President/Founder

Visionist, Inc.

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TOPIC:  Paths to Success

This year’s KEYNOTE speaker is Mr. Christopher Berry, President and founder of Visionist, Inc., a Howard County based firm providing custom software solutions and data analysis services to the United States Intelligence Community.

Mr. Berry holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Bucknell University, and a Masters in Engineering Management from George Washington University. He spent the first nine years of his career working at the National Security Agency as a software developer, systems engineer and project manager.  Under his leadership, Visionist has become known as a leader in user interface design, signals analysis, and data analytics. His defense industry experience, relationships, and knowledge quickly grew Visionist into a recognized name in the defense industry and he’s known to play a significant role in key partnership development, performance motivation and mentor for startups.   Watch Video 

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Senior Software Engineer

Visionist, Inc.

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Topic:  Being an Innovator - watch video

Daniel Johnson graduated from Drexel University in 2009 with a BS in Computer Science.  He lives with his wife, Ashley, in Baltimore city. His love of software development is rivaled only by his love of cooking.

Topic:

In my experience, people who cultivate a diversity of experience tend to be the most successful in the STEM fields.  The best way to obtain a diversity of experience is to be curious. In this talk, Dan Johnson recounts his story and experiences in the field of Software Engineering, from his internships in college through his career today.  Along the way, he will outline lessons learned, best practices, and advice that he came across along the way that he hopes will be valuable regardless of the career that you choose (though he hopes it will be in the STEM world!)

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Professor

University of Maryland Baltimore County

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Topic:  Follow the paths that open to you: Finding your career in a STEM Field

Jeff Leips is a professor in the department of biological sciences at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He completed his PhD at Florida State University working in the field of evolutionary ecology. He did post doctoral research in the field of quantitative genetics working in the laboratory of Dr. Trudy Mackay. Research in his lab is primarily focused on understanding genetic basis of natural variation in aging.

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Ever wonder why we age? Why, as we get older, we get slower, weaker and it seems to take longer to recover from sickness or injury?  Dr. Leips' research focuses on this question, specifically trying to identify genes and environmental conditions that interact to influence rates of senescence.

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Professor

Bowie State University

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Topic:  The basics of qubit, quantum gates, and quantum circuits

Dr. Chaobin Liu, is a professor of mathematics at Bowie State University (BSU). He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Temple University in 2005. During his work at BSU, he teaches all levels of courses from undergraduate math to graduate math. His research interests include probability theory and mathematical statistics, mathematical physics and quantum computation.

Chief of Vascular Surgery, 

University of Maryland Medical Center 

Professor of Surgery/Head of the Division of Vascular Surgery

University of Maryland School of Medicine

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Rajabrata Sarkar, MD, PhD, an expert in treating blood vessel disorders and a nationally known researcher in blood vessel growth and development, joined the University of Maryland School of Medicine as professor of surgery and Head of the Division of Vascular Surgery in 2009. He also became Chief of Vascular Surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Dr. Sarkar came from the University of California, San Francisco, where he was an associate professor of surgery and a vascular surgeon since 1999. He received his medical degree and a PhD in physiology from the University of Michigan Medical School. He completed his surgical training at UCLA and was trained in vascular surgery at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Sarkar was named a "Top Doctor" in the specialty of Vascular Surgery by Baltimore magazine in 2016.

Why he loves being a vascular surgeon - watch video 

Chief, Major Investigations

National Transportation Safety Board Office of Aviation Safety

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Topic:  Keeping the skies safe: Learning from disasters

Joseph Sedor, in his role as Chief of Major Investigations, has overseen over 100 high-profile air carrier accident investigations during his tenure with the NTSB.  The NTSB Major Investigations division is comprised of four investigators who act as Investigator in Charge (IIC) for all domestic air carrier accident/incident investigations, such as Asiana flight 214, or as U.S. Accredited Representatives (Acc Rep) in accordance with ICAO Annex 13 for foreign air carrier investigations, such as Malaysian Airlines flight 370 and both 737 MAX investigations.  The division is also responsible for leading investigations into any FAA licensed commercial space launch/reentry accidents such as the SpaceShip2 accident. Mr. Sedor began his career with the Safety Board in 1998 and was a senior IIC/Acc Rep from 2001 to 2012.

Prior to joining the Safety Board, Mr. Sedor was a flight test engineer/pilot with the Cessna Aircraft Company where he worked primarily on the development and certification of the Citation X business jet.  Mr. Sedor has a BSE in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MS from the University of Tennessee.

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Associate Professor Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Dr. Ramana received her BS in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University and continued on to receive her M.D. from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.  

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Her research focuses on understanding how the epithelial cells lining the lung interact with infectious and non-infectious exposures carried in the airstream. Since the lung epithelium is the initial site of contact, it is responsible for coordinating a defense response against these insults. As such, she has looked at epithelial responses to bacteria, viruses, cigarette smoke and particular matter. As a member of ATS and FASEB, she has presented her work in several national and international conferences, and has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.

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Alongside her clinical and research work, Ramana is also the Associate Director of the Physician-Scientist Pathway at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Osler Residency Program, focused on the research career of residents.

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Adjunct Professor of Medicine, Institute of Human Virology

University of Maryland Baltimore School of Medicine

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TOPIC:  Boundary-Spanning and Frontier Fields: Examples of Behavioral Medicine, Biobehavioral Health, and Biopsychosocial Research

Lydia Temoshok, Ph.D. is internationally respected for her research, writing, and theoretical contributions to the multidisciplinary fields of Behavioral Medicine, Biobehavioral Health, Clinical Health Psychology, and Psychoneuroimmunology.  She has authored or edited 12 books, including The Type C Connection: The Behavioral Links to Cancer and Your Health (Random House), and Emotions in Health and Illness (Academic Press), in addition to over 190 journal articles and book chapters. 

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She graduated summa cum laude from Yale and received her MA and Ph.D. in both Clinical Psychology and Social Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  As an Assistant Professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, she founded and directed a multidisciplinary group of scientists to study the newly recognized phenomenon which would later be called AIDS, and published the first biobehavioral research in this field.  Dr. Temoshok worked with the World Health Organization’s Vaccine Unit on behavioral aspects of international HIV vaccine trials, as well as with the United Nations Program on AIDS on cognitive and neuropsychological impairment in early HIV infection.

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At the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine she developed and directed a Behavioral Medicine clinical research program, integrated with the Institute’s HIV primary care clinics, which serves a predominantly African-American and disadvantaged population. She directed research on biopsychosocial mediators of HIV progression, funded by the National Institutes of Health, and on adherence to HIV treatment and prevention of HIV transmission risk behaviors. 

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Currently, Dr. Temoshok is conducting research for a book which is tentatively entitled, Deception: Doing it, Detecting it, and Dealing with it.