Meet the Newest Minds Powering ODSC East 2025
Every year, ODSC East brings together some of the brightest minds in data science, AI, and machine learning. This year is no different — and we’re excited to welcome a new cohort of speakers whose work is not only cutting-edge but truly inspiring. From foundation models to ethical AI, these experts are shaping the future of the field. Here’s a look at just a few of the extraordinary individuals you’ll want to connect with in Boston this May.
Finale Doshi Velez, PhD, Professor at Harvard University
Finale Doshi-Velez is a Herchel Smith Professor in Computer Science at the Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She completed her MSc from the University of Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar, her PhD from MIT, and her postdoc at Harvard Medical School.
Chen Wang, PhD, Lead Alliance Solution Architect at AI21 Labs
Chen Wang is a seasoned technology professional currently serving as the Lead Alliance Solution Architect at AI21 Labs, focusing on advanced AI solutions and strategic partnerships. Prior to this, she held key positions at IBM and DataRobot.
Eric Xing, PhD, Professor | President at CMU | MBZUAI
Eric Xing is the President of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of AI and a professor at CMU. His work focuses on scalable machine learning systems and AI for automated reasoning and decision-making.
Freddy Boulton, Software Engineer at Hugging Face
Freddy is an open source engineer maintaining Gradio and FastRTC, helping developers build AI-powered web applications and real-time streaming tools in Python.
Christopher Amato, PhD, Associate Professor at Northeastern University
Christopher leads the Lab for Learning and Planning in Robotics and specializes in cooperative multi-agent systems, reinforcement learning, and robotics.
Michael Galarnyk, Learning Instructor | PhD Student at LinkedIn | Georgia Tech
Michael is a machine learning educator and PhD student at Georgia Tech researching ML for financial markets. He has taught Python and ML since 2015 through LinkedIn Learning, Stanford, and UCSD.
Manolis Kellis, PhD, Professor of Computer Science at MIT | Broad Institute
Manolis leads the MIT Computational Biology Group. His research blends AI with genomics to uncover disease mechanisms and drive personalized medicine.
Nadieh Bremer, Data Visualization Designer at Visual Cinnamon
An award-winning designer and co-author of Data Sketches, Nadieh crafts one-of-a-kind data visualizations from complex datasets with vibrant aesthetics.
Vivek Muppalla, Director of AI Engineering at Cohere
With a background in Amazon, Unity, and Scale AI, Vivek has led applied AI efforts across multiple domains and is a pioneer in synthetic data applications.
Yu Yu, PhD, Director of Data Science at BlackRock
Yu Yu leads AI solution development at BlackRock across global business and marketing teams, bridging financial insight with machine learning.
Chi Wang, PhD, Founder of AutoGen (Now AG2) | Senior Staff Scientist at Google DeepMind
Chi leads the development of AG2 and FLAML, tools for AutoML and agentic AI, and is recognized with multiple best paper and dissertation awards.
Guillaume Lajoie, PhD, Associate Professor at Université de Montréal | Mila
Dr. Lajoie specializes in neural computation and learning theory, with research at the intersection of AI, neuroscience, and dynamic systems.
Lauren Burke-McCarthy, Senior AI Strategy Lead at Further
Lauren guides responsible AI implementation for enterprise clients and previously built user-centered models at CoverMyMeds.
Abi Aryan, Founder at Abide AI
Abi is a seasoned ML engineer and author of LLMOps. She’s currently writing her second book on GPU engineering and scaling AI infrastructure.
Hassan El Mghari, Senior Manager, Developer Relations at Together AI
Hassan develops AI applications with millions of users and leads dev rel initiatives to expand access to AI tooling and platforms.
Qingyun Wu, PhD, Founder at AG2
Qingyun is co-creator of the AG2 open-source AI agent framework, widely adopted across the AI developer community for scalable LLM agents.
Manoj Saxena, Founder & CEO at Trustwise
Known as the “father of IBM Watson,” Manoj is a trailblazer in ethical AI and now leads Trustwise in building transparent, responsible AI systems.
Veronika Durgin, VP, Data at Saks
Veronika leads Saks’ enterprise data efforts across engineering, BI, and data science, with a strong track record in data platform architecture.
Sarah Hoffman, Director of Research, AI at AlphaSense
Sarah explores AI trends shaping industry at AlphaSense and has previously led AI/ML research at Fidelity and FactSet.
Paul Iusztin, Senior AI Engineer / Founder at Decoding ML
Paul builds GenAI and MLOps systems and was a key contributor at Metaphysic, helping take large AI models to production scale.
Apoorva Joshi, Senior AI Developer Advocate at MongoDB
With a background in cybersecurity data science, Apoorva now helps developers build AI applications using MongoDB and open source tools.
Ivan Lourenço Gomes, Front-End Engineer & Instructor at Daweb Schools
Ivan brings a unique blend of IT engineering and education, helping the next generation of coders master front-end and web development.
Joshua Brindley, Manager: Corporate & Commercial Analytics at GEMS Education
Joshua transforms data into actionable insights and empowers educational institutions with clear, compelling analytics storytelling.
Brian Kulis, PhD, Associate Professor at Boston University
Brian’s research spans theoretical ML and practical AI systems. He also served as an Amazon Scholar supporting Alexa’s long-term innovation.
Sage Elliott, Senior Developer Advocate — AI Engineering & MLOps at Union.ai
Sage leads MLOps workshops and educational content to help developers master tools like Flyte and streamline AI observability.
Amit Manjhi, PhD, Member of Technical Staff at Inflection AI
Amit leads the Dialog-with-Data team at Inflection AI and is known for his work in natural interfaces that bridge human-AI collaboration.
Samuel Colvin, CEO & Founder at Pydantic
Samuel built Pydantic, a core library used across GenAI tools. His work now powers developer observability platforms and scalable AI infra.
Jake Bengtson, Principal Technical Evangelist at Cloudera
Jake helps enterprises unlock the power of Lakehouse architectures for trusted AI and has deep experience in data science and platform marketing.
Why You Should Be There
These speakers don’t just talk about the future — they’re building it. Whether you’re an academic, practitioner, startup founder, or enterprise leader, ODSC East 2025 offers a rare chance to engage directly with the people shaping our industry’s next big leaps.
