About Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence

Sir Michael Brady was Associate Director of the AI Laboratory at MIT from 1980-1985, leaving to take up the newly created Professorship of Information Engineering, University of Oxford, which he held from 1985-2010.  Upon “retirement”, he was appointed Emeritus Professor of Oncological Imaging in the Department of Oncology of the University of Oxford.  He is the author of over 500 articles and 50 patents in computer vision, robotics, medical image analysis, and artificial intelligence, and the author or editor of ten books.  He has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Membre Associé Étranger of the Académie des Sciences, Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Fellow of the Institute of Physics, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and Fellow of the British Computer Society.  He was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Whittle Medal, the IET Faraday Prize, and the Henry Dale Prize.  Sir Michael has founded successful spin-out companies, primarily in medical image analysis: Volpara Healthcare Technologies; Perspectum Diagnostics; ScreenPoint Medical bv; Optellum; Mirada Medical; and formerly Mirada Solutions; and the Guidance Group (Monitoring, Industrial, and Marine Divisions).  He was a Director of Oxford Instruments plc from 1995-2014.

Anil K. Jain is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University. His research covers pattern recognition, computer vision and biometric authentication. He was a member of the United States Defense Science Board, NIST Forensic Science Standards Board, The National Research Council’s committees on Biometrics and Improvised Explosive Devices, and invited to be an advisor to the world’s largest biometrics based national ID program, Aadhaar, in India. He received Fulbright, Guggenheim, Humboldt, and King Sun Fu Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, Fellow of The World Academy of Science and foreign fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee is the Chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures (www.sinovationventures.com/) and President of Sinovation Venture’s Artificial Intelligence Institute. Sinovation Ventures, managing US$2 billion dual currency investment funds, is a leading venture capital firm focusing on developing the next generation of Chinese high-tech companies. Prior to founding Sinovation in 2009, Dr. Lee was the President of Google China, and senior executives at Microsoft, SGI, and Apple. Dr. Lee received his Bachelor degree from Computer Science from Columbia University, Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as Honorary Doctorate Degrees from both Carnegie Mellon and the City University of Hong Kong. He is the Co-Chair of Artificial Intelligence Council for World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Times 100 in 2013, WIRED 25 Icons , Asian Business Leader 2018 by Asia House, and followed by over 50 million audience on social media.  
In the field of artificial intelligence, Dr. Lee built one of the first game playing programs to defeat a world champion (1988, Othello), as well as the world’s first large-vocabulary, speaker-independent continuous speech recognition system.  Dr. Lee founded Microsoft Research China, which was named as the hottest research lab by MIT Technology Review. Later renamed Microsoft Research Asia, this institute trained the great majority of AI leaders in China, including CTOs or AI heads at Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, Lenovo, Huawei, and Haier. While with Apple, Dr. Lee led AI projects in speech and natural language, which have been featured on Good Morning America on ABC Television and the front page of Wall Street Journal. He has authored 10 U.S. patents, and more than 100 journal and conference papers. Altogether, Dr. Lee has been in artificial intelligence research, development, and investment for more than 30 years.  His New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling book AI Superpowers (aisuperpowers.com) discusses US-China co-leadership in the age of AI as well as the greater societal impacts brought upon by the AI technology revolution.

Daniela Rus is the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT.  She serves as the Director of the Toyota-CSAIL Joint Research Center. Rus' research interests are in AI, robotics, and mobile computing. Rus is a Class of 2002 MacArthur Fellow, a fellow of ACM, AAAI and IEEE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the recipient of the 2017 Engelberger Robotics Award from the Robotics Industries Association. She earned her PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University.

Peng Xiao is a global technology and business leader with a track record of building breakthrough products, delivering customer successes, and achieving commercial results. 
 
As CEO of Abu Dhabi-based Group42 Ltd., Peng is responsible for crafting the Group’s business and product strategies, and overseeing the operating companies across numerous industry verticals, including smart city, healthcare, energy, finance and education. The Group has developed world-class solutions in Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Mobile Technology, and Cloud Computing, and its offerings are delivered to a wide range of commercial and government clients.
 
