Organizers

GMU Center for Biomedical Science and Policy

Center for Biomedical Science and Policy

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Principal Investigator/Organizer

Hadi El-Amine, PhD.

Associate Professor, Systems Engineering and Operations Research, George Mason University

Co-organizer

Naoru Koizumi, PhD.

Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University

Contributors

Special thanks to the following individuals who carried out some critical work for the conference as well as contributing to this report.

Co-Authors: Naoru Koizumi (George Mason University), Meng-Hao Li (George Mason University), 

Graduate Research Assistant: 

Logistic Support: Sarah Supsiri (George Mason University)

Student Support (in alphabetical order)

PhD Students 

Patrick Baker, Judith Rakowski, Rio Schondelmeyer, Jiaxin Wei, Elle Xu

Undergraduate Students (in alphabetical order)

Gabriel Yossick

High-school Students (in alphabetical order)

Hannah Lin, Lavanya Mahajan, Sean Pham, Abhinav Potluri

Organizers and Support Staff

The conference was primarily designed, planned and administered by the PIs of the conference grant (Award#: NSF-2247286, Hadi El-Amine and Naoru Koizumi) in close coordination with NSF/ENG (PD: Dr. Georgia-Ann Klutke). Koizumi and El-Amine collaborated to identify and invite relevant law enforcement practitioners at federal agencies, NGOs and public and private institutions worldwide (Koizumi) and academic researchers (El-Amine). 

In addition, three major support members worked on the conference preparation and implementation. A graduate level research assistant (GRA, Yang Yu) at the Schar School of Policy and Government at GMU was hired for a semester under the award. The GRA performed a wide range of administrative tasks including logistics communications with participants, facility (classrooms) and equipment (screens, computers, projectors, cameras, podium, etc.) reservations and arrangements, tracking and updating the list/number of participants and preparing and distribution conference handouts and other materials. Additional administrative support (setting up and sending out EventBrite, budget reconciliations, preparation of name tags and photocopies, etc.) was provided by the financial and administrative specialist (Kerry Riddle) at the Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis Center (CINA), a DHS Center of Excellence at GMU. Further logistics support (catering and reception arrangements, travel and lodging arrangements for the remote participants, parking arrangement, travel reimbursement, etc.) was provided by an independent consultant/conference coordinator (Sarah Bradley) hired under the grant.

On the day of, volunteer students (6 PhD and 13 undergraduate students) assisted participants with logistics and other issues (connecting to internet, etc.) as well as navigating through the main conference room, breakout sessions, and luncheons. These students also took notes at each session and subsequently contributed to the writing of this report. This task took a nested mentoring model where a few undergraduate students were assigned to a PhD student who trained the assigned undergraduate students at a guidance session prior to the conference. During the conference, a team consisting of 1 PhD and 2-3 undergraduate students took notes at each session. These notes were consolidated and sent to the session rapporteur/moderator who used the note as an input to the wrap-up session summary. Where session rapporteurs/moderators were absent at the wrap-up session, the respective PhD student provided the summary on behalf of the rapporteur at the wrap-up session. The 6 PhD students were also responsible for videography and photography during the conference. 

Co-sponsors and Collaborators

The PI collaborated with several GMU research centers to gain publicity and disseminate the conference outputs. The following co-sponsors and collaborators in GMU contributed to the organization of the conference.