Fireside Chat
Navigating the AI Frontier: Innovations and Regulations
Alexander Pearson
Dr. Alexander Pearson is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the section of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Chicago. Dr. Pearson serves as Director of the University of Chicago Center for Computational Medicine and Clinical Artificial Intelligence as well the Director of the Head/Neck Cancer Program in Medical Oncology. He is a Chan-Zuckerberg Chicago Biohub Investigator and has a Joint Appointment at Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Pearson trained as a PhD statistician and physician at the University of Rochester and completed both subspecialty training in Hematology/Oncology and postdoctoral research in mathematical systems biology and head/neck cancer at the University of Michigan. Dr. Pearson currently practices medical oncology at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center where he is an active clinical investigator and clinical trialist. Dr. Pearson is a nationally recognized researcher for applications of quantitative methods to cancer research, and his research lab studies clinical applications for machine learning, mathematical modeling, AI, quantum computing, and systems biology. Dr. Pearson has authored more than 100 research manuscripts in clinical and computational oncology. His research is funded by the NIH, DOD, DOE, EU Horizon 2020 Initiative, Wellcome Trust, and multiple industry partners. He has served on AI-in-medicine advisory groups to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), American Dental Association (ADA), and American Medical Association (AMA). Dr Pearson is an active educator and mentor, and lecturer, and has developed grant-funded pre- and post-doctoral educational programs in the US and Africa.
Ed Walters
Ed Walters is the Chief Strategy Officer of vLex and the co-founder of Fastcase, a legal publishing company based in Washington, D.C. Fastcase and vLex merged in April 2023 to form one of the world’s fastest-growing legal publishers. Its global law library serves more than 3 million subscribers and includes the law of more than 110 countries in a single platform, comprising more than 1 billion documents.
Before founding Fastcase, Ed worked at Covington & Burling, in Washington D.C. and Brussels, where he advised Microsoft, Merck, SmithKline, the Business Software Alliance, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League. His practice focused on corporate advisory work for software companies and sports leagues, and intellectual property litigation.
Ed earned an A.B. in government from Georgetown University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. He served as an editor of The University of Chicago Law Review. From 1996-97, he served as a judicial clerk with the Hon. Emilio M. Garza on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Ed worked in The White House from 1991-93 in the Office of Media Affairs and the Office of Presidential Speechwriting.
He is a member of the D.C. Bar and the Virginia State Bar. Ed is an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches The Law of Robots as well as GenAI & BigLaw, and a Lecturer in Law at The University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches Generative AI in Legal Practice. He serves on the board of directors of Pro Bono Net and on the Leaders Counsel for the Legal Services Corporation. He is the author and editor of Data-Driven Law (Taylor & Francis 2018) and a contributing author to Legal Informatics (Cambridge University Press 2021).
Yuliana Zamora
Yuliana Zamora is a Senior Solutions Architect on NVIDIA’s supercomputing team, specializing in the enablement and acceleration of AI and scientific workflows at U.S. Department of Energy laboratories. Most recently, her work with Argonne National Laboratory facilitated the scaling of research of AI-driven protein design across multiple supercomputers worldwide, contributing to a project that was recognized as a Gordon Bell finalist at SC’24. Dr. Zamora holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and both a master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where she was honored with several distinctions, including the GFSD Fellowship, CERES Scholar designation, and Siebel Scholarship.
Still Have Questions?
Call us at 773.795.2667
Email us at events@rcc.uchicago.edu