The Prepare.ai Podcast

Dr. Brian Gant is assistant professor of cybersecurity at Maryville University, where he oversees the university’s undergraduate cyber program. Brian has been in cyber security for nearly two decades, including working as a cybersecurity threat specialist at BJC Healthcare, a Postal Inspector for the United States Postal Service, a Special Agent in the US Secret Service and an Intelligence Analyst for the FBI. Brian received his Doctorate in higher education leadership  from Maryville University with a focus on cyber studies, where his dissertation focused on cyberbullying in eSports. Brian also holds two masters degrees, one in human services from Capella University and one in Management from Fontbonne University. He received his Bachelor’s degree in management information systems from Maryville. Today is joins us to talk about teaching cybersecurity to the next generation of ethical hackers and how eSports are changing the 4-year-college landscape.

Fully and Dave interview Rob Carpenter, a serial entrepreneur and passionate technologist. Rob is the CEO and Founder of Valyant AI, the first Artificially Intelligent “Digital Employee” that works directly alongside employees in customer facing roles. Valyant’s AI “Holly” works in fast food restaurants to greet customers at the drive-thru post, answer questions, and take food orders. Rob was named one of the top 25 most influential young professionals in Colorado by ColoradoBiz Magazine in 2013 and received the Denver Trailblazer award in 2016.

Erica Barnell is the co-founder and Chief Science Officer at Geneoscopy Inc., a clinical-stage diagnostic company working on early detection of colorectal cancer. Its technology analyzes RNA in stool samples to look for early warning signs of cancer, providing a non-invasive alternative to colonoscopies. Geneoscopy raised a $6.9m Series A in 2019; in 2020, its diagnostic device was awarded Breakthrough Device Designation from the FDA and Erica was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30, and in 2021 a peer-reviewed article with results of company’s mutlifactor RNA-FIT test was published in the journal Clinical and Translational Gastroenterology. 

Erica is also an MD/PhD candidate at the Washington University School of Medicine with a PhD in Molecular Genetics and Genomics, where her thesis work was completed in the Griffith Lab at the McDonnell Genome Institute to advance bioinformatic tools in the precision oncology space. She joins Dave and Fully to discuss how AI is helping to detect colorectal cancer and other gastrointestinal health conditions.

We also get to talk poop jokes for the first time.

Jason Bull is Chief Technology Officer of Benson Hill, a St. Louis-based food tech company unlocking the natural genetic diversity of plants thru its cutting-edge food innovation engine.  Jason leads the company’s combined R&D and Data Science capabilities across predictive breeding, genomics, product discovery, big data engineering and software development. Prior to joining Benson Hill, he served as VP, Strategy & Machine Learning at Object Computing, Inc. and before that spent twenty years with Bayer (Monsanto) and then Climate Corporation, most recently as its Global VP R&D of Digital Seed Science. Jason has been granted 30 patents in digital agriculture, molecular breeding and robotic seed chipping and has also authored 15 publications. He earned his Ph.D. in Quantitative Genetics and Biometrics and a Bachelors Degree in AgSci (Honors) in Quantitative Genetics and Analytics from the University of Queensland in Australia.

Marc Bernstein is Founder & CEO of Balto, a real-time guidance tool for contact centers. Powered by AI, Balto listens to both sides of a conversation and visually prompts agents with the best things to say, live on every call. Marc also hosts Reimagining the Contact Center, a podcast that digs into the new contact center economy and how technology, businesses, and the modern customer work together for better outcomes. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, Marc has both founded and worked at a number of startups before founding Balto. He joins Fully and Dave to talk about how technology is changing customer service and sales, and how Balto has captured so much market share so quickly.

Vidya Setlur is Principal Research Scientist and Research Manager at Tableau Software, a leading data visualization company acquired by Salesforce in 2019, where she focuses on natural language processing and computer graphics. Vidya earned her PhD in Computer Graphics in 2005 at Northwestern University; the goal of her work is to develop new computer algorithms and user interfaces that enhance visual communication and understanding of the semantics of the underlying data. Her research combines concepts and methods from information retrieval, human perception and cognitive science to help users effectively interact with devices and information in their environment. She speaks with us about user intent and human computer interaction, where search is headed in the coming years, and why its important for women in tech to engage young learners.

Paul Mensah, PhD leads the Bioprocess R＆D and Drug Substance Supply group in Pfizer’s BioTherapeutics Pharmaceutical Sciences organization, with sites in Andover MA, Chapel Hill, NC, and St. Louis, MO. The group is responsible for developing innovative and compliant manufacturing processes for biotherapeutics, including gene therapy and vaccines such as the Covid19 vaccine. As head of the group, Paul oversees the scientific and operational implementation plans for all aspects of bioprocess technologies and activities in support of Pfizer’s portfolio of biotherapeutics and vaccine products across the globe.
  
Paul is trained as a Chemical Engineer with a BS from Cornell and a PhD from the University of Virginia. He is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Society of Biological Engineers. Paul is on the advisory board of the Chemical Engineering Departments at the University of Virginia and at Cornell University.  He speaks with Dave & Fully about the remarkable development of Pfizer's Covid19 vaccine.

Dr. Melvin Greer is Chief Data Scientist for the Americas at Intel Corporation. He is responsible for building Intel’s data science platform through graph analytics, machine learning and cognitive computing to accelerate transformation of data into a strategic asset for Public Sector and commercial enterprises. His systems and software engineering experience has resulted in patented inventions in Cloud Computing, Synthetic Biology and IoT Bio-sensors for edge analytics.  He functions as a principal investigator in advanced research studies, including Nanotechnology, Additive Manufacturing and Gamification. Dr. Greer is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and serves on the Board of Directors, U.S. National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine. Dr. Greer has been appointed to Senior Advisor and Fellow at the FBI IT and Data Division.


SHOW NOTES
Princeton Neuroscience Institute
Greer Institute for Leadership and Innovation

Mitra Goswami is Senior Director of Data Science & Machine Learning at PagerDuty, an incident management platform that provides notifications, automated escalations and other functionality to help teams detect and fix infrastructure problems quickly. Mitra has also worked in Astrophysics, Media, Marketing tech and Financial Services with organizations including Credit Suisse and Capgemini. Mitra holds a PhD in Astrophysics and an Masters in Physics from Northwestern University as well as graduate and undergraduate degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay and St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai. She joins us to talk about her transition from astrophysics to business-driven data science and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead for the field.

Kristin Dennis is Chief Operating Officer of Impossible Sensing, a St. Louis-based company that develops next-generation sensing applications for deployment in extreme terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. They developed two laser spectroscopy systems for the Mars Perseverance Rover and are currently collaborating with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and SETI on a deep ocean mission. Before joining Impossible Sensing, Kristin spent many years working in surgical ocular recovery for transplant, sterile technique and OR procedures.

SHOW NOTES
Impossible Sensing
NASA's Perseverence Rover Site
The Sherloc Instrument
David Attenborough's A Life on Our Planet