Rebecca Salowe graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BSE and MSE in Bioengineering. She has ten years of experience of scientific writing and research project management. In her position, she serves as the Research Project Manager for the POAAGG study, writes and edits articles for scientific journals, and drafts grants for new research projects. She also works closely with physicians, biostatisticians, and lab members to design research studies and organize community outreach efforts.
Osbert Bastani is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania leading the trustml@Penn research group. He is a member of the ASSET, PRECISE, and PRiML centres and PLClub. Previously, he completed his Ph.D. at Stanford advised by Alex Aiken, and spent a year as a Postdoc at MIT working with Armando Solar-Lezama. He is interested in machine learning and programming language research. Currently, his group is working on developing novel techniques for building systems that incorporate machine learning components, focusing on their correctness, programmability, and efficiency. They draw on techniques spanning learning theory, programming languages, formal methods, and control theory and are interested in applications including robotics, healthcare, and software systems.
Joan M. O’Brien, MD, has served as the George E. deSchweinitz and William F. Norris Professor of Ophthalmology, Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, and Director of the Scheie Eye Institute at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine since January 2010. Dr. O’Brien specializes in the treatment of ocular tumours, including retinoblastoma, ocular melanoma, conjunctival malignancies, ocular metastases, and ocular and CNS lymphoma. Her research focuses on the genetics of eye disease, including retinoblastoma, melanoma, and glaucoma. Dr. O’Brien’s laboratory is currently supported by the National Eye Institute and the National Cancer Institute. With nearly 200 publications in her field, Dr. O’Brien’s work has recently appeared in Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Today, Dr. O’Brien also serves as the Principal Investigator of a five-year, USD 11.25 million individual R01 grant from the NEI that seeks to understand the genetic architecture of primary open-angle glaucoma in African Americans. This study, called the Primary Open-Angle African American Glaucoma Genetics (POAAGG) study, has enrolled more than 10,000 African American patients in Philadelphia and has the potential to provide more targeted screenings and treatments for this disease.
