Lecturer on Law, Senior Clinical Instructor at Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard University Bonnie Docherty is a Lecturer on Law and Senior Clinical Instructor at the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School. She is also a Senior Researcher in the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch. She is an expert on disarmament and international humanitarian law, particularly involving civilian protection during armed conflict. In recent years, she has authored several seminal reports in support of civil society’s campaign to ban fully autonomous weapons, also known as “killer robots.” Since 2001, she has played an active role, as both lawyer and field researcher, in the campaign against cluster munitions. Docherty participated in negotiations for the Convention on Cluster Munitions and has promoted strong implementation of the convention since its adoption in 2008. Her in-depth field investigations of cluster munition use in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Georgia helped galvanize international opposition to the weapons. Docherty has documented the broader effects of armed conflict on civilians in several other countries and also done research and advocacy related to incendiary weapons. Docherty received her A.B. from Harvard University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Dean and Professor of Nursing, The Ohio State University Dean, Associate Vice President for Health Promotion, Chief Wellness Officer melnyk.15@osu.edu 120 Newton Hall 1585 Neil Avenue Columbus, OH 43210 Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk serves as Associate Vice President for Health Promotion, University Chief Wellness Officer, and Professor and Dean of the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University. She also is a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Ohio State’s College of Medicine. Dr. Melnyk’s groundbreaking work spans evidence-based practice, intervention research, child and adolescent mental health, and health and wellness. In 2013, Dr. Melnyk became one of the few women and nurses elected to the Institute of Medicine – a division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine whose members counsel government and private sector leaders to help them make informed health decisions. Election to the IOM is among the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. Appointed by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials, Dr. Melnyk also served a four-year term on the 16-member United States Preventive Services Task Force. That independent group of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine works to improve the health of all Americans by making evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services such as screenings, counseling services, or preventive medications. She founded the National Interprofessional Education and Practice Collaborative to advance the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Million Hearts® initiative and its goal of preventing one million heart attacks and strokes by 2017. Dr. Melnyk also founded the National Consortium for Building Healthy Academic Communities, a collaborative organization to improve population health in the nation’s institutions of higher learning. Since arriving at Ohio State in 2011, Dr. Melnyk has overseen significant steps toward establishing the nursing program there among the nation’s elite. In 2015, OSU’s master’s program in nursing was named among the nation’s top 25 by U.S. News and World Report – putting it among the top five percent of nursing programs nationwide – and the College of Nursing was designated by USN&WR as one America’s top 10 for both master’s and undergraduate online education. Also in 2015, the OSU College of Nursing received a $1 million gift from FloAnn and John Easton to establish an endowed professorship for child and adolescent health – an important step toward improving health outcomes for a key at-risk population. Dr. Melnyk has secured more than $19 million in sponsored funding from federal agencies as principal investigator and her findings have appeared in more than 280 publications. In 2002, she received the Jessie Scott Award from the American Nurses Association, recognizing her work to improve health care quality through the integration of research, education and practice. And Dr. Melnyk has been named one of the most 30 influential nursing deans by The Mometrix Blog, which based its selections on data including awards, Top 10 rankings, NIH funding, and NCLEX passing percentage. Dr. Melnyk is co-editor of four books, including Evidence-based Practice in Nursing & Healthcare: A Guide to Best Practice, Implementing EBP: Real World Success Stories, A Practical Guide to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Screening, Early Intervention, and Health Promotion (2nd Ed), and Intervention Research: Designing, Conducting, Analyzing and Funding, an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award winner. Dr. Melnyk earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from West Virginia University, her Master of Science degree with a specialization in nursing care of children and pediatric nurse practitioner from the University of Pittsburgh, and her PhD in clinical research from the University of Rochester – where she also completed her post-master’s certificate as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. She is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing, the National Academies of Practice and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
Director, Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology Professor Beth Webster is the Director of the Centre for Transformative Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology. Her area of study is the economics of how knowledge is created and diffuses through the economy. On these topics alone she has authored over 100 articles in outlets such as RAND Journal of Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Oxford Economic Papers, Journal of Law & Economics and Cambridge Journal of Economics. She has been appointed to a number of committees including the Lomax-Smith Base funding Review; CEDA Advisory Council; the Bracks Automotive review; the Advisory Council for Intellectual Property; the European Policy for Intellectual Property Association; the Economic Society of Victoria and the Asia Pacific Innovation Conference. She is also holds honorary research positions at the Universities of Melbourne, Oxford and Tasmania. She has a PhD (economics) from the University of Cambridge and economics degrees from Monash University.
Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan Benjamin Kuipers joined the University of Michigan in January 2009 as Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. Prior to that, he held an endowed Professorship in Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College, and his Ph.D. from MIT. He investigates the representation of commonsense and expert knowledge, with particular emphasis on the effective use of incomplete knowledge. His research accomplishments include developing the TOUR model of spatial knowledge in the cognitive map, the QSIM algorithm for qualitative simulation, the Algernon system for knowledge representation, and the Spatial Semantic Hierarchy model of knowledge for robot exploration and mapping. He has served as Department Chair at UT Austin, and is a Fellow of AAAI, IEEE, and AAAS.
Professor of Chinese Thought and History, Vassar College Bryan W. Van Norden is a leading expert on Chinese thought. In addition to being a prolific author and translator, he has been praised as one of the 300 best college or university professors in the US by the Princeton Review. Prof. Van Norden teaches at Vassar College, and has also lectured and held visiting positions at leading universities in China. He is available for presentations, articles, or consultations on Chinese history, philosophy, and current affairs, including but not limited to Confucianism, Daoism (Taoism), Buddhism, and their contemporary relevance.
