Keynote Speakers and Moderators

Aleksandra Lazić is PhD researcher in psychology at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Philosophy in Serbia. She earned her B.A. and M.A. in psychology from the same institution. Her research explores how social context shapes health decisions and its implications for policy and public communication. She co-founded and manages REPOPSI – the Repository of Psychological Instruments in Serbian – established at the LIRA Lab in 2020 to promote open research data sharing. In 2022–2023, she led an EOSC Future and Research Data Alliance-funded project to enhance REPOPSI. Aleksandra has been an Executive Committee member at ABRIR (Advancing Big-team Reproducible Science through Increased Representation) and a Coordinator at the OSCS (Open Science Community Serbia) since 2023. Aleksandra has also been an active member of the Research Data Alliance since 2020, currently as part of the RDA Ambassadors Coordination Group. In 2024, she received the ‘Sarah Jones Award for exceptional contribution to fostering collaboration in Open Science’.

Dr. Shalini Kurapati is a Global RDA Community Development Specialist (adjunct) and the co-founder of Clearbox AI, a data-centric AI company. With a deep focus on the intersection of technology, society, and policy, she specialises in transparency, privacy, and fairness across data life cycles and algorithms. As an entrepreneur, researcher, trainer, and speaker, Shalini drives innovation and shapes discussions on these critical issues. She is a Certified Information Privacy Professional and a recipient of the prestigious WomenTechEU award from the European Commission. Outside of work, she enjoys exploring the mountains, cuisine, and culture of Piedmont, Italy.

Ryan is the Senior Facilitator at RDA Europe, starting in the role in June 2023. His time is mainly focused on the RDA TIGER project and the new TIGER Facilitation Service. Before joining RDA Europe, Ryan worked at the Digital Curation Centre at the University of Edinburgh, where his time was spent on European Commission projects (including RDA Europe 4.0, FAIRsFAIR, OpenAIRE Advance, and FAIR-IMPACT), and training and consultancy work.

Robert has been working in some capacity with RDA since 2014 and roles include the Co-Chair of the Technical Advisory Board, member of the Organizational Assembly, and co-chairs of two exciting RDA Interest Groups the CODATA/RDA Schools for Research Data Science Interest Group and the Data Fabric Interest Group. He’s worked in various research cyberinfrastructure projects for nearly 20 years, including the Open Science Grid and eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment.

Hilary Hanahoe is the Secretary General of the Research Data Alliance (RDA), an international, non-profit, volunteer organisation addressing the need for open and interoperable sharing and re-use of research data and building the social, technical and cross-disciplinary links to enable such sharing and re-use on a global scale. Currently, RDA has a community of over 14,500 individual data professionals from 151 countries collaborating on different open science and open data activities, operating under six fundamental guiding principles of openness, consensus, harmonisation, community-driven, inclusivity, not for profit and technology neutrality. Hilary is passionate about the work of the Research Data Alliance and its vibrant, volunteer community working to enable the open sharing and reuse of data across the globe.

Giulia graduated with a master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering, specialised in ‘Innovative Technologies in Diagnostics and Therapy’ from Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna in March 2023. Giulia is PhD student in the Health and Technology programme at the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering at the same university, and her research project focuses on the integration of artificial intelligence in lung cancer screening. When she’s not at her PC, you’ll find her baking, playing basketball, or taking a walk by the seaside—while also trying to keep up with her annual reading challenge. She’s also a member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and Secretary for the ‘IEEE Student Branch of the University of Bologna.

Gavin is a PhD candidate at the University of Padova and member of ELIXIR Italy. He is researching machine learning (ML) best practices in the life sciences to advance transparent and reproducible ML. He has a strong background in the life sciences with a BSc in biotechnology and an MSc in bioinformatics from the University of Galway, Ireland. After his initial studies he worked at the ELIXIR Europe Hub in Cambridge, UK – an organization focused on aligning pan-European bioinformatics efforts through collaborative projects such as the Genomic Data Infrastructure. He has been involved in several international initiatives working to advance open science such as the European Open Science Cloud and ELIXIR Research Data Alliance Focus Group.

Lee oversees the national Research Data Management team at the Alliance, as well as service provision and development through partnerships with a variety of Canadian institutions and organizations. Lee previously held the position of Manager for RDM Platforms and Services at the Alliance, worked as a Research Consultant for Data Management in Atlantic Canada with ACENET, and as a part of the data management team for the Marine Environmental
Observation Prediction and Response Network, supporting researchers working with oceans data. Lee holds a Master of Library and Information Studies degree (Dalhousie University) and a BA in English (Mount Allison University).

Susannah is a research and teaching academic in Computing at Curtin University. She delivers multiple multi-disciplinary demand-driven research projects using her expertise in AI, digital health, human-computer interaction, and product design and development.
Susannah leads the award-winning, high-profile, flagship Healthy Connections project
developing a mobile Medi-Kit to improve health equity in remote and regional areas such as Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The Medi-Kit is AI-enabled and satellite-connected, enabling clinicians to take it on-Country to provide preventative health screening for chronic conditions in remote communities.

Amir Aryani leads the Social Data Analytics (SoDA) Lab at Swinburne University of Technology. The lab applies data analytics techniques for insights into health and social challenges. His expertise is in data modelling, information retrieval techniques and real-time data analysis. In other capacities, Amir leads the Swinburne node for the Centre for Information Resilience (CIRES), an Australian Research Council (ARC) Industrial Transformation Training Centre funded 2021-2026.

Rosie has 20 years’ experience working in Australia’s research infrastructure sector. With a career spanning every aspect of scientific instrumentation from product development and technical marketing to managing multi-user facilities, she works across academic and industry domains to drive innovation and research translation.

Dr. Brian Ballsun-Stanton leads Generative AI policy, research, and education at
Macquarie University’s Faculty of Arts, shaping AI integration across disciplines. With a PhD in Philosophy of Data, he bridges theory and practice, advising organizations like IEEE Silicon Valley and NBNco on AI policy. He has delivered AI-enhanced learning initiatives, led multi-million-dollar research projects, and developed 70+ field data collection modules through the FAIMS Project. A recognized expert in Digital Humanities and AI policy, he has 18+ publications and is a key figure in AI-driven education and research.