Transforming our health with AI

A multiple Radio Television Digital News Association (RTNDA) award winner, Stephen Quinn has covered a multitude of stories that affects British Columbians. Currently, he is the host of CBC Radio One’s popular morning show The Early Edition. Previously, he was the long-time host of afternoon radio show On The Coast, and he spent eight years as CBC’s civic affairs reporter. He has guest-hosted several CBC shows, news specials, and a series on the media for network radio, and he is also the creator and host of the very popular Quinn’s Quiz on CBC Radio One.

Ash Anwar is dedicated to making a meaningful impact in the intersection of health, data, and AI. After his undergraduate SFU degree in molecular biology and biochemistry, he pursued a graduate degree in experimental medicine from UBC, complemented by a research fellowship in Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. He has co-founded several startups in the health and data industry, and authored business books on managing distributed virtual/hybrid teams and learning venture capital. With an MBA from UBC’s Sauder School of Business, he currently serves as the Senior Director of Data Science & AI at Molecular You. He has also authored key publications and patents for Molecular You.

Dr. Cristina Conati’s research is at the convergence of AI, human-computer interaction (HCI), and cognitive science, with the goal to support effective human-AI collaboration. A key aspect is enabling AI systems to capture relevant properties of their users (e.g., states, needs, emotions) and personalize interaction to maximize both task performance and user satisfaction. Dr. Conati is especially interested in investigating how AI technology can balance accurate predictions with decision-making while maintaining transparency and user control. Dr Conati is a Fellow of Association for the Advancement of AI (AAAI) and received the 2022 UBC Killam Research Prize for research achievements.

Janice Eng is a University Killam Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Neurological Rehabilitation at UBC. She currently co-directs the Centre for Aging SMART at Vancouver Coastal Health, which is dedicated to finding solutions to improve mobility, activity, rehabilitation, and health care technology. Accolades she has received include Fellow status from the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the Jonas Salk Award for lifelong contributions to alleviate physical disability, and honorary doctorates from McMaster and Laval universities. She developed the GRASP Program for improving arm and hand function and the FAME Program for improving fitness and mobility after stroke — these programs now operate in 50 countries.

Dr. John-Jose Nunez is a clinical research fellow and psychiatrist at UBC Mood Disorders and BC Cancer. His research interests are in applying computational techniques such as artificial intelligence to help patients with mental illness and cancer. At UBC, he completed his Bachelor of Science in Pharmacology and Mathematics before attending medical school. He then completed his Master’s degree with UBC Computer Science during residency, focusing on applying natural language processing to cancer documents. His recent research includes using machine learning to predict whether patients with depression will improve from antidepressants, and using AI to predict the survival and mental health needs of cancer patients.