Enterprise Chief Research and Academic Officer and Chair of the Lerner Research Institute
Cleveland Clinic
Serpil Erzurum, MD is Cleveland Clinic’s Chief Research and Academic Officer and Chair of the Lerner Research Institute. Dr. Erzurum focuses on strategic growth of enterprise-wide medical and scientific education programs; clinical, basic and translational research; and technology development to deliver the most innovative care to patients. A practicing pulmonologist and active scientist, Dr. Erzurum is also a Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.
Dr. Erzurum graduated from Northeast Ohio Medical University. She completed her residency in internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, a fellowship at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and postdoctoral training at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Dr. Erzurum has won numerous awards, including the prestigious MERIT award from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the American Medical Women’s Association Award for Excellence and the Elizabeth Rich Award from the American Thoracic Society in recognition of her efforts mentoring women. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. Dr. Erzurum has published more than 300 articles and is among the top 1% cited researchers in the world.
Renee Wegrzyn, PhD serves as the first director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), appointed on October 11, 2022, by President Joseph R. Biden. Previously, Dr. Wegrzyn served as a vice president of business development at Ginkgo Bioworks and head of innovation at Concentric by Ginkgo where she focused on applying the tools of synthetic biology to outpace infectious diseases. Dr. Wegrzyn comes to ARPA-H with experience working for over a decade at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), five of those years as a program manager with a $250 million portfolio, and as a technical advisor to the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). At DARPA, Dr. Wegrzyn leveraged the tools of synthetic biology and gene editing to enhance biosecurity, support the domestic bioeconomy, and thwart biothreats. Dr. Wegrzyn received the Superior Public Service Medal for her work and contributions at DARPA.
Before joining DARPA, she led teams in private industry across a range of specialties including biosecurity and gene therapies. Dr. Wegrzyn served on the scientific advisory board for the National Academies Standing Committee on Biotechnology Capabilities and National Security Needs, among other boards in government and the private sector. She holds doctoral and bachelor’s degrees in applied biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, was a fellow in the Center for Health Security Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative and completed her postdoctoral training as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Heidelberg, Germany.
Tom Mihaljevic, MD is CEO and President and Morton L. Mandel CEO Chair of Cleveland Clinic, a nonprofit, multispecialty academic medical center that is recognized in the United States and throughout the world for its expertise and care. He has led the Cleveland Clinic Health System since January 2018.
Dr. Mihaljevic directs the $13 billion globally integrated healthcare system, which has 23 hospitals and 265 outpatient locations, including a main campus in Cleveland, hospitals throughout Northeast Ohio and healthcare facilities in Southeast Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Toronto, Canada; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; and London, United Kingdom. Cleveland Clinic has 80,000 caregivers worldwide, including 5,700 physicians and scientists.
Prior to his current role as CEO and President, Dr. Mihaljevic served as CEO of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi (CCAD) from 2015 to 2017, the first U.S. multispecialty hospital to be replicated outside of North America. Dr. Mihaljevic joined Cleveland Clinic in 2004 as a surgeon in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. He has performed almost 3,000 operations over the course of his career, specializing in minimally invasive and robot-assisted procedures, valve replacement and repair, image-guided surgery and cardiac transplantation.
Dr. Mihaljevic has served on the editorial review boards for prestigious medical journals. He is the author or co-author of more than 140 articles in peer-reviewed publications, and he is the author of textbook chapters on robotic and minimally invasive mitral valve surgery and valvular heart disease. In 2005, Dr. Mihaljevic received a patent for a novel system for minimally invasive cardiac surgery.
His research has focused on minimally invasive cardiac surgery, robot-assisted cardiac surgery, intracardiac imaging systems and analysis of beating-heart intracardiac surgery, among other subjects.
Gary D. Cohn is an American business leader, investor and the former director of the U.S. National Economic Council. He is an internationally recognized expert on the financial markets, global economy, U.S. politics and economic policy.
Cohn is Vice Chairman of IBM, working in partnership with IBM’s Executive Leadership Team on a wide range of business initiatives and external engagement, in areas including business development, public advocacy and client relationship management. He is also Co-Chairman of Cohn Robbins Holding Corp., which recently announced an agreement to merge with leading multinational lottery operator Allwyn Entertainment.
Cohn served as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council from 2017-2018. Before serving in the White House, Cohn was President and Chief Operating Officer of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. from 2006-2016. Cohn began his career at U.S. Steel before moving to New York to trade on the New York Commodities Exchange from 1982-1990.
