Dr. JuDea Pearl
Dr. Judea Pearl is an Israeli-American computer scientist and winner of the 2011 A.M. Turing Award, the highest honor in computer science, for his “fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence.”
Pearl received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa in 1960 and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Newark College of Engineering (now part of the New Jersey Institute of Technology) in 1961. He then received a master’s in physics from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in New York (now the Polytechnic Institute of New York University) in 1965. From 1961 to 1969 he worked at RCA Research Laboratories in Princeton, NJ, on superconductive memories and in Electronic Memories, Hawthorn CA on advanced magnetic memories. Pearl joined the faculty of UCLA in 1970, where he is now a Chancellor professor of computer science and statistics and director of the UCLA Cognitive System Laboratory, conducting research in artificial intelligence, human cognition and philosophy of science. Pearl is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the Cognitive Science Society and a founding fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. With his late wife Ruth, Pearl co-edited the book "I am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl," winner of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award for Anthologies, which provides a panoramic view of how Jews define themselves in the post 9/11 era. Dr. Pearl lectures and writes frequently on Jewish identity, the Arab-Israeli Conflict, history of Zionism and Israel on Campus. 
Dr. Jonathan Vangeest
Jonathan VanGeest is Professor of Health Policy and Management in the College of Public Health at Kent State University, where he teaches courses in public health administration, health policy, health care systems, and survey research methods.
Prior to coming to Kent State, Dr. VanGeest served as Associate Professor and Department Chair in the School of Community Health and Policy at Morgan State University, where he also directed the University’s Center for Health Informatics, Planning and Policy. He has also worked as a Senior Scientist and Program Director in Science, Quality and Public Health at the American Medical Association (AMA) and as a Scientist in the AMA’s Institute for Ethics, an academic research and training center uniquely situated within the nation’s largest medical professional association. Dr. VanGeest's research focuses on racial and ethnic disparities in health care, limited health literacy, and care outcomes associated with structural changes in medicine. He also has extensive experience in survey research methodology and program evaluation. Dr. VanGeest has published in leading health and policy journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, Health Affairs, Medical Care, and Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (now JAMA Pediatrics), and co-edited one of the first textbooks on limited health literacy. He is an Associate Editor for BMC Medical Research Methodology and Evaluation and the Health Professions. A guest-edited special issue of Evaluation and the Health Professions (with Dr. Timothy Johnson, University of Illinois at Chicago) on surveying clinicians was published in September 2013. Dr. VanGeest has served on numerous state and national committees, including the Institute of Medicine’s Liaison Panel on Assuring the Health of the Public in the 21st Century and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Panel to Evaluate U.S. Standard Certificates and Reports. He also served as a Section Councilor for the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association (2012-2015). |
Dr. MIRIAM F. ELMAN
Dr. Miriam F. Elman has served as Executive Director of the educational nonprofit, Academic Engagement Network since 2019. From 2009-2022 she was an Associate Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University, where she held the title of Robert D. McClure Professor of Teaching Excellence at the Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs.
An award-winning scholar and teacher, Elman has edited and co-edited six books and a number of special issues for academic journals, including Israel Studies. She is the author of over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on topics related to contemporary antisemitism, academic freedom and campus free expression, peace and conflict resolution, religion and politics in Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Elman received her BA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. She has held pre- and post-doctoral fellowships at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School and was a tenured member of the faculty at Arizona State University before moving to Syracuse in 2009. Elman has delivered hundreds of guest lectures in her areas of expertise and has been frequently featured in Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, The New York Times, The Times of Israel, Washington Post, Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Legal Insurrection, JNS, Jewish Journal, JWeekly and The Forward, among other media outlets. In recognition of her work, in 2018 The Algemeiner listed her among the top 100 people worldwide who are positively influencing Jewish life. 
Dr. Evan Morris
Dr. Evan Morris specializes in using kinetic modeling and image processing to extract physiological information from dynamic PET images. His current projects include:
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OREN GROSS
Professor Oren Gross is Minnesota Law’s Associate Dean of Academic Affairs.
Gross, the Irving Younger Professor of Law, is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of international law and national security law. He is also an expert on the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Professor Gross holds an LL.B. degree magna cum laude from Tel Aviv University (graduating 1st in his class) where he served on the editorial board of the Tel Aviv University Law Review. He obtained LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees from Harvard Law School while a Fulbright Scholar. Professor Gross was a member of the faculty of the Tel Aviv University Law School in Israel from 1996 to 2002. He has taught and held visiting positions at Harvard Law School (where he held the position of Nomura Visiting Professor of International Financial Systems in 2012-13); Princeton University; Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; the Max Planck Institute for International Law and Comparative Public Law in Heidelberg, Germany; the Transitional Justice Institute in Belfast (while a British Academy visiting professor); Queen's University in Belfast; the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain); and Brandeis University. Professor Gross has received numerous academic awards and scholarships, including a Fulbright scholarship and British Academy and British Council awards. Between 1986 and 1991, Professor Gross served as a senior legal advisory officer in the international law branch of the Israeli Defense Forces' Judge Advocate General's Corps. In 1998, he served as the legal adviser to an Israeli delegation that negotiated an agreement with the Palestinian Authority's senior officials concerning the economic component of a permanent status agreement between Israel and Palestine. Professor Gross's work has been published extensively. His articles appeared in leading academic journals such as the Yale Law Journal, Yale Journal of International Law, Michigan Journal of International Law, Texas International Law Journal, Minnesota Law Review, Florida Law Review, Cornell Law Review and others. His book, Law in Times of Crisis: Emergency Powers in Theory and Practice, co-authored with Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2006 and was awarded the prestigious Certificate of Merit for Preeminent Contribution to Creative Scholarship by the American Society of International Law in 2007. He also co-edited, with Professor Ní Aoláin, the volume, Guantanamo and Beyond: Exceptional Courts and Military Commissions in Comparative Perspective, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. Professor Gross joined the University of Minnesota in 2002 and was appointed the Vance K. Opperman Research Scholar in 2003 and the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law in 2004. In 2004 he was also the recipient of the John K. & Elsie Lampert Fesler Research Grant. He was appointed as the Irving Younger Professor of Law in 2005. In 2017, Professor Gross was awarded the Stanley V. Kinyon Tenured Faculty of the Year Award, University of Minnesota Law School. Professor Gross practiced law at Sullivan and Cromwell in New York in 1995-1996 and is a member of both the New York and Israeli bars. In 2008 he joined the American Law Institute as an elected member. Miriam is currently on leave from her appointment as Associate Professor of Political Science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where she was appointed the Robert D. McClure Professor of Teaching Excellence. She is also the Research Director in the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC). She is the editor and co-editor of six books and the author of over 65 journal articles, book chapters, and government reports on topics related to international and national security, religion and politics, the Middle East, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. |