Meet the Minds of vMed26
Explore the clinicians, researchers, founders, and digital health leaders presenting across the vMed stage. Tap any speaker to learn more about their work and session highlights.
The roster continues to grow — check back for newly confirmed voices. Use “See more” on any card to expand the full bio.
This is a partial roster while we finalize the full agenda. Additional speakers will be announced soon.
Founder & Executive Director | Neuroscape at UCSF
Adam Gazzaley, M.D., Ph.D. is the David Dolby Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry at UC San Francisco and the Founder & Executive Director of Neuroscape, a translational neuroscience center engaged in technology creation and scientific research of novel brain assessment and optimization…
Mayo Clinic - Arizona
Aimen Vanood obtained her bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from Arizona State University. She then completed medical school at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in Royal Oak, Michigan. She returned to Arizona for her neurology residency, which she completed at Mayo Clinic - Arizona. She…
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NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Brendan Keating is an Associate Professor in the Division of Transplantation, Department of Surgery, and The Institute of Systems Genetics, New York University (NYU) Langone Health, USA, with adjunct positions in University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He received his D.Phil.…
Cedars-Sinai
Brennan Spiegel, MD MSHS, is Director of Health Services Research at Cedars-Sinai, where he holds the George and Dorothy Gourrich Chair in Digital Health Ethics. He also leads the Master’s Degree Program in Health Systems Science and oversees the Center for Virtual Medicine and Health System Innovation, a…
Harris-Stowe State University
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Machine Learning Engineer | Cardiovascular Research Institute, Morehouse School of Medicine
Mr. Chad Evans is a Machine Learning Engineer at the Cardiovascular Research Institute, Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), where he builds mHealth interventions and AI/ML tools that advance digital epidemiology. He is co-founder and CTO of Health eLink, an AI-enabled telehealth company designed and optimized to bring…
Cedars-Sinai
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Daniel Kraft, MD is a Stanford and Harvard-trained physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, and innovator and is serving as the Chair of the XPRIZE Pandemic & Health Alliance. With over 25 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research and healthcare innovation, Kraft has served as faculty chair for…
Founder and Chief Medical Officer | AliveCor
David E. Albert, MD, an Oklahoma native, is a physician, inventor and serial entrepreneur who has developed life-saving technologies and products over the last 30 years, turning a number of those innovations into tech startups. Today, he is a founder of three technology companies, InnovAlarm, Lifetone Technology, and…
CCO & Co-Founder | AVRwell
Emily Daviss, PT, DPT, is Chief Clinical Officer and Co-Founder of AVRwell, an immersive rehabilitation company developing clinically driven extended reality (XR) applications that make therapy more engaging, effective, and accessible for patients and clinicians. Her team’s flagship product, AquaVision, supports…
University of Alberta
Dr. Ewen Lavoie is pursuing Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Residency training at the University of Alberta, having completed undergraduate medical training at the University of Calgary. He holds a PhD in Neuroscience and Kinesiology with research interests in limb embodiment, eye-hand coordination, prosthetics,…
Vice Chair for Research and Education in the Department of Computational Biomedicine | Cedars-Sinai
Dr. Graciela Gonzalez-Hernandez, PhD is Vice Chair for Research and Education in the Department of Computational Biomedicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she leads the Health Language Processing Lab. Her work centers on natural language processing and machine learning to extract meaningful insights from…
Hunter Hoffman, Ph.D. is the Director of the Virtual Reality Research Center at the Human Photonics Lab at the UW, and he is affiliate faculty in Psychology at the UW, and he is collaborating with the Univ. of Washington, Seattle, Dept of Anesthesiology and Pain Management. He is Faculty of a Harvard Medical School…
Director of Interventional Radiology | Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
Joseph Miller is Director of Interventional Radiology for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, as well as Chair of the Society of Interventional Radiology’s Coding Application and Guidance Workgroup. He has been incorporating virtual reality into his routine clinical practice as an alternative to anesthesia since 2024.
