Work with thought leaders and academic experts in pediatrics perinatology child health

Dr. Daniel Milej is a multidisciplinary researcher with experience in medical biophysics, electronics, biocybernetics, biomedical optics and engineering. He is highly knowledgeable and experienced in a range of research techniques. He is currently a Research Associate at the Lawson Health Research Institute, leading the transition of multimodal optical imaging systems from a research setting to clinical use in an ICU and OR environment, working closely with teams of nurses, surgeons, doctors and respiratory therapists. Previously he was a postdoctoral fellow working on developing noninvasive modalities for brain activity monitoring in the Department of Medical Biophysics at Western University. Before that, Dr. Milej worked as a researcher at the Nalecz Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2014 from the Polish Academy of Science, specializing in Electronics and Biomedical Engineering. He received his MSc from the Military University of Technology in 2008.

Edoardo Airoldi is a Professor in the Department of Machine Learning at Temple University. He is also the Director of the Center for Machine Learning and Health. He is a world-renowned expert in the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence, with a focus on applications to health. Airoldi is a member of the prestigious Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the International Machine Learning Society (IMLS). He has published over 200 papers in leading journals and conferences, and his work has been covered by various media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Wired.

Dr. Arpin's research focuses on the application of quantitative methods to the study of social psychological processes, including social interactions, social emotions, and health behavioral outcomes. She has conducted extensive research and published in the areas of loneliness and social determinants of health, using experimental and survey methodology. Dr. Arpin also has experience as a methodology and data analytic consultant on several large grant-funded projects, including DOD-funded intervention studies targeting well-being and social resilience among service-members.

Senior academic and policy advisor. Public and private sector consultant with remit ranging from health ministries and public organizations to insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Cross-institutional leader in research and admin roles focusing on excellence, efficiency, innovation, and community. Strategic and proactive thinker with clear vision and plan, approaching challenges with creativity and adaptability. Highly motivational manager with strong communication skills and impeccable project management track-record.   Expert scholar and educator in health economics, discrete choice experiments, research study design and observational epidemiology. Long experience setting-up and coordinating multi-disciplinary teams into delivering high quality research.

Ariel D. Kalil is the Daniel Levin Professor of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. She is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research associate at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. She is also a faculty member in the Harris School of Public Policy Studies and in the College at the University of Chicago. Kalil's research lies at the intersection of child development and public policy. She is particularly interested in the effect of early childhood interventions on health and economic outcomes in adulthood. Her work has been published in leading social science journals, including the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Journal of Political Economy. Kalil earned her PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor in 1996, her MA in Social Psychology from the University of Colorado System in 1993, and her BA in Psychology and French Literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1991.

My core interests lie in understanding how children and adolescents perceive and interpret social signals and how emerging functional specificity of the developing brain supports this process. My approach primarily involves using the face processing system as a model domain. Faces are dynamic stimuli from which we extract many different kinds of information (e.g., gender, age, emotional state, mate potential, social status, trustworthiness, intentions, “person knowledge”). All of these processes must be executed accurately and rapidly for many faces over the course of a single day, making face processing among the most taxing perceptual challenges confronted by people in their day-to-day life. Given that faces are also the pre-eminent social signal, studying developmental changes in the behavioral and brain basis of face processing in typically developing individuals and in those affected by social-emotional disorders may index a core set of developmental changes within the broader social information processing system. I employ converging methodologies, including functional (fMRI) and structural magnetic resonance, and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) along with detailed behavioral paradigms in both typically developing populations and those with developmental disorders to examine development from early childhood to adulthood.

Dr Nora S Vyas is an Associate Professor in Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Kingston University. She joined Kingston University in 2012, and previously held a Senior Lecturer position at Middlesex University. Dr Vyas completed her PhD in psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), University of London in 2008. Following her PhD, she worked at the Child Psychiatry Branch, National Institutes of Health (Washington DC, USA) as a Lindemann Trust Fellow (English-Speaking Union), preceded by a Fulbright Distinguished Fellowship in 2010. Dr Vyas teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate level in child/adolescent and adult mental health, health psychology, and clinical/cognitive neuroscience. Her research focuses on using clinical, cognitive, and imaging techniques to study individuals with serious mental health problems such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. She applies these skills in other fields such as oncology and mindfulness. Her research specialism is early-onset psychosis, and she has published her work widely.

