Regina Barzilay Keynote Speaker

Regina Barzilay is the School of Engineering Distinguished Professor for AI and Health at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

She is also a member of MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab and the AI Faculty Lead for Jameel Clinic, an MIT center for Machine Learning in Health. Regina is a MacArthur Fellow, whose fellowship is also known as the ‘Genius Grant’. It is awarded to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.

Regina was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014. This inspired her to shift her AI work that was largely focused on computational linguistics to creating systems for drug development and early cancer diagnosis. Her research now focuses on bringing the power of machine learning to oncology. This includes disease detection, drug discovery and the development of medical devices.

Her pivotal work in the advancement of cancer treatment, won Regina the inaugural AAAI Squirrel AI Award for Artificial Intelligence for the Benefit of Humanity. The award elevates AI advancements to the level of a Nobel Prize or Turing Award, and highlights AI research that benefits society.

Other prestigious awards and accolades that Barzilay has received include the UNESCO/Netexplo Award 2021, the National Science Foundation Career Award, the MIT Technology Review Innovators under 35 Award, and the Microsoft Faculty Fellowship. Regina was also named one of the Top 100 AI Leaders in Drug Discovery and Advanced Healthcare.

Regina Barzilay’s work in the intersection of AI and healthcare is unparalleled. Her research has been vital in expansion of machine learning and use of natural language processing in medicine. Regina’s early breast cancer diagnosis tool is also being tested and used in multiple hospitals around the world and she is an appointed member of Allurion’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Regina holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University and conducted postdoctoral studies at Cornell University.