Executive Director, Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education, Oklahoma State University Jamey Jacob is the Executive Director of the OSU Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education (OAIRE) and the Williams Chair in Energy Technology and Regents Professor of Aerospace Engineering in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Oklahoma State University. His current efforts are focused on advanced air mobility and their enhanced operation in the national airspace for broader innovative applications. He is currently lead on the NASA University Leadership Initiative program WINDMAP to develop aviation weather solutions for advanced aerial mobility applications, including drones and urban air taxis, and is the director for the Counter-UAS Center of Excellence focused on assessing and mitigating UAS threats both at home and abroad. As part of recent EDA funding through the Build Back Better program, he is leading the development of the LaunchPad Center for Advanced Air Mobility in Tulsa. He received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 1990 and his M.S and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992 and 1995, respectively. He was a National Research Council Summer Faculty Fellow in the Air Force Research Laboratory and received the SAE Ralph Teetor Award, the Lockheed Martin Teaching Award, and the OSU Regents Distinguished Teaching and Research Awards, among other mentoring accolades. He is a native Oklahoman and dedicates much of his efforts to STEM workforce development, tribal engagement, and increasing diversity in engineering and science.
Research Professor, Michigan Transportation Research Institute, University of Michigan Research Interests Dr. Hu is Associate Director of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. His research interests primarily focus on impact/injury biomechanics in motor-vehicle crashes by a multidisciplinary approach using a combination of experimental, computational, and epidemiological procedures. He is also interested in human modeling for other applications, including pediatric head injuries in falls and child abuse cases, computer-aided surgery, and seating comfort. One of the highlights of his recent research is the development of parametric computational human models representing a diverse population. Such models have been used to study the injury mechanism and safety design optimizations for various vulnerable populations, such as children, elderly, obese occupants, pedestrians, pregnant women, and wheelchair users. Dr. Hu is an author of 140+ peer-reviewed journal and conference papers. His research has been funded by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Department of Defense (DoD), and Auto Industry (Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, ZF TRW, Autoliv, Britax, JCI, etc.).
Doctoral Researcher at the School of Area Studies, History, Politics, and Literature, University of Portsmouth John is a doctoral researcher at the School of Area Studies, History, Politics, and Literature, University of Portsmouth in the UK. He earned a Master of Arts in Global Development from the University of Leeds in the UK. He also received another Master of Science in Urban Management and Development, focusing on Environment, Sustainability, and Climate Change from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He received his Bachelor of Science in Local Government Studies from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. An interdisciplinary approach to his research is deeply rooted in international development, international security, politics, conflict, and environmental governance. A comprehensive integration of these fields explores non-state armed groups, violent extremism, terrorism, governance, political violence, inter- and intra-state conflicts, natural resource conflicts, and peacebuilding. His works have appeared in several reputable publishing outlets, including Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, and Springer Nature.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, MacEwan University Dr. Liu’s research examines Africa-China engagements through the everyday lives of Nigerian and Chinese traders in China. Her current book project traces how global south migrants use trade with China to fight for long-term success in the face of western financial hegemonies, post-colonial development histories and global racial hierarchies. Dr. Liu’s research continues to interrogate Africa-China relations, with expanding interest to include the political economy of new forms of money in Nigeria and the education migration of Nigerian youths to global south destinations, such as China and Northern Cyprus, and global north destinations, such as Canada and Germany.
Associate Professor of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences, The Ohio State University I am an associate professor of meteorology and atmospheric sciences at The Ohio State University. I have an extensive background in severe thunderstorm and tornado chasing and research. My primary area of expertise is investigating the structure, evolution, and behavior of tornadoes and the storms that produce them through the use of rapid-scan mobile radar observations. I am particularly interested in investigating the time-height evolution of rotation before and during tornado formation, as well as the sources for the rotation that feeds tornadoes. Additionally, I study how the physical land characteristics (terrain and land cover) can impact tornado formation, intensity, path, and dissipation. I have a BS from Penn State (2004), where I majored in Meteorology, and both an MS (2008) and PhD (2013) from The University of Oklahoma, where I studied under the mentorship of Dr. Howard Bluestein, one of the world's more renowned severe weather researchers. I have been chasing tornadoes since 2004, and have been engaged in academic research equally as long. I have been funded by the National Science Foundation and am active in the severe local storms community of the American Meteorological Society, both as an academic participant and by serving as a Scientific and Technological Activities Commission chair person. I teach classes in severe weather, forecasting, synoptic meteorology, and radar meteorology and techniques.
Research Fellow in Youth Mental Health, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney I'm a National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Research Fellow at the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre. I lead a program of research funded by the NHMRC and Wellcome Trust that combines biologic, clinical, wearable, and subjective measures to shed light on the causes of mental disorders in young people (particularly depression and bipolar disorder), and to better understand the factors that shape people's clinical trajectories (particularly during early phases). My major interest is in the potential role that dysregulation of the brain and body's circadian clocks might play in the emergence of depressive and bipolar disorders. The objective of this work is to integrate measures of brain, body, and environment to understand what the circadian system can teach us about mood disorders, and to potentially uncover new targets for treatments.
