Emerging Technologies: Innovation and Governance Symposium

Join the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) on November 30th for a one-day symposium on emerging technologies, featuring cutting edge research and insights from across the Johns Hopkins community spanning four critical technology ecosystems: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, semiconductors, and space.

This exclusive event, marking the launch of the Emerging Technologies Initiative, will be hosted at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center at 555 Pennsylvania Avenue, a new facility designed to bring experts, students, and researchers across disciplines together with a mission to educate and train the next generation of civic leaders and innovators and connect the worlds of research and policymaking.

Our aim is to provide a platform for leading voices across Johns Hopkins to showcase their research and expertise in emerging technologies, helping current and future policy makers navigate the challenges of governing these new domains. While these technologies promise significant economic, environmental, health, security, and social benefits, they also introduce emergent and evolving risks that both governments and industries must navigate. Maximizing these benefits and effectively managing risks necessitates an intricate understanding of the scientific, engineering, and policy dimensions.

As the United States' first research university, Johns Hopkins is uniquely positioned to shed light on the opportunities and challenges inherent in these emerging technologies. From AI to Semiconductors and Biotechnology to Space, speakers will unveil cutting-edge research and insights into the emergent and emerging technical, industry, and geopolitical dynamics at play at home and abroad. This symposium not only signifies the launch of our initiative, but also signifies our commitment to further exploration and ongoing dialogue within the ever-evolving intersection of technology, research, and governance.

Agenda

• 8:00-8:45m | Registration

• 8:45-9:00am | Opening Remarks | Jim Steinberg, Dean of the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

• 9:00-10:00am | Fireside Chat: The Importance of Technology Research for Policy

  • Laurie Locascio (Director of National Institute of Standards and Technology)

  • Jason Matheny (President and Chief Executive Officer, RAND)

• 10:30-12:00pm | Panel One | Semiconductors

• 12:00 pm -1:00pm | Lunch

• 1:00 pm -2:30pm | Panel Two | Artificial Intelligence

• 2:30 pm -4:00pm | Panel Three | Space

• 4:15 pm -5:45pm | Panel Four | Biotechnology

• 5:45 pm -6:00pm | Closing Remarks | Ed Schlesinger, Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University

Detailed Agenda

• 8:00-8:45m | Registration

• 8:45-9:00am | Opening Remarks | Jim Steinberg, Dean of the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

• 9:00-10:00am | Fireside Chat: The Importance of Technology Research for Policy

  • Laurie Locascio, Director of National Institute of Standards and Technology

  • Jason Matheny, President and Chief Executive Officer, RAND

  • Moderated by: Jim Steinberg, Dean of the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

• 10:30-12:00pm | Panel One | Semiconductors: Semiconductors are the quintessential foundational technology: as central to economic growth and innovation as national security and geopolitical competition. As featured on this panel, Johns Hopkins faculty sit at the cutting edge across this ecosystem, advancing innovations from material science to supply chains and offering insights into economic and national security dynamics. Together, their research provides important insights into the future evolution of chips and their use-cases, the industry dynamics that will either hamstring or embolden the decisions that governments can make, and the pressure this ecosystem faces given the demands of use-cases such as the ongoing green transition, AI, and 5G networks as well as the evolving national security concerns at play. 

  • Andreas Andreou, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University; the co-founder of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Language and Speech Processing 

  • Ling Chen, Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and associate in research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University

  • Paulette Clancy, Edward J. Schaefer Professor in Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, director of research for the AI-X Foundry, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Integrated Structure-Mechanical Modeling and Simulation (CISMMS), and fellow of the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute (HEMI)

  • Melissa Griffith, Lecturer in Technology and National Security at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) with the Alperovitch Institute as well as a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC)

  • Miyeon Oh, Director and Senior Faculty Lead, Korea Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), senior advisor and senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

  • Moderated by: Mitra Taheri, Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, director of the Materials Characterization and Processing facility, and a member of the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute  

• 12:00 pm -1:00pm | Lunch 

• 1:00 pm -2:30pm | Panel Two | Artificial Intelligence: Much of the AI debate today suggests a zero-sum game in which AI will replace human decision makers. However, in practical terms, collaboration is likely to be far more important, as human problem solving and AI capabilities are applied together to solve challenging problems in science, medicine and society. Johns Hopkins faculty are working to figure out how best to enable collaboration between humans and AI, identifying the opportunities and seeking to mitigate the challenges, applying AI to such different and immediate challenges as making social media more trustworthy, expediting disaster relief, countering bias and building security.

  • Rama Chellappa, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering and chief scientist at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy (IAA)

  • Henry Farrell, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; 2019 winner of the Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Politics and Technology. Author, “Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy”

  • Anjalie Field, Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University

  • Anqi Liu, Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University; affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Mathematical Institute for Data Science (MINDS) and the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy (IAA)

  • Moderated by: Mark Dredze, John C. Malone professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University and Director of Research (Foundations of AI) for the JHU Data Science and AI Institute 

• 2:30 pm -4:00pm | Panel Three | Space: U.S. Space exploration and space security are undergoing a third transformation in the 21st century. The initial transformation in the 1960s saw human exploration of the moon, early robotic exploration in low-Earth orbit, and initial global satellite navigation for military purposes. The 2nd transformation took America through the 1980s and 1990s of stability in space operations, expansive US use of space in military operations as seen in Desert Storm, bold space science missions like Hubble, and robotic exploration throughout our Solar System. Now, in the 21st century, space is undergoing expansive commercialization, mega constellations, human exploration beyond Earth orbit to the moon and beyond, and contested and competitive militarization. This panel will focus on the national security implications of technological innovation, upcoming lunar human and scientific exploration, and discuss the intersection of security and exploration in the cislunar environment.

  • Patrick Binning, Program Chair Space Systems Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University; Mission Area Executive for National Security Space at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

  • Jason Kalirai, Mission Area Executive for Space Formulation at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

  • Greg Miller, Dean of Space Education for the United States Space Force, Professor of Military and Security Studies at Air University, and Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

  • Emma Rainey, Assistant Branch Supervisor for Space Systems & Analysis at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

  • Jamie Porter, senior radiation engineer and assistant supervisor of the Space Exploration Sector’s (SES) Space Environmental Effects Engineering Group at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

  • Wes Fuhrman, Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) Lead at the Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative (LSII), which operates the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC)

  • Moderated by: Bruce MacDonald, Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

• 4:15 pm -5:45pm | Panel Four | Biotechnology: Biology, engineering, and medicine are increasingly converging in ways that are recalibrating the frontiers of biomedical science, reshaping everything from reproduction to the end of life, and raising pressing ethical, legal, and governance issues both nationally and globally. Such issues arise at different stages of the research and development ecosystem, including discovery, human research, and patient care. Collaboration between bench scientists, biomedical researchers, health care providers, and scholars in ethics, law, public policy, and social sciences is critical to creating approaches to facilitate scientifically sound and responsibly governed advances in emerging biotechnologies. This panel will explore the value of such collaboration in some of the cutting-edge technologies on which Johns Hopkins faculty work.

  • Debra Mathews, Associate Director for Research and Programs for the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics; Professor in the Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. 

  • Greg Newby, Assistant Professor of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

  • Jeremias Sulam, Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University

  • Nitish Thakor, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

  • Adler Archer, Inaugural Director of the Office of Strategy Management at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University; Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Biomedical Engineering with a joint appointment at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

  • Moderated by: Jeffrey Kahn, Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics; Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

• 5:45 pm -6:00pm | Closing Remarks | Ed Schlesinger, Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University