Previously, as Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, and Chief Information Officer of MicroStrategy, Peng spent a decade in the enterprise software industry. Responsible for the management of over 1,000 engineers, Peng led the R&D of the company’s entire product portfolio, including Business Intelligence, Secure Identity, and Mobile Commerce. 
 
Over the years, Peng established a partnership ecosystem to promote joint technology and business development with his counterparts at Facebook, eBay, Citigroup, PayPal, Alibaba and other Fortune 500 companies, rapidly creating and deploying cutting-edge analytics, security, and commerce solutions.

Professor Fakhreddine (Fakhri)  Karray is the Provost of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), a  first of its kind graduate level, research based artificial intelligence (AI) university. Before joining MBZUAI, Professor Fakhri served as the founding co-director of the University of Waterloo AI Institute. He has held the Loblaws Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence in the department of electrical and computer engineering at  the University of Waterloo, Canada. Professor Fakhri’s research interests are in the areas of operational AI, cognitive machines, natural human-machine interaction, autonomous and intelligent systems. Applications of his research include virtual care systems, cognitive and self-aware machines/robots/vehicles, predictive analytics in supply chain management and intelligent transportation systems. Recent work of Fakhri and his research team on deep learning-based driver behavior recognition and prediction has been featured on The Washington Post, Wired Magazine, Globe and Mail, CBC radio and Canada's Discovery Channel. He was honored in 2021 by the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) in receiving the society’s Best Land Transportation Paper Award for his pioneering work on  improving traffic flow prediction using weather Information in connected cars through deep learning and tools of AI.

He is the co-author of a textbook on applied artificial intelligence: Soft Computing and Intelligent Systems Design (Addison Wesley Publishing), and the co-author of an upcoming textbook on Elements of Dimensionality Reduction and  Manifold Learning (Springer). He has published extensively in the general field of pattern analysis and machine intelligence and is the author of 20 US registered patents. He is the Associate Editor (AE) of a number of flagship journals in the field of AI and intelligent systems, including  the IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning and the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine. He served as the AE and Guest Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics, the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine and IEEE Access (special issue on IoMT). He also serves on the editorial board of Elsevier’s Journal of Information Fusion, International Journal of Robotics and Automation, the Journal of Control and Intelligent Systems, and the Journal of Advances in Artificial Intelligence. He has served as the General Chair/Program Chair of several major international conferences in the field of intelligent systems. 

Professor Fakhri is the co-founder and Chief Scientist of Yourika.ai, a provider of AI based online learning systems. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada and the President of the Association for Image and Machine Intelligence. He served as a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE and is a Fellow of the Kavli Frontiers of Science (a major research and symposium program of the US National Academy of Sciences). He received his PhD degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA, and completed his undergraduate engineering degree at the National Engineering School of Tunis, Tunisia.

Ian Mathews has joined MBZUAI as Vice President of Corporate Services. He is a committed professional with over 27 years of senior management experience and a proven track record of achievement within an ever changing higher education environment. He is known as an effective cross functional team player and a responsive leader with a proven ability to influence change.

Before joining MBZUAI, Ian held the position of Vice Chancellor for Administrative & Financial Affairs at Abu Dhabi University (ADU) for two years until February 2021. In this role he was a key member of the Chancellor’s leadership team, providing strategic leadership to ADU’s administrative and financial affairs functions to support the delivery of quality programs, research and other ancillary activities in line with its vision, mission and values.

Previous to joining ADU, he served as Chief Financial Officer at The University of Dublin, Trinity College (TCD), Ireland’s premier university, for 25 years. As a statutory officer of the University and key member of the leadership team, he was accountable to the Board and Provost for the overall management and stewardship of the university’s financial affairs. 

Ian is a chartered accountant having trained and qualified with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Dublin. He holds both a Commerce Degree and a Diploma in Professional Accounting from University College Dublin and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland since 1992.