AI and the next Pandemic
Monday, 4 March, 2024
On Tuesday, March 5th, UCD Discovery and the UCD Clinton Institute are delighted to host the eminent UCD Discovery Global Visiting Fellow Professor David Hickton, Founding Director, University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security at an upcoming event entitled “AI & the Next Pandemic” which will take place on Tuesday, March 5th , 18:00 - 20:00 at the William Fry Theatre (L143), UCD Sutherland School of Law on UCD campus. The event will be followed by a networking reception.
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The keynote talk will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Prof. Eugenio Lilli, Lecturer in international relations and emerging technologies at UCD Clinton Institute, with expert panellists Sana Zakaria, Research Leader, Science and Emerging Technology RAND Europe, Jacky Fox, Accenture Security EMEA Lead and Senior Managing Director Ireland, and Prof. Forrest Crawford, Associate Professor of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health.
As AI technologies rapidly advance, they offer the promise of faster and better-informed public health responses. AI technologies were used throughout the COVID-19 pandemic but the explosion of foundational models and other advances in the past year gives us the opportunity to significantly improve our public health and medical responses to potential pandemics. Yet, AI technologies, no matter how impressive, are no panacea. Even with extraordinary AI technologies at our fingertips, a pandemic response is inherently sociotechnical and must be treated as such. Lessons from COVID-19 tell us that realizing this promise is contingent upon sharing high-quality data, robust and diversified supply chains, medical systems’ surge capacity, and pharmaceutical production capacity, amongst other variables. General population response to potential pandemics is also crucial.
Panellist Bios
David J. Hickton
David J. Hickton founded the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security in 2017. Hickton also has faculty appointments as professor in the School of Law, the School of Computing and Information, and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Hickton served as staff director and senior counsel to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis from May 2020 – June 2021.
Sana Zakaria
Sana Zakaria is a research leader at RAND Europe. Working in science and emerging technology, her research interests and experience span the fields of Research and Development ecosystem and Emerging biotechnologies converging with other sectors like machine learning and quantum technologies. She is currently leading RAND Europe’s Biotechnology policy research focussing on synthetic biology, biosurveillance, advances in Machine Learning and genome editing, food systems, and brain computer interfacing.
Before joining RAND, she was the Head of Impact at NIHR leading on a complex portfolio of research on research, impact literacy and capacity building. Previous to this, she led the Strategic Performance and Impact function at the British Heart Foundation. She has a PhD in molecular neurobiology.
Jackie Fox
Jacky leads Accenture’s European security practice. She has 30 years’ experience in technology and cyber security consulting. Jacky holds an MSc in Digital investigations and Forensic computing, a GCFA and a GICSP. She has worked across multiple industry sectors including health & public services, resources and financial services. Jacky specialises in helping organisations to understand and treat their cyber risk and has had the experience of investigating many national and international breaches. She is also Vice-chair on the board of Cyber Ireland and has previously been an adjunct lecturer in UCD MSc in forensics and security. Jacky is an active contributor at the World Economic Forum, speaking at Davos in 2022 and contributes actively to other security fora at international conferences and Interpol. In 2018, she was awarded ‘Security Champion of the Year’ in Ireland for her contribution to the Irish security industry and her mentorship and encouragement of women in security.
Forrest W. Crawford
Forrest W. Crawford is a mathematician and statistician working on biosecurity and emerging technology. He is currently a Senior Statistician at RAND, Associate Professor of Biostatistics, Statistics & Data Science, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, and Operations at Yale University, and Senior Scientist at a geospatial intelligence company called Whitespace. His methodological interests include AI/ML, applied mathematics, stochastic processes, modeling, causal inference, networks/graphs, computation, optimization, and algorithms. He has worked in a variety of applied fields, including public health, security, human rights, biomedical science, epidemiology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, bioengineering, radiology, and sociology. In 2016 he received the US National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2).
Dr Eugenio Lilli (Moderator)
Dr Eugenio Lilli, lecturer in international relations and emerging technologies at UCD Clinton Institute.
Lilli's current research sits at the intersection of cyber technologies and global affairs. He has written about the impact of advancements in cyber on traditional international relations issues such as national security, defense strategy, diplomacy, and foreign policy. His previous publications cover issues of US foreign policy toward the Middle East, democracy promotion, and international terrorism. In 2021, he founded the International Studies and Emerging Technologies working group within the British International Studies Association; the first working group of its kind in Europe.