Emily Owens is an economist and professor at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2007, and her MA in Economics from the university in 2005. She holds a BS in Applied Math and Economics from Brown University, which she obtained in 2002. At UC Irvine, Emily is a professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society as well as the Department of Economics. She is an expert in the fields of public policy, urban economics, and law and economics. She has also conducted research on topics such as the effects of increased policing on crime and the impact of school vouchers on educational outcomes. She has published articles in academic journals such as the Journal of Urban Economics and the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

Dr. Kim's program of research aims to identify, understand, and intervene upon the dimensions of psychological well-being (sense of purpose in life, optimism) that reduce the risk of age-related conditions. <br> Around this topic, he has given invited lectures at Universities (Harvard, U. of Penn, MIT, Columbia U.), corporations (UnitedHealth Care, IDEO, AARP, Samsung), and he’s also been invited to speak at and join the working groups of national- and international-think-tanks (United Nations, OECD, Aspen Ideas Festival, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, The Task Force for Global Health, World Government Summit, National Academy of Sciences). He’s also been recognized as one of Forbe’s 30 Under 30 in Healthcare, recipient of the American Journal of Epidemiology's Paper of the Year Award, the American Psychological Association Division 20 (Aging) Early Career Achievement Award, and an Association for Psychological Science (APS) Rising Star. His insights have been featured in the: NY Times, Atlantic, BBC News, NPR, Washington Post. His research has been cited by policy statements/guidelines formulated by the: United Nations, National Academy of Sciences, American Heart Association, the U.S. Surgeon General. Population aging is one of the most important social trends of the 21st century. In both Canada and the U.S., the # of adults aged ≥65 is projected to increase by 45%-55% in the next 15 years. As societies grapple with the rising tide of chronic conditions, healthcare costs, and long-term care costs, it is imperative to develop a science that informs a more comprehensive approach to healthy aging. Dr. Kim’s overarching goal is to substantially help improve the psychological well-being and physical health of our rapidly growing population. In pursuit of this goal, his program of research revolves around 4 interwoven questions. He studies: 1) Several dimensions of psychological well-being (sense of purpose in life, optimism) and how they relate to health outcomes. 2) The behavioral, biological, and neural mechanisms underlying the association between psychological well-being and health. 3) How an individual’s psychological well-being interacts with the surrounding environment to influence behavioral and physical health outcomes; for example, at the meso-level (dyadic dynamics in couples, neighborhood contexts, altruism/volunteering) and the macro-level (social cohesion, social and racial disparities). 4) And he partners with non-profit/healthcare companies to conduct translational research that test scalable interventions.

Prof. Adewuya is a professor of public mental health at Lagos State University College of Medicine. He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Psychiatry of both the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria and the West African College of Physicians.

Patrick Sharkey is a professor of sociology at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard University in 2007. His research focuses on issues of urban poverty and inequality, racial stratification, and violence. As a journalist he has written extensively on inequity and the roots of racial disparities in the American city. He is the recipient of numerous academic awards, including the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award, the J.S. Guggenheim Fellowship, and the William Julius Wilson Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Urban and Inequality. His first book, Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress Toward Racial Equality, won the Robert E. Park Book Award for the best book in urban sociology. He has also served as an advisor to policymakers, foundation leaders, and community organizers across the United States.

Professor Sinead McGilloway is Professor of Family and Community Mental Health and Founder Director of the *Centre for Mental Health and Community Research* in the Maynooth University Dept of Psychology and Social Sciences Institute ([www.cmhcr.eu](http://www.cmhcr.eu/)). She is a Chartered Psychologist and Chartered Scientist with the British Psychological Society (BPS) and an Associate Fellow of the BPS. She has extensive experience in undertaking engaged policy- and practice-relevant research with a focus on child and adult mental health and well-being (incl. vulnerable/ marginalised groups), early intervention/prevention and service evaluation. She has won significant research funding to date, is widely published and has won a number of awards, including the Lionel Hersov Memorial (Team) Award by the (UK) Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (2022), an Irish Research Council Research Ally prize (2022) and Maynooth University Faculty of Social Sciences Research Achievement Award 2021.

Adolescent development, parent-adolescent relationships, adolescent brain development, adolescent decision-making