Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Amy Huebschmann, MD, MSc, received her BS in environmental engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, her MD from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and a master's in clinical sciences from the University of Colorado. Dr. Huebschmann leads multiple NIH-funded projects as a Principal Investigator, is the Lead Scientist for Community Education and Outreach for the Ludeman Family Center for Women's Health Research at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and holds several research leadership positions. These include serving as the Director of the ACCORDS Primary Care Research Fellowship and the Director for the National Resource Core for the Center for American Indian and Alaska Native Diabetes Translation Research. Her interest in women’s health is motivated by a passion for health equity and the potential for tailoring interventions to individual needs and the context of health systems and communities, which she explores by embracing community-engaged implementation science methods.
Course Director of Creative Writing, Leeds Beckett University Alison Taft is a crime writer and the author of The Disappeared and The Runaway which are published under her pen name Ali Harper. She is Course Director for English and Creative Writing at Leeds Beckett University with a particular interest in the domestic thriller. Alison is the author of five published novels and is currently working on her sixth. Her interests include voice, tone and sexuality, particularly within the crime and noir genres. She has taught creative writing in numerous settings, including prisons, schools, and universities.
Professor in physiological sciences, Stellenbosch University Anna-Mart Engelbrecht is currently professor in the Department of Physiological Sciences at Stellenbosch University. She completed a BSc (Hons) in Physiology at Stellenbosch University, a MMedSc at the University of the Free State and received her PhD in 2005 at Stellenbosch University. She received several prestigious awards which include the Dean's and Senate's Medals as well as the Gencor Bronze Medal from the University of the Free State, the Marie Curie Scholarship of the European Union, the Rector's award for Excellence in Research and the Vice-Rector's Research Award for exceptional achievement from Stellenbosch University as well as the Lasec Award for Excellence in Physiology Research from the Physiological Society of Southern Africa (PSSA). Twenty one MSc and 18 PhD students completed the degrees under her supervision. She has published more than 96 peer reviewed, research articles and presented invited lectures at national and international conferences. She established the Cancer Research Group (CRG) where they investigate chemo-resistance and mechanisms to counteract chemotherapy-induced damage to the heart and skeletal muscle; markers for the early detection of cancer, as well as metabolic pathways in the cancer micro-environment.
Senior Lecturer in Music and Sound, University of Greenwich Amit Dinesh Patel, aka Dushume, is an experimental noise and sound artist, influenced by Asian underground music and DJ culture. His work focuses on performing and improvising with purpose built do-it-yourself instruments, and recording these instruments incorporating looping, re-mixing and re-editing techniques. Lack and loss of control are central to his work. He has a PhD in Music, “Studio Bench: the DIY nomad and Noise Selector” (2019), from the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. He is a Senior Lecturer in Music and Sound and an active member of the Sound/Image Research Centre at the University of Greenwich, London, and Principal Investigator for the AHRC Research Grant "Exploring Cultural Diversity in Experimental Sound" (2021-23).
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology Aniruddh Sarkar is an Assistant Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University where he leads the Micro/Nano Bioelectronics Lab. He was earlier a Research Fellow at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard with research affiliations at Harvard Medical School and at MIT. His research has evolved around the theme of exploiting unique physical phenomena that occur at the micrometer to nanometer length scales to develop devices and systems for solving various technological problems with a special focus on applications in biology and medicine. His earlier work, with Prof. Galit Alter (MGH/HMS) and Prof. Jongyoon Han (MIT), involved the development and application of microfabricated and nanofabricated devices to further the prevention, diagnosis and therapy of infectious diseases such as Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. He received his Ph.D in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Biology at MIT, developing microfluidic tools for single-cell analysis. He received his bachelors and masters degrees, both in Electrical Engineering at IIT Bombay.
