Keynote Speakers

A senior researcher and research software engineer widely recognized for his contributions to reproducible and accessible bioinformatics. He has been a central contributor to the Galaxy Project for many years, shaping its technical architecture, tooling ecosystem, and sustainability practices. His work spans workflow standardization, containerization, research data management, and training, with a strong commitment to open science and FAIR principles. Through close collaboration with international research infrastructures and scientific communities, he continues to bridge the gap between advanced computing technologies and the practical needs of researchers.

Prof. Saif Khairat is the Beerstecher-Blackwell Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directs the national NIH-funded Center for Virtual Care Value and Excellence (ViVE). A recognized thought leader in digital health, his research bridges computer science, public health, and clinical practice to reimagine the patient-clinician interface. He translates this work into global policy as a World Health Organization (WHO) advisor on digital solutions for non-communicable diseases. Dr. Khairat's research, supported by over $7.5 million in funding and documented in over 120 scholarly publications, is fundamentally driven by a mission to create a more equitable, efficient, and safe healthcare system. He is an elected Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (FACMI), a distinguished honor recognizing his significant contributions to the field. Dr. Khairat holds a PhD in Health Informatics, an MPH from UNC-Chapel Hill, and bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science.

Dr. Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, LSU CSE Division Chair, Roger Richardson Professor. Chair of the Division of Computer Science and Engineering and Roger Richardson Professor at LSU. He is the founder of the BiT Lab and has published extensively in the domain of digital forensics and cybersecurity. Dr. Baggili has won numerous awards, including the CT Civil Medal of Merit, the Medal of Thor from the Military Cyber Professional Association, CT 40 under 40, and is a fellow of the European Alliance for Innovation. Previously he was the director of the Connecticut Institute of Technology and Elder Family Endowed Chair of Computer Science and Cybersecurity at the Tagliatela College of Engineering at the University of New Haven. He received his BSc, MSc and PhD all from Purdue University, where he worked as a researcher in CERIAS. Dr. Baggili’s work with his students has uncovered vulnerabilities that impact over a billion people worldwide and has been featured in news and TV outlets in over 20 languages. He has also published extensively in the domain of digital forensics.

Abdulrahman Azab is a Senior Advisor at Sigma2 AS, providing Norwegian research infrastructure services (NRIS), and also serves as a Senior Advisor in the management team of the Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration (NeIC). Azab has a long history in managing Nordic e-Infrastructure projects. He has previously acted as the Project Manager of the Nordic Pandemic e-Infrastructure project (PaRI) and the sensitive data services projects (Tryggve). Abdulrahman is currently a technical coordinator with NeIC’s Sensitive Data Forum and Expert Network for Nordic and EU Collaboration, a community coordinator for NeIC’s FAIR Data Forum, and is a steering board chair as well as activity lead in NeIC’s Nordic WLCG tier-1 facility. Abdulrahman is a member of the EuroHPC LUMI user support team and is the coordinator of the EuroHPC containers forum. He teaches graduate-level HPC Bioinformatics courses at the University of Oslo and conducts research in HPC, High Throughput Computing, High Availability Computing, Cloud Computing, Machine/Deep Learning, Cybersecurity, and Bioinformatics.

Director of NeIC, and is employed at CSC - IT Center for Science Ltd. in Espoo, Finland. Malkiewicz is employed at CSC - IT Center for Science in Finland, has worked for CSC in managerial and specialist positions since 2011, and is a member of the Management Group since 2016. In 2025, he was appointed as the Director of NeIC - Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration. Malkiewicz has worked with NeIC as executive manager and been a part of the executive team since January 2017. Throughout the years, he has acted as project owner for several projects, Puhuri, CodeRefinery and NordIQuEst being the most recent ones. Malkiewicz holds a PhD in nuclear physics from University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Before joining CSC, he had worked as a CNRS postdoctoral researcher at the LPSC Grenoble, France.

Dr. Biswan Senapati is a Platinum-level ERP-SAP Consultant with 20+ years of industry experience in domain consulting, business consulting, and solution architecture for large-scale ERP systems design, development, implementation, rollout, support, and business process re-engineering capacity in supply chain, chemicals, hi-tech, CPG, pharmaceuticals, wholesale, fashion retail, health care, and manufacturing domains.