Speakers and Workshop Leaders

Ann K. EmeryAnn K. Emery

Ann K. Emery is an internationally acclaimed speaker who equips organizations to get their data out of dusty spreadsheets and into real-world conversations.

Each year, she delivers over 100 keynotes, workshops, and webinars with the aim of equipping organizations to visualize data more effectively. She has been invited to speak in 31 states and 11 countries; 10,000 people have enrolled in her online training academy; and she has consulted to 200 organizations, including the United Nations, Centers for Disease Control, and Harvard University.

She earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and a Master’s degree from George Mason University. After traveling full-time as a digital nomad, Ann now resides in Florida along with her husband and five children.

Rodrigo FerreiraRodrigo Ferreira

Rodrigo Ferreira is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Computer Science at Rice University, where he is responsible for the ethics in computer science curriculum. In this role, Rodrigo teaches courses on the ethics of computing, data science, and artificial intelligence, and develops research on ethics in computer science education, computational culture, and tech policy.

Rodrigo’s research has been published in various academic venues, including ACM and IEEE publications, and philosophy journals, such as Teaching Ethics, and has been featured in news media channels, including The Houston Chronicle, Telemundo, and NPR. Rodrigo is also co-creator (in collaboration with Dr. Moshe Vardi) of “Deep Tech Ethics” as a pedagogical approach that seeks to include greater focus on social responsibility in computer science education and is co-author of the “AI Ethics” recommendation report in the Mexican National AI Agenda (2020).

In addition to his position in Computer Science, Rodrigo also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Philosophy, is a member of Steering Committee for the Science and Technology Studies Program, and is a Faculty Scholar at the Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Nikita Rokotyan, PhDNikita Rokotyan, PhD

Nikita Rokotyan is a full-stack data visualization specialist with a background in atmospheric physics and creative technologies. He is the founder of Interacta, an award-winning team of scientists, designers, and engineers who develop beautiful and functional tools for working with data.

Nikita frequently incorporates AI and machine learning into his work. Among his recent creations are Cosmograph, the fastest web-based tool for visualizing AI embeddings and network graphs; Unovis, a popular data visualization library for the web; and Market Map, an experimental stock market visualization that won the Information is Beautiful Awards and was nominated for The Webby Awards.

More speakers and workshop leaders will be announced in the coming weeks.