Progress, Potential, and Possibilities Podcast / Show

Send us Fan Mail Captain (Ret) Dr. Roger Herbert, Ph.D. is the Robert T. Herres Distinguished Military Professor of Ethics at the United States Naval Academy. A 1983 graduate of Davidson College, Captain Herbert holds a Master of Arts in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School (1992), a Master of Science in National Security Studies from the National War College (2005), and a Ph.D. in International Relations and Political Theory from the University of Virginia (2016). Captain Herbert received his commission through Officer Candidate School in 1984. He graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) Class 131 in 1985 and reported to SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team TWO (a SEAL team that specializes in undersea operations) for his first operational assignment in Naval Special Warfare. His operational tours include SEAL Platoon Commander assignments at SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team TWO, SEAL Team EIGHT, and the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. He served as Operations Officer of SEAL Team EIGHT, Executive Officer of SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team TWO, and Naval Special Warfare Task Unit Commander at SEAL Team TWO. Captain Herbert was privileged to serve as Commanding Officer of SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team TWO, Naval Special Warfare Unit THREE (Naval Special Warfare’s forward command in the Middle East), and the Naval Special Warfare Center (Naval Special Warfare’s training command). Shore Assignments include Executive Assistant to Deputy Commander, United States Naval Forces Europe, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director for Information Operations, the Joint Staff, and United States Special Operations Command’s liaison to the United States Coast Guard. Captain Herbert is also a backpacking instructor for National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and, prior to joining the Naval Academy faculty, served as Head of School for The Outdoor Academy, a semester school for high-achieving teens that focuses on character education, experiential learning, and leadership development. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Patrick D. Bangert, is Vice President of AI, and heads the AI Engineering and AI Sciences teams, at Samsung SDS. Samsung SDS is a subsidiary of the Samsung Group, which provides information technology (IT) services, and are active in research and development of emerging IT technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, Internet of things (IoT) and Engineering Outsourcing. Dr. Bangert is responsible for the Brightics AI Accelerator, a distributed ML training and automated ML product, and for X.insights, a data center intelligence platform. Among his other responsibilities, Dr. Bangert acts as a visionary for the future of AI at Samsung. Before joining Samsung, Dr. Bangert spent 15 years as CEO at Algorithmica Technologies, a machine learning software company serving the chemicals and oil and gas industries. Prior to that, he was assistant professor of applied mathematics at Jacobs University in Germany, as well as a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dr. Bangert obtained his machine learning PhD in mathematics and his Masters in theoretical physics from University College London. A German native, Dr. Bangert grew up in Malaysia and the Philippines, and later lived in the UK, Austria, Nepal and USA. He has done business in many countries and believes that AI must serve humanity beyond mere automation of routine tasks. Dr. Bangert is also an accomplished author, having written two books including - Machine Learning and Data Science in the Oil and Gas Industry: Best Practices, Tools, and Case Studies and Optimization for Industrial Problems Dr. Bangert also attended the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies where he achieved a Master of Tibetan Psychology and Philosophy. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Disclaimer - COL Dr. Barnes’ remarks are personal views and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense, the United States Army, the United States Military Academy, or any other department or agency of the United States Government. COL Dr. David Barnes is Professor, United States Military Academy (USMA) and Deputy Head of the Department of English and Philosophy, West Point, NY. COL Dr. Barnes concurrently serves as the Chief AI Ethics Officer for the US Army’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Task Force, advising the Army on incorporating ethics, law, and policy into Army AI design, development, testing, and employment, and in this capacity has provided assistance to the Joint AI Center (JAIC), Defense Innovation Board (DIB), National Security Commission on AI, OSD Autonomy Community of Interest, and others. COL Dr. Barnes' research interests include normative and applied ethics, especially the ethics of war and the ethics of emerging technology. He is a DARPA Senior AI Ethics Advisor, a Senior Advisor for the JAIC Responsible AI Subcommittee, and a Research Fellow at the Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace. COL Dr. Barnes is a member of the Editorial Boards for AI and Ethics and the Journal of Military Ethics, and he serves on the Board of Directors for the International Society for Military Ethics (ISME). COL Dr. Barnes is the author of The Ethics of Military Privatization: The US Armed Contractor Phenomenon. