Plenary Session Speakers
Lai-Tze Fan, University of Waterloo
Lai-Tze Fan is the Canada Research Chair of Technology and Social Change, and an Associate Professor of Sociology & Legal Studies and English Literature at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She is Associate Professor II at the Center for Digital Narrative in the University of Bergen, Norway, and Director of The U&AI Lab at Waterloo, which uses interdisciplinary methods for responsible AI design. She is on the Board of Directors of Waterloo’s TRuST scholarly network, targeting misinformation and public trust in collaboration with Waterloo’s Dean of Engineering and Nobel Laureate Donna Strickland. Fan has also collaborated with researchers at NASA, Google, and MIT. She is a 2024 Delegate of the Science Meets Parliament program, through which she works with Canadian politicians and policy makers on AI regulation. Fan serves as an Editor of the open-access journals electronic book review and the digital review.
Michael King, Florida Tech
Dr. Michael King joined Florida Institute of Technology’s Harris Institute for Assured Information as a Research Scientist in 2015 and holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering and Sciences. Prior to joining academia, Dr King served for more than 10 years as a scientific research/program management professional in the United States Intelligence Community. While in government, Dr King created, directed, and managed research portfolios covering a broad range of topics related to biometrics and identity to include: advanced exploitation algorithm development, advanced sensors and acquisition systems, and computational imaging. He crafted and led the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity’s (IARPA) Biometric Exploitation Science and Technology (BEST) Program to transition technology deliverables successfully to several Government organizations.
Recognized as an expert in biometrics and identity intelligence, he has been invited to brief the Director of National Intelligence, Congressional staffers and science advisers, Defense Science Board, and Intelligence Science Board. He also served as Intelligence Community Department Lead to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s National Science and Technology Council Subcommittee on Biometrics and Identity Management (2005 – 2012). Dr King received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 2001 and has research interests in the areas of biometrics, cyber identity, and machine learning.