Cohn serves on the corporate boards of Abyrx, Gro Intelligence, Lazurite and Nanopay and is the Chairman of the Board of Pallas Advisors. Additionally, Cohn serves on advisory boards for Spring Labs and Starling. He is a member of the Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee (SRAC) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Cohn has long been dedicated to advancing healthcare and education. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of NYU Langone Health and serves as Chairman of the Advisory Board for the NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital. He is also on the Board of Overseers of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. In 2019, Cohn was a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics.
Dr. Darío Gil is IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research. Dr. Gil is responsible for IBM Research, one of the world’s largest and most influential corporate research labs, with over 3,000 researchers. He is the 12th Director in its near 80-year history. He leads the technical community of IBM, directing innovation strategies in hybrid cloud, AI, semiconductors, quantum computing and exploratory science. He is also responsible for the company’s intellectual property strategy and business.
Dr. Gil is a globally recognized leader of the quantum computing industry. Under his leadership, IBM was the first company in the world to build programmable quantum computers and make them universally available through the cloud.
An advocate of collaborative research models, Dr. Gil co-chairs the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, which advances fundamental AI research to benefit industry and society. He also co-chairs the Executive Board of the International Science Reserve, a global network of open scientific communities that provides specialized resources to prepare for and help mitigate urgent, complex global challenges.
Dr. Gil has served on the President’s Council of Science and Technology Advisors (PCAST) and is a current member of the National Science Board (NSB), which oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF). He also serves on the President's Research Council of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), the MIT School of Engineering Dean's Advisory Council, and the Aspen Global Cybersecurity Group.
Dr. Erwin Gianchandani is the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) assistant director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, leading the newly established TIP Directorate. Dr. Gianchandani has worked at NSF since 2012. Prior to becoming the assistant director for TIP, he served as the senior advisor for Translation, Innovation and Partnerships for over a year, where he helped develop plans for the new TIP Directorate in collaboration with colleagues at NSF, other government agencies, industry and academia.
During the previous six years, Dr. Gianchandani was the NSF deputy assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, twice serving as acting assistant director for CISE. Dr. Gianchandani’s leadership and management of CISE included the formulation and implementation of the directorate's $1 billion annual budget, strategic and human capital planning, and oversight of day-to-day operations for a team of over 130. Dr. Gianchandani has led the development and launch of several new NSF initiatives, including the Smart & Connected Communities program, Civic Innovation Challenge, Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research and the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes.
Before joining NSF in 2012, Dr. Gianchandani was the inaugural director of the Computing Community Consortium, providing leadership to the computing research community in identifying and pursuing bold, high-impact research directions such as health information technology and sustainable computing.
Dr. Gianchandani holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and master's and doctoral degrees in biomedical engineering, all from the University of Virginia. In 2021, Dr. Gianchandani received the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award, awarded to members of the Federal Government’s Senior Executive Service for sustained extraordinary accomplishment. In 2018, he was awarded the Outstanding Young Engineering Graduate Award from the University of Virginia.
Chief Research Information Officer
Cleveland Clinic
Executive Program Lead
Cleveland Clinic IBM Discovery Accelerator
Lara Jehi, MD, is professor of neurology at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, and an epilepsy specialist at Cleveland Clinic since 2006. She is Director of the Outcomes Research program for epilepsy, the Chief Research Information Officer for Cleveland Clinic, and the Executive Program lead for the Discovery Accelerator focused on artificial intelligence, quantum computing and data science education.
She is currently spearheading multi-institutional National Institutes of Health-funded grants focused on data science. She has led teams that developed the first nomograms for individualized outcome prediction after epilepsy surgery, and advanced mechanistic understanding of outcomes. Her work was featured by Lancet Neurology in the Top 5 Innovations of 2015, and in the “Notables in Healthcare” Award by Crain’s Business in 2021. Her data-driven algorithms for clinical care decision-making are being used, studied and expanded worldwide. Dr. Jehi holds several research leadership roles at Cleveland Clinic. As co-director of Network Capacity for the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Cleveland, her team facilitates multi-center clinical trials through streamlined recruitment efforts, using the electronic health record. She is the principal investigator of Cleveland Clinic’s Biorepository, a role leveraging information technology, enterprise analytics and regulatory support to efficiently scale up and incorporate biobanking efforts within clinical workflow. She is a vice-chair of Cleveland Clinic’s Institutional Review Board.