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Hassan A. Tetteh, MD, is the Health Mission Chief, at the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, serving to advance the objectives of the DoD AI Strategy, and improve war fighter healthcare and readiness with artificial intelligence implementations. Dr. Tetteh is also an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, adjunct faculty at Howard University College of Medicine, a Thoracic Staff Surgeon for MedStar Health and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and leads a Specialized Thoracic Adapted Recovery (STAR) Team, in Washington, DC, where his research in thoracic transplantation aims to expand heart and lung recovery and save lives. In the past, Dr. Tetteh has served as Chief Medical Informatics Officer, United States Navy, and Division Lead for Futures and Innovation at Navy Medicine’s Headquarters, a Command Surgeon for the National Defense University, and as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, assigned to the U.S. Congress, Congressional Budget Office, (CBO). Dr. Tetteh served as Ship’s Surgeon and Director of Surgical Services for the USS Carl Vinson, deployed as a trauma surgeon to Afghanistan’s Helmand and Nimroz provinces, and has supported special joint forces missions to South America, the Middle East, the South Pacific, Australia, and Africa. He earned both the Surface Warfare Medical Department Officer and Fleet Marine Force Qualified Officer designations, and his military honors include two Meritorious Service Medals and the Joint Service Commendation Medal. Dr. Tetteh is also an accomplished author, including the novel “Gifts of the Heart”, "Star Patrol" (co-authored with his son Edmund Tetteh), as well as “The Art of Human Care” and "The Art of Human Care for COVID-19" (illustrated by his daughter Ella Bleue), and has published numerous articles on surgical innovation, health information technology, ethics, wounded warriors, and process improvement. He also serves on the board of directors for the Brooklyn, New York based Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, Fayetteville, Arkansas based Champions for Kids, and Miriam’s Kitchen, a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit that works to end chronic homelessness. Dr. Tetteh received his B.S. from State University of New York (SUNY), his M.D. from SUNY Downstate Medical Center, his M.P.A. from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, M.B.A. from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, and M.S. in National Security Strategy with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence from the National War College. He completed his thoracic surgery fellowship at the University of Minnesota and advanced cardiac surgery fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Tetteh is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management, board certified in thoracic surgery, general surgery, clinical informatics, and healthcare management, and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Support the show

Send us Fan MailEvery year, 800,000 babies are born extremely preterm (defined as less than 28 weeks of age) worldwide. These infants are usually transferred to an air-based neonatal intensive care unit to support their heart and lung development. Exposure to air, however, leads to many complications, because the lungs are not fully developed yet. An artificial uterus, or artificial womb, is a device that would allow for extra-corporeal pregnancy, by supporting the growth of a fetus outside the body of an organism that would normally carry the fetus to term. Juno Perinatal Healthcare (https://www.junoperinatalhealthcare.com/​) is a fascinating Dutch neonatal healthcare start-up which has a mission of developing a novel, alternative environment, similar to the mother’s womb, where extremely premature babies could be transferred, where the lungs remain filled with fluid and the umbilical cord will be attached to an artificial placenta to improve their organ development and ease the transition to newborn life. Juno Perinatal Healthcare is a companion project to a interdisciplinary consortium known as the Perinatal Life Support (PLS) Project (https://perinatallifesupport.eu/​), a consortium of three European universities, Aachen, Milan and Eindhoven, to establish the first ex-vivo fetal maturation system for clinical use. The PLS project, coordinated by the Eindhoven University of Technology brings together world-leading experts in obstetrics, neonatology, industrial design, mathematical modelling, ex-vivo organ support, and non-invasive fetal monitoring. The PLS consortium is led by professor Frans van de Vosse and Professor Dr Guid Oei. In 2020, the spin off Juno Perinatal Healthcare was set up by engineers Jasmijn Kok and Lyla Kok. Ms. Jasmijn Kok, our guest on today's show, is the founder of Nanny Nina International, an online nanny service in 24 cities operating in the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium. She has a degree in architectural engineering from TU Delft.Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Shawna Pandya MD, is a scientist-astronaut candidate with Project PoSSUM, physician, aquanaut, speaker, martial artist, advanced diver, skydiver, and pilot-in-training. Dr. Pandya is also the VP of Immersive Medicine with the virtual reality healthcare company, Luxsonic Technologies, Director of the International Institute of Astronautical Sciences (IIAS)/PoSSUM Space Medicine Group, Chief Instructor of the IIAS/PoSSUM Operational Space Medicine course, Director of Medical Research at Orbital Assembly Construction (a company building the world's first rotating space station providing the first artificial gravity habitat), clinical lecturer at the University of Alberta, podcast host with the World Extreme Medicine’s WEMCast series, Primary Investigator (PI) for the Shad Canada-Blue Origin student micro-gravity competition, member of the ASCEND 2021 Guiding Coalition, Life Sciences Team Lead for the Association of Spaceflight Professionals, sesional lecturer for the “Technology and the Future of Medicine,” course at the University of Alberta, and Fellow of the Explorers’ Club. Dr. Pandya also serves as medical advisor to several space, medical and technology companies, including Mission: Space Food, Gennesys and Aquanauta, as well as the Jasper Dark Sky Festival Advisory Committee. Dr. Pandya holds a Bsc degree in neuroscience from University of Alberta, a MSc in Space Studies from International Space University, an MD from University of Alberta, and a certification in entrepreneurship from the Graduate Studies Program at Singularity University. Dr. Pandya is currently completing a fellowship in Wilderness Medicine (Academy of Wilderness Medicine), was granted an Honorary Fellowship in Extreme and Wilderness Medicine by the World Extreme Medicine organization in 2021, and was one of 50 physicians selected to attend the 2021 European Space Agency Space Medicine Physician Training Course. Dr. Pandya was named one of the Women’s Executive Network’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada in 2021, and a Canadian Space Agency Space Ambassador in 2021. Dr. Pandya was part of the first crew to test a commercial spacesuit in zero-gravity in 2015. Dr. Pandya earned her aquanaut designation during the 2019 NEPTUNE (Nautical Experiments in Physiology, Technology and Underwater Exploration) mission. She previously served as Commander during a 2020 tour at the Mars Desert Research Station. Her expeditions were captured in the Land Rover short, released with the Apollo 11: First Steps film. She previously interned at ESA’s European Astronaut Center and NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Dr. Pandya's publications include book chapters on space spin-offs for medical benefit, psychological resilience in long-duration spaceflight, and reproduction and sexuality in long-duration spaceflight. In 2019, Dr. Pandya’s career and trajectory were captured at the Ontario Science Center’s “Canadian Women in Space,” exhibit, where Dr. Pandya is permanently exhibited alongside Dr. Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian woman in space (and Dr. Pandya’s idol growing up). Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Lee Chae, Ph.D., is a Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Brightseed, a novel life sciences company, merging the tools of plant biology and artificial intelligence, with a goal of enabling a healthier future by re-illuminating and re-activating the connections between people and plants. Dr. Chae is a seasoned R&D technology developer and has designed advanced discovery methodologies for food technology, agricultural biotech, bio-medicine, and synthetic biology. He has been a principal scientist of multiple discoveries, including machine-learning driven discovery of novel nutritional bio-actives in plants and computationally guided identification of plant-based proteins for food. With as Ph.D in Plant Biology, Computational and Genomic Biology, from University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Chae was also a founding member of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute, and did Post-Doctoral Research at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford. Prior to Brightseed, Dr. Chae served as the VP of R&D at Hampton Creek, a company developing and marketing plant-based alternatives to conventionally-produced food products. