CITE Annual Conference
2025 Keynote & Featured Speakers
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Keynote Speakers
DR. JOY BUOLAMWINI
Dr. Joy Buolamwini is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, a groundbreaking MIT researcher, a model, and an artist. She is the author of the National Bestseller Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines and advises world leaders on preventing AI harm. Her research on facial recognition technologies transformed the field of AI auditing. Her TED talk on algorithmic bias has been viewed over 1.7 million times. Her TED AI talk on protecting human rights in an age of AI transforms the boundaries of TED talks.
Dr. Joy lends her expertise to congressional hearings and government agencies seeking to enact equitable and accountable AI policy. As the Poet of Code, she creates art to illuminate the impact of AI on society. Her writing and work have been featured in publications like TIME, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Rolling Stone and The Atlantic. Her work as a spokesmodel has been featured in Vogue, Allure, Harper’s Bazaar, and People Magazine. She is the protagonist of the Emmy-nominated documentary Coded Bias which is available to over 100 million viewers.
Dr. Joy was featured on Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead Podcast to discuss fighting bias in algorithms, Gender Shades – the accuracy of AI-powered gender classification products, and her perspective on technology as a poet, artist, and scientist.
Dr. Joy is the first Black researcher to grace the cover of Fast Company appearing in the 2020 “Most Creative People” issue and has been named to notable lists including Forbes 30 under 30, Bloomberg 50, Time 100 AI Inaugural list, and MIT Tech Review 35 under 35. She is the recipient of notable awards including the Rhodes Scholarship, the Fulbright Fellowship, the inaugural Morals and Machines Prize, and the Technological Innovation Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. She was selected as a 2022 Young Global Leader, one of the world’s most promising leaders under the age of 40 as determined by The World Economic Forum. Fortune named her the “conscience of the AI revolution.” Dr. Joy earned her Ph.D. from MIT and was awarded honorary degrees from Dartmouth and Knox College. She enjoys drawing and drumming in her free time.
Dr. JOSÉ M. HERNÁNDEZ
NASA engineer Jose Hernandez wanted to fly in space ever since he heard that the first Hispanic-American had been chosen to travel into space. "I was hoeing a row of sugar beets in a field near Stockton, Calif., and I heard on my transistor radio that Franklin Chang-Diaz had been selected for the Astronaut Corps," says Hernandez, who was a senior in high school at the time. "I was already interested in science and engineering," Hernandez remembers, "but that was the moment I said, 'I want to fly in space.' And that's something I've been striving for each day since then." And now that hard work has paid off. He was selected to begin training as a mission specialist as part of the 2004 astronaut candidate class.
One of four children in a migrant farming family from Mexico, Hernandez -- who didn't learn English until he was 12 years old -- spent much of his childhood on what he calls "the California circuit," traveling with his family from Mexico to southern California each March, then working northward to the Stockton area by November, picking strawberries and cucumbers at farms along the route. Then they would return to Mexico for Christmas, and start the cycle all over again come spring.
"Some kids might think it would be fun to travel like that," Hernandez laughs, "but we had to work. It wasn't a vacation."
After graduating high school in Stockton, Hernandez enrolled at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, where he earned a degree in electrical engineering and was awarded a full scholarship to the graduate program at the University of California in Santa Barbara, where he continued his engineering studies. In 1987, he accepted a full-time job with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where he had worked as a co-op in college.
While at Lawrence Livermore, Hernandez worked on signal and image processing applications in radar imaging, computed tomography, and acoustic imaging. Later in his career, Hernandez worked on developing quantitative x-ray film imaging analysis techniques for the x-ray laser program. Hernandez applied these techniques in the medical physics arena and co-developed the first full-field digital mammography imaging system. This system has proven useful for detecting breast cancer at an earlier stage than present film/screen mammography techniques. Hernandez has won recognition awards for his work on this project. He has also worked in the international arena where he represented Lawrence Livermore and the U.S. Department of Energy on Russian nuclear non-proliferation issues.
During the astronaut application process, Hernandez had to meet with a review board. That's where he came face-to-face with his original inspiration: Franklin Chang-Diaz.
"It was a strange place to find myself, being evaluated by the person who gave me the motivation to get there in the first place," Hernandez says. "But I found that we actually had common experiences -- a similar upbringing, the same language issues. That built up my confidence. Any barriers that existed, he had already hurdled them."
Hernandez smiles. "Now it's my turn!"