2027 Annual Conference Speakers

Michal Lipson, Ph.D., pioneered critical building blocks in the field of Silicon Photonics, which today is recognized as one of the most promising directions for solving the major bottlenecks in microelectronics. She is the inventor of over 45 issued patents and has co-authored more than 300 scientific publications, and is the Co-Founder of the silicon photonics for AI startup Xscape Photonics. In recognition of her work in silicon photonics, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her numerous awards include the NAS Comstock Prize in Physics, the MacArthur Fellowship, the Blavatnik Award, Optica’s R. W. Wood Prize, the John Tyndall Award, the IEEE Photonics Award, and an honorary degree from Trinity College, University of Dublin. She was elected the President of Optica in 2023, formerly known as The Optical Society. Since 2014, every year she has been named by Thomson Reuters as a top 1% highly cited researcher in the field of Physics.

Jagat Narula, M.D., Ph.D., completed medical school at SMS Medical College in Jaipur, India, followed by a cardiology fellowship and a Ph.D. in Cardiovascular Immunology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi. In 1989, he relocated to Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he completed a fellowship in cardiology, and advanced fellowships in heart failure and transplantation, and cardiovascular imaging, subsequently serving on the Massachusetts General Hospital cardiology faculty.

Dr. Narula, in 1997, moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he served as the Chief of Cardiology, Vice Chairman for Research in the Department of Medicine, Director of the Center for Heart Transplantation, and Director of Cardiovascular Research at Hahnemann University School of Medicine. In 2003, he was recruited to serve as Chief of Cardiology, Director of the Heart Center at Douglas Hospital, Associate Dean for Research at the University of California–Irvine School of Medicine, and Medical Director of the Edwards Lifesciences Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Research and Technology at the University of California–Irvine Samueli School of Engineering.

From 2011 to 2022, Dr. Narula held the Philip J. and Harriet L. Goodhart Professorship of Medicine at the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He also held professorial appointments in Diagnostic, Molecular and Interventional Radiology, Artificial Intelligence and Human Health, Population Health Science and Policy, and Health System Design and Global Health. During this period, he served as Chief of the Division of Cardiology at Mount Sinai Morningside, Director of Cardiovascular Imaging for the Mount Sinai Health System, and Associate Dean for Global Health.

In January 2023, Dr. Narula was recruited to The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston) as the K. Lance Gould Distinguished University Chair in Coronary Pathophysiology, Distinguished University Chair of Cardiovascular Health, Executive Vice President, and Chief Academic Officer.

Dr. Narula currently serves as President of the World Heart Federation (WHF) (2025–2026), having previously served as President-Elect (2023–2024) and Vice President (2021–2022). He also served a three-year term as Trustee of the American College of Cardiology (ACC). He served as an advisor to the National Academy of Medicine (2009–2011), providing recommendations for the Promotion of Cardiovascular Health in Low– and Middle–Income Countries, in the group chaired by Dr. Fuster; the recommendations were presented at the First United Nations High-Level meeting (2011) that addressed the non-communicable diseases. He presented to the UN General Assembly on behalf of WHF during the Fourth High-Level Meeting in September 2025.

Yubin Zhou, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor, Chancellor EDGES Fellow, Presidential Impact Fellow, and Director of the Center for Translational Cancer Research at the Texas A&M University Institute of Biosciences and Technology. He also holds faculty appointments in Translational Medical Sciences, Medical Physiology, and the School of Engineering Medicine at Texas A&M. His research focuses on developing technologies to understand, engineer, and control biological systems, with particular interests in programmable biology, synthetic immunology, AI-enabled protein engineering, and translational cancer research. His laboratory has developed optogenetic, chemogenetic, and protein-engineering technologies for precise control of cellular signaling and immune function, with applications ranging from mechanistic discovery to next-generation cell and gene therapies. Zhou has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and has been recognized among Stanford University’s World’s Most-Cited Scientists. His research has generated more than a dozen patent applications, multiple technology licensing agreements, and contributions to clinical-stage therapeutic programs. His honors include the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Translational Research Program Award, the National Cancer Institute Innovative Research in Cancer Nanotechnology Award, and Texas A&M research excellence awards. He is an elected fellow or member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).