GUEST SPEAKER
Abdoulaye Baniré Diallo is Professor of computer science and bioinformatics at Université du Québec à Montréal(UQAM). He is the Director of the Bioinformatics Laboratory at Centre of Research Excellence in Orphan disease of Université du Québec. Pr Diallo holds a Ph.D. degree in computer science (option bioinformatics) from McGill University. He is a former research associate at the BroadInstitute of MIT and Harvard, as well as postdoctoral scholar at the Computer Science and artificial intelligence Laboratory of MIT. His research focuses on algorithms and methods for biological data integration and analyses. Particularly in leveraging bioinformatics and Artificial Intelligence to improve realtime predictive models and monitoring in data driven Informed indicators that are important in personalized medicine, biovigilance, surveillance and dairy production. He also has several contributions in the frontier of Bioinformatics and Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and data mining in bioinformatics. His research is awarded by several prizes including the Next Einstein Fellowship 2017-2019 (top African descendant scientists), the Regroupement des Jeunes Chambres du Commerce du Québec, the Chikiyo Hayashi Award for early career impact contributions in Classification (Given by the International Society of Classification Societies to scientist that will change the classification area that is less than 35 years old. Pr Diallo received it at the age of 25 years old) and the Springer Award for related works, the Machine Learning and DataMining 2016 prize. He is also proud of the UQAM Professor excellence award in 2016. His research is funded by discovery grant of the Canadian Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC); Quebec Research Fund in Nature and Technology, Genome Canada and Genome Quebec. He leads a GenomeCanada project on designing predictive models in dairy. The initial results of this work have been featured by MIT Technology Review in 2020 and lead to a second collaboration with Valacta. He also proposed an initial model for lameness detection in dairy cattle that has been featured AAAI (one of three top conferences in Artificial Intelligence). Pr Diallo holds projects in designing indicator of soil healths from image of the soil layers of Quebec and productivity captures by AI derived solutions using satellite images and remote sensing founded by the MAPAQ, and agriculture Canada. One of the paper produced in this sector is just featured at ISCAS 2021 (The top conference in remote sensing and AI) as well as the identification of major biomarker in wheat productivity. He has more than 80 publications and more than 30 guest talks in prestigious institution such as: MIT, Harvard, Oxford, UCSF, Institut Pasteur de Dakar and others. In Africa Pr Diallo is leading several projects and workshop on leveraging Bioinformatics and Artificial intelligence including a platform for monitoring and surveillance of pathogens in west Africa, wwwAfrica, Acces Omic Senegal, Graduate studies in bioinformatics in Senegal, Cereal productivity. Four years ago, he also made an invention disclosure in knowledge aggregation that conducts to the foundation of My Intelligent Machines (MIMs). He is cofounder and Chief Scientist of My Intelligent Machines (MIMs), a startup integrating Genomics, bioinformatics and Artificial Intelligence. MIMs is among the top startup in AI to watch in Canada according to different reports of betakit, google, KPMG and Microsoft. Pr Diallo has been featured in more than 20 press releases and reports. He is also invited in different committee on AI including OECD ministerial briefieng committee, Unesco AI committee in inclusion, World Health Organization commission in Ethic in AI, NIH Committee in Data Science initiative and several others.
ALUMNI
Dr. Evans Kataka holds a PhD degree in Bioinformatics (Technical University of Munich, Germany) and a Master of Science in Bioinformatics (University of Nairobi). He is a Quality Assurance Manager at the Proctor & Gamble, Germany Innovation Center (Germany).
Faith Nduta holds a Master of Science degree in Biotechnology from the University of Nairobi. She is the Head of Production (Embakasi) and Senior Production Officer at the Kenya Veterinary Vaccine Production Institute (KEVEVAPI).
Nathaniel D. Lesolee (Liberia) holds a Master of Science degree in Bioinformatics from the University of Nairobi. He is a Liberian citizen and the current Associate Director of Policy, Planning, and Development; National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority (NaFAA) - Liberia.
Lilian Mbaisi holds a Master of Science degree in Bioinformatics (University of Nairobi). She is enrolled for PhD degree in Bioinformatics at Rhodes University (South Africa). She undertook her Masters research at the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) and co-authored a paper titled ‘A microsporidian impairs Plasmodium falciparum transmission in Anopheles arabiensis mosquitoes’s in Nature Communications journal.
Abneel Kaur holds a Master of Science degree in Biotechnology (University of Nairobi). She is DRIP PhD fellow based at ICIPE.