Co-Director of the Division of Informatics in the Department of Biomedical Sciences | Cedars-Sinai
Joshua Pevnick, MD, MSHS, is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine. He has a secondary Associate Professor appointment and serves as the Co-Director of the Division of Informatics in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Pevnick is also the Director of the Clinical…
Ochsner Neuroscience Institute
Dr. Korak Sarkar completed his undergraduate studies at The Johns Hopkins University. He attended medical school at University of California San Diego and went on to complete his Neurology training at University of California Davis. He is a board-certified neurologist who completed sub-specialty training at…
Cognitive Scientist and Founder, Mental Gravity | Federation University Australia
Dr. Lachlan Kent is an Australian researcher, communicator, and social innovator exploring how gravity shapes the body, the mind, and society itself. He is the creator of Mental Gravity and co-developer of Biogravitational Medicine with Professor Brennan Spiegel at Cedars-Sinai — a new framework linking physics,…
Lisa Gualtieri, PhD, ScM is course director for AI in Medicine in the Masters in Health Systems Science (MSHS) at Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University, where she also co-directs the capstone courses, facilitates the MSHS Digital Innovation and Technology Club, and is Deputy Director of Innovation for the MSHS…
Haipeng (Mark) Zhang DO, MMSc, FAMIA, is the Associate Chief Medical Information Officer of Digital Innovation and the Medical Director of the Digital Innovation Hub at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Associate Program Director of the Clinical Informatics and Innovation Fellowship at Mass General Brigham, Palliative…
HAN University of Applied Sciences
Maurice Magnée is Professor of Applied Sciences and head of the Technology for Health research group at HAN University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. Trained as a cognitive neuroscientist, he earned his PhD on sensory processing in autism at the University Medical Center Utrecht. His work focuses on…
Nasim Afsar, MD, MBA is a visionary healthcare executive dedicated to transforming health and care globally through innovative technologies, strategic partnerships, and scalable solutions. With deep expertise in operations, finance, digital transformation, and market strategy, she has consistently driven high-impact…
Neil S. Wenger is Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at the University of California, Los Angeles and a practicing general internist with an interest in patients with complex illness. He also leads the Advance Care Planning and Services initiative. At RAND, he is a…
Staff Intensivist | Nemours Children’s Health Delaware Valley
Dr Nicholas Kalbach completed his undergraduate education at Ramapo College of New Jersey, and subsequently obtained his Medical degree at Ross University School of Medicine. This was followed by a pediatric residency at Saint Peters University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ, followed by a pediatric critical care…
Medical Director Pediatric Critical Care Technology and Innovation | Nemours Children’s Health Delaware Valley
Dr. Slamon completed medical school in 2001 at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia PA. He then completed a residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at the Nemours/duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington Delaware. In addition he serves an Associate Professor of…
Co-Director, Virtual Medicine Lab | Cedars-Sinai
Omer Liran, MD, MSHS, is a physician-innovator and Assistant Professor at Cedars-Sinai, where he co-directs Virtual Medicine and provides expert care through the psychiatry consult and liaison service. With a deep background in programming and a passion for healthcare transformation, Dr. Liran explores how emerging…
Medical Director | Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Rehabilitation Program, University Health Network, Toronto
Dr. Paul Oh is Medical Director and GoodLife Fitness Chair in the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Rehabilitation Program at the University Health Network – Toronto Rehab and Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is also a Senior Scientist in The KITE…
Rafael is a Surgeon, Educator, Speaker, Patient Advocate, Healthcare Futurist, and Immigrant- originally from Caracas, Venezuela. After doing his surgery residency in Ann Arbor, MI, USA, he developed as a General, Trauma, Advanced Laparoscopic and Robotic surgeon and now practices in the USA. His passion focuses on…
University of Manitoba
Dr. Renée El-Gabalawy is a Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba in Canada, cross-appointed in Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, and Clinical Health Psychology. She is the Director of Research in Clinical Health Psychology and leads the Health, Anxiety, and Trauma…
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology | Editor-in-Chief, JMedXR | Weill Cornell Medicine
Rohan Jotwani, MD, MBA, is an academic anesthesiologist and pain medicine specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medical Extended Reality, the endowed Laitman Scholar in XR/AI, and Co-Director of the Extended Reality Anesthesiology Immersion Lab. His work explores XR-based…
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Cedars-Sinai
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Albert “Skip” Rizzo, PhD, is Director for Medical Virtual Reality and Associate Director for Medical VR at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, as well as a research professor in the USC Davis School of Gerontology and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.…
Vice-Dean and Chief AI Health Research Officer | Cedars-Sinai
Dr. Chugh is a clinical cardiac electrophysiologist and scientist. He serves as Vice-Dean and Chief AI Health Research Officer at Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles. He also serves as the Pauline and Harold Price Professor and Associate Director for Predictive Analytics at the Smidt Heart Institute. Dr. Chugh is the…
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
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Head of Health Communication and Behavior Unit Director, Immersive Simulation Program; | National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)
Dr. Susan Persky is an associate investigator and head of the Health Communication and Behavior Unit. She also directs the Immersive Simulation Program (ISP) within the Social and Behavioral Research Branch (SBRB) at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). She earned…
President and CEO Emeritus | Cedars-Sinai
Mr. Priselac is President and CEO Emeritus, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Health System. An advocate for improving quality and access in healthcare throughout his career, Mr. Priselac developed strategic and operational innovations to foster high-quality, safe and efficient care for patients. Under his…
Cedars-Sinai
Timothy J. Daskivich, MD, MSHPM, is a urologic oncologist in the Cedars-Sinai Urology Academic Program and the director of Health Services Research for the Cedars-Sinai Department of Surgery. His clinical practice includes surgical treatment of cancers of the prostate, kidney, bladder and testis, with a focus on…
HAN University of Applied Sciences
Dr. Tom van de Belt is a senior digital health researcher and advisor with a passion for empowering patients, professionals, and fellow researchers through innovative technology. He has led multiple international projects in eHealth, mHealth, and the use of social media in healthcare. At the Research Group Technology…
Cedars-Sinai
Virginia L Bartlett is a clinical ethics consultant, philosopher, teacher, scholar and writer. She serves as the Assistant Director for the Center for Healthcare Ethics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and is an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. She is the author of Elements of…