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Prof Dr. Raheel Qamar, is a Tenured Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Former Rector at the Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS University - Islamabad), an international organization aiming to reduce the growing gap between the developed and developing world through useful applications of science and technology. Prof. Qamar is also the current Head of the Directorate of Science and Technology, of The Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO - Rabat, Morocco), which is an international non-profit organization emanating from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, specializing in the fields of education, science and culture. The Directorate of Science and Technology focuses on overcoming the challenges of the Islamic world, by promoting the adoption of modern technologies, acquisition or improvement of competences in new technologies at all levels, use of new tools and methods for knowledge based development and growth, fostering technology based economy, bridging the gender gap in science and technology, promoting sustainable natural resource management and environmental governance, and strengthening the resilience and preparedness for the natural disasters and climate change impacts. The Directorate engages national and international partners from academic communities, scientific institutions, governments, international organizations, national policy making bodies and civil society to address these challenges, and strengthen the solidarity among stakeholders by developing strong networks for engagement, collaboration and interaction to share expertise, techniques and tools. Prof. Qamar's research specialization includes Enzymology, Population & Molecular Genetics and Molecular Pathology, and is particularly interested in searching for the molecular basis of all forms of inherited diseases in the Pakistani populations. After obtaining an M.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Peshawar, Prof. Qamar worked as a Scientific Officer at the National Institute of Health, Islamabad, Pakistan. He then proceeded to the USA to work on his Ph.D. in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, University of North Texas, as well as a Research Associate at the Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, Fort Worth. Before joining COMSATS, Prof. Qamar served at Dr. A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories as a Senior and Principal Scientific Officer, worked for a while with Dr. Chris Tyler-Smith at the Department of Biochemistry, at Oxford, and as Research Director of Shifa College of Medicine. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Progress, Potential, And Possibilities has the honor of being joined today by Emmy Award winning Television Commentator, Radio Personality, and Newspaper Columnist, Mr. Juan Williams. Mr. Williams has been a Fox News Contributor since 1997 (including being a member of the nightly, current issue discussion show known as The Five), writes for several newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and has been published in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly and Time. Mr. Williams was a senior news analyst for National Public Radio for 11 years and was at The Washington Post for 23 years, working as an editorial writer, op-ed columnist, White House correspondent and national correspondent. Mr. Williams is an accomplished author with multiple books including Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, and We the People: The Modern-Day Figures Who Have Reshaped and Affirmed the Founding Fathers' Vision of America. Mr. Williams has been active on his Alma matter’s (Haverford College) Board of Managers, in the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, in the Washington Journalism Center, and sits on the Board of Directors of the New York Civil Rights Coalition. Mr. Williams also serves as a Strategic Advisor to Generations United, an organization with a mission to improve the lives of children, youth, and older people through inter-generational collaboration, public policies, and programs. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Suzan Murray, D.V.M., D.A.C.Z.M. is a board-certified zoo veterinarian at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and serves as both the Program Director of the Global Health Program and as SCBI’s chief wildlife veterinary medical officer. Dr. Murray leads an interdisciplinary team engaged in worldwide efforts to address health issues in endangered wildlife and combat emerging infectious diseases of global significance, including zoonotic diseases. Dr. Murray also acts as the Smithsonian liaison to the Foreign Animal Disease Threat and Pandemic Preparedness subcommittees of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology. Dr. Murray’s work focuses on providing clinical care to free-ranging wildlife, pathogen detection, advanced diagnostics, training of international veterinarians and other health professionals, capacity building, and collaboration in infectious disease research at the human-wildlife-domestic animal interface. She previously served as chief veterinarian for the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and has a wealth of clinical knowledge and experience with wildlife and zoo animals both free-ranging and in human care. Dr. Murray earned a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, completed her veterinary degree from Tufts University, and after a surgical internship, she completed a residency in zoological medicine at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and became a Diplomate of the American College of Zoological Medicine (DACZM) in 2000. Dr. Murray has been either the principle investigator or co-principle investigator on several research grants including Morris Animal Foundation, Smithsonian Endowment, Smithsonian Women’s Committee, and James Bond Funds. Support the show