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Alexis Battle
Director, Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare; Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science.
Alexis Battle is an associate professor in biomedical engineering with secondary appointments in computer science and the department of genetic medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and is the director of the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare. In her role as director, she provides the interface between the Malone Center and the Johns Hopkins Precision Medicine initiative.

Battle specializes in unlocking the secrets and function of the human genome by analyzing large-scale genomic sequencing data. Her research focuses on machine learning and developing statistical methods to examine how genetic differences between individuals contribute to differences in health, from cellular-level changes to disease outcomes.

JHU’s “Battle Lab” recently developed new methods in personal genomics for evaluating and predicting rare genetic variants that may impact an individual’s health—work that could significantly improve our ability to diagnose rare diseases. Her current research spans from modeling how genes work together in interconnected pathways and how genetics interact with the environment to how these processes evolve over time. Her goal is to use genetic and multi-modal data to guide the understanding and treatment of diseases ranging from autism to cardiovascular disease.

Alexis was a 2016 Searle Scholar, a 2019 Microsoft Investigator Fellow, and is a leading member of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Consortium. She is an author of 64 articles in publications including Nature, Science, eLife, Circulation, American Journal of Human Genetics, Genome Biology, Genome Research, and PLOS Genetics, along with seven patents. She also has received significant recognition from JHU, including JHU’s Catalyst Award, Discovery Award, and the 2022 President’s Frontier Award.

Nishant Shah
Senior Advisor for Responsible Artificial Intelligence, State of Maryland.
Nishant Shah, a former product leader for responsible artificial intelligence at Meta, will serve as Maryland’s senior adviser for responsible artificial intelligence, tasked with building out the state’s AI strategy by developing ethical guidelines, business pilots and coordinating with federal leadership.