Dr. Chris ChoGlueck is an Associate Professor of Ethics at New Mexico Tech who works at the intersection of science, values, and technology, especially regarding the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). His research on contraception and misinformation has been covered by the media including Scientific American, CNN, NPR, and PBS NewsHour. Dr. ChoGlueck serves as the Faculty Advisor for AI Ethics and Research Ethics at NMT, where he offers professional ethics courses for undergraduate and graduate programs, including Biomedical Sciences, Computer Science, Information Technology, Cybersecurity, and Public Engagement.

Girija is a licensed Electrical Engineer with a diverse background encompassing satellite systems, VoIP, switching, signal processing, and crucial safety-radio communications. Since 2011, she has been a pivotal Subject Matter Expert (SME) in the transportation industry, specializing in the integration of both wired and wireless systems for trackside and on-board applications. In 2015, Girija founded Forcing Function with a vision to leverage emerging technologies within the transportation sector. Serving as a Principal Investigator, she has secured multiple innovation grants and is currently in the process of bringing some of her engineered solutions to market. She currently serves as the Treasurer for the Potomac chapter of MDSPE, chair of NSPE's Emerging Technologies Committee, Chair of NSPE's AI workgroup and member of the SSI sub committee.

Mr. Valdez has served as the Executive Director of the New Mexico Board of Licensing for Professional Engineers and Professional Surveyors since 2004. He received his BS in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from New Mexico State University and an MBA from the Arizona State University.

The Board oversees and manages licensing for nearly 11,600 Professional Engineers and Professional Surveyors within the State of New Mexico. The Board is managed by a professional staff led by the Executive Director, and overseen by a board of professional and citizen volunteers appointed by the Governor.

Logan Moore holds a master’s degree in mechatronics from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, where his thesis focused on reinforcement learning for robotics. He has 12 research publications and has received awards and recognition from NASA, AIAA, and New Mexico Tech. At age 20, he co-founded Leviathan Laboratories, where he serves as CEO, developing innovative technologies to address complex problems and overlooked needs.

Alexis Artery has spent her career building things and building teams. For the past 8 years,

she’s been VP of Operations at Contrast, Inc., a company that designs and builds custom smart

camera systems. Before that, she spent 7 years as VP of Production at Eclipse Aerospace,

where she started up and led the manufacturing team that built twin-engine private jets from the

ground up.

Alexis holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from New Mexico State University, an SM in

Aeronautics/Astronautics and a PhD in Engineering Systems from MIT. Over the course of her

career, she’s led teams across engineering, operations, program management, manufacturing,

quality, supply chain, and strategic planning. She earned her Professional Engineer license in

Industrial and Systems Engineering in 2019 and added her NICET Systems Software Integrator

(SSI) certification in 2026. She’s a big-picture thinker who loves digging into complicated, messy

problems and helping organizations work better.

Nathan Walker is Director of Sales, West, at VODA.ai. He has spent 20 years working with AI and predictive analytics solutions, helping people make decisions with data. His work focuses on helping water utilities understand infrastructure risk and guide maintenance and capital planning. He brings a practical perspective on where AI can help and why human judgment and verification remain important.

Liang Zhang is a professor of the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Arizona. Prior to joining the University of Arizona, Liang was a research scientist at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) where he led and worked on high-profile U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) projects related to large-scale building energy modeling, artificial intelligence in buildings, smart and connected communities and fault detection and diagnostics. Before joining NREL, he received his PhD in architectural engineering at Drexel University. In the dissertation, he developed a novel artificial intelligence-enhanced building energy forecasting modeling framework for transactive load control in grid-interactive efficient buildings.

Zhang's research is broadly focused in the area of computing and modeling for smart buildings and cities to promote building energy efficiency, sustainability, and decarbonization. More specifically, his research has emphasized the following topics: grid-interactive efficient building, machine learning control in buildings, and fault detection and diagnostics in buildings, smart and connected communities, and building energy modeling (building, community and urban scale)