification, sequential design, and optimization under uncertainty.