Nitesh Chawla is the Frank Freimann Collegiate Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. He received his PhD in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of South Florida.
Dr. Chawla is also the Director of Data Inference Analysis and Learning Lab (DIAL), and Director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Network Science and Applications (iCeNSA). His research is focused on machine learning, data mining, and network science. He is at the frontier of interdisciplinary applications with innovative work in healthcare informatics, social networks, analytics, and climate/environmental sciences. He is the recipient of multiple awards for research and teaching innovation including outstanding teacher awards (2007 and 2010), the National Academy of Engineers New Faculty Fellowship, and a number of best paper awards and nominations. He was the chair of the IEEE CIS Data Mining Technical Committee from 2010-2012. Chawla is also a recipient of the IBM Watson Solutions Faculty Award, which recognizes individuals who are on the cusp of the next big trend in computing — big data and analytics — and are introducing that information to their students via innovative curricula.
For more information about Dr. Chawla’s research and awards, see here and here.
Mark McKenna is a Professor of Law and a Notre Dame Presidential Fellow in the Law School and a Fellow in the Notre Dame Program on Law & Market Behavior. Professor McKenna teaches and writes in the area of intellectual property, and he is widely recognized as a leading scholar in the trademark area, having published a number of articles in leading law journals on the topic of trademark law. He has also written about copyright law, the right of publicity, and the intersection of intellectual property rights regimes. His current projects deal with defensive doctrines in trademark law and the relationship between design protection and competition. He is also the co-author of The Law of Intellectual Property (2011).
Prior to joining the faculty, McKenna was a member of the faculty at Saint Louis University School of Law and practiced law with an intellectual property firm in Chicago, where he primarily litigated trademark and copyright cases. He received his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.
He has given interviews to various popular news outlets such as Wired, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. In 2012, he wrote an opinion piece on the Protect IP Act (“PIPA”) and Stop Online Piracy Act ("SOPA") for Slate.com.
Robin Darling Young is an Associate Professor of Theology in the College of Arts & Letters. She received her PhD in the History of Christianity from the University of Chicago and has served on boards and program committees for the American Society of Church History, the Syriac Studies Symposium, the American Catholic Historical Association, and the American Academy of Religion, and has consulted for the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is a member of the Eastern Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation, and the Oriental Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation. Her chief interests lie in the languages and cultures of the ancient Christian East. She is the co-editor of Reading Religions in the Ancient World (2007) and To Train His Soul in Books: Syriac Asceticism in Early Christianity (2011).
Dr. Young is also the principle organizer (along with Reilly Fellows Ani Aprahamian and Jessica Hellmann) of the upcoming "Climate Change and the Common Good: Security, Sustainability, Policy" conference, which will be held on the Notre Dame campus from April 8-10, 2013. Dr. Young has led the organizing committee that will bring together scientists, ethicists, policy experts, and national security experts to approach the complexities of climate disruption in a meaningful and productive way.