Dr. Jehi chairs several key commissions in the International League Against Epilepsy and the American Epilepsy Society. She has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, 12 book chapters and is a regular reviewer for NIH study sections. She has also been an invited speaker to international meetings on the topics of epilepsy surgery, outcome prediction and data science. Dr. Jehi received her medical degree from American University of Beirut. She completed her residency in neurology and fellowship in clinical neurophysiology at Cleveland Clinic, and holds a Master’s degree in Health Care Delivery Science from Dartmouth College.
Dr. Ruoyi Zhou is the Director of the IBM Discovery Accelerator at the Cleveland Clinic. She oversees the strategic partnership between IBM Research and Cleveland Clinic, aiming to accelerate scientific breakthroughs in healthcare and build an innovation ecosystem by applying the convergence of bits, qubits, and neurons in biomedical science.
Prior to her current role, Dr. Ruoyi Zhou was the Director of IBM Research Europe – Dublin with responsibilities of driving innovation and growing a world-class industrial research organization in AI, quantum computing, security & privacy, healthcare and accelerate discovery. She served on the Industrial Advisory Board of Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College of London as well as Irish National Advisory Forum for Quantum Technologies. Ruoyi was also the IBM Partnership Executive for Trinity College Dublin.
Dr. Zhou was the Director of IBM Accessibility Research where she oversaw development of advanced technology to enable accessibility for IBM products and creation of AI-powered assistive technology for people with disabilities. She served on the Industry Advisory Council at the Colorado University College of Engineering & Applied Science and on the Board of Advisors for G3ict. She initiated and launched the Accessibility track at the Grace Hopper Conference and served as a committee member. Additionally, Dr. Zhou was the Co-Director of AI for Healthy Living, a joint research center between IBM and the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Zhou played different technical and management leadership roles during her career at IBM.
Dr. Zhou received her Ph.D. in Materials Science from Rutgers University and conducted postdoctoral research at Los Alamos National Lab.
Associate Staff & Director
Computational Biomodeling (CoBi) Core
Chief Scientist
Cleveland Clinic Discovery Accelerator
Dr. Erdemir trained as a mechanical engineer at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. He performed graduate work in Biomechanics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Middle East Technical University and the Department of Kinesiology, Pennsylvania State University. His doctoral work focused on the load transfer mechanisms of the foot - combining in vivo, in vitro and in silico approaches to understand the mechanical function of the foot’s complex architecture.
In 2016, Dr. Erdemir became Assistant Staff in Biomedical Engineering. His current research program responds to the challenges in theoretical, applied and cultural aspects of modeling and simulation. Dr. Erdemir’s interests include simulation-based medicine, computational biomechanics, modeling and simulation of biological phenomena in the musculoskeletal system. His activities are diverse to deliver authentic virtual biomechanical representations of organs and joints, to enable multiscale modeling and simulation in biomechanics, to promote open science for in silico biomechanics, to increase credibility in computational medicine through technical work, perspectives and community activities and to facilitate virtual prototyping of interventions.
Dr. Erdemir is the author or co-author of more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed publications. He has been invited to speak at over 60 presentations in intramural departments, and in nationwide and international academic and clinical institutes. His work has been supported by more than $10 million in federal awards.
In 2007, he founded the Computational Biomodeling Core, meeting the translational needs of clinical, industrial and research communities in biomedical modeling and simulation. He has been an active member of the Multiscale Modeling Consortium since 2007.
Dr. Erdemir serves as Cleveland Clinic’s Chief Scientist and lead for the Discovery Accelerator’s Digital Technologies and Artificial Intelligence project.
IBM Fellow, Discovery Technology Foundations, Accelerated Discovery
IBM Research
Chief Scientist
Cleveland Clinic IBM Discovery Accelerator
Dr. John R. Smith is an IBM Fellow at IBM Research, where he leads Discovery Technology Foundations as part of IBM’s initiative on Accelerated Discovery. Dr. Smith received his B.S., M.S., M. Phil, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University.
He has authored several hundreds of articles at top conferences and journals in AI, signal processing, information retrieval, and database systems and is an inventor of over 100 United States patents. Dr. Smith is a Fellow of IEEE.
Welcome and Panel Introduction
Featuring:
Tom Mihaljevic, MD | CEO & President, Cleveland Clinic
Brian Donley, MD | CEO, Cleveland Clinic London
Jamanda Haddock, MA, MRCP, FRCR | Associate Chief of Staff and Chair of Hospital Services, Cleveland Clinic London
Moderated by: Angela Rossi, Chief Human Resources Officer
Panel Discussion and Audience Q&A
Chair of the Board Remarks | Beth Mooney
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
