The External Advisory Board is a select group of national and international representatives from academia, industry, government agencies, and the profession who advise C2D3 on issues, current trends and future directions in data science and AI.

Sarah Applegate, Aviva

Head of Quantum Data Science & Partnerships

Sarah was appointed Head of Quantum Data Science at Aviva in July 2021, looking after a virtual team of over 700 people in the data science job family globally. In this role, Sarah supports the development, recruitment, and retainment of Aviva’s data scientists as well as enabling collaboration cross markets. Additionally, Sarah runs Aviva’s strategic partnership with the University of Cambridge, supporting research and training in the field of data science.

Sarah is a Chartered Accountant, specialising in the General Insurance (GI) industry. Her previous roles include Head of UK GI Commercial Lines Risk, Head of Global GI Strategy & Insight and a variety of strategy and finance-based roles within Aviva’s Global Corporate & Specialty team.

Sarah was born and raised in Northern Ireland, before moving to Edinburgh to study for her MA (Hons) in Accountancy and Finance at Heriot Watt University. She now splits her time between Aviva’s London and Norwich offices.

Professor Robert Calderbank, Duke University

Robert Calderbank directs the Rhodes Information Initiative at Duke University, where he is the Charles S. Sydnor Distinguished Professor of Computer Science. He is known for contributions to voiceband modem technology, to quantum information theory, and for co-invention of space-time codes for wireless communication.

His research papers have been cited more than 50,000 times and his inventions are found in billions of consumer devices. D. Calderbank was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2005 and he has received a number of awards, including the 2013 IEEE Hamming Medal for contributions to information transmission, and the 2015 Claude E. Shannon Award.

Professor Yonina Eldar, Weizmann Institute of Science

Yonina C. Eldar is a Professor in the Department of Math and Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, where she heads the center for Biomedical Engineering and Signal Processing. She is also a Visiting Professor at MIT and at the Broad Institute and an Adjunct Professor at Duke University and was a Visiting Professor at Stanford University.

She is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, an IEEE Fellow and a EURASIP Fellow. She has received many awards for excellence in research and teaching, including the IEEE Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award, the IEEE/AESS Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award, the IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award, the Michael Bruno Memorial Award from the Rothschild Foundation, the Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences, and the Wolf Foundation Krill Prize for Excellence in Scientific Research. She is the Editor in Chief of Foundations and Trends in Signal Processing and serves the IEEE on several technical and award committees. She heads the Committee for Promoting Gender Fairness in Higher Education Institutions in Israel.

Dr Lior Horesh, IBM Research

Lior Horesh is a Principal Research Scientist, Master Inventor and a Senior Manager of the ‎Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science department at IBM Research. His department's mission is to advance the foundations of theoretical and applied branches of mathematical, computer and natural sciences. Their activity spans from abstract theoretical exploratory research, through the design of innovative algorithms, to devising new analysis machinery. 

Additionally, Dr. Horesh ‎holds an adjunct Associate Professor position at the Computer Science department of Columbia ‎University where he teaches graduate level Advanced Machine Learning and Quantum Computing ‎courses. He received his Ph.D. in 2006 from UCL and joined IBM in 2009. 

Dr. Horesh's research ‎work focuses on algorithmic and theoretical aspects of tensor algebra, numerical analysis, simulation ‎of complex systems, inverse problems, non-linear optimization, experimental design, machine learning, quantum ‎computing and the interplay between first principles models and AI in the context of symbolic scientific discovery.

Dr Kristin Lauter, Meta

Dr Kristin Lauter is West Coast Director of Research Science for Meta: Facebook AI Research (FAIR), leading the Seattle and Menlo Park Labs with groups in Core Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Robotics, Natural Language Processing, and other areas. Her research focuses on Private AI, homomorphic encryption, and post-quantum cryptography. She spent 22 years at Microsoft Research, as a Principal Researcher and Partner Research Manager of Cryptography and Privacy Research. 

She is an elected Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).   PhD in Mathematics from The University of Chicago (1996). Affiliate Professor: University of Washington. Board of Trustees: Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI, Berkeley). Former President, Association for Women in Mathematics (2015-2017).

Dr Orlando Machado, LEGO Group

Orlando is currently Chief Data Officer for the LEGO Group, a family-owned company whose mission is to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow. Starting his career in academia, he has spent over 20 years helping organisations get value out of their data…long before ‘data scientist’ was crowned the ‘sexiest job of the 21st century’. He is a regular speaker at industry events, and is passionate about the opportunities to use emerging technologies to evolve and transform established industries.

Prior to joining the LEGO Group in 2021, Orlando has been:

• Group Chief Data Scientist at Aviva, a global insurance company and leader in digital technology
• Chief Data Scientist at MoneySuperMarket, the UK's largest price comparison website
• Head of Customer Insight at dunnhumby, a company at the cutting edge of data science for more than 20 years
• Head of Analytics at Wunderman, one of the world's largest communications agencies.

Orlando holds a PhD in Statistics from the University of Warwick, and was ranked #1 in the 2019 DataIQ list of the most influential people in data-driven businesses.

Aditya Nori, Microsoft Research

Aditya Nori leads AI research at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK. His previous role involved leading healthcare research and delivery for Microsoft Health Futures, overseeing initiatives such as AI for Biomedical Imaging, Real-World Evidence, Biomedical Signal Processing, and Health Access/Equity. Prior to that, he founded the Health Intelligence theme at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, aiming to revolutionize the practice of medical practice via trustworthy and human-centred AI. During his tenure at Microsoft Research, he has been instrumental in developing AI-driven productivity tools for cancer treatment, such as InnerEye (which was celebrated during the 75th anniversary of the NHS). His research has also bridged programming languages and machine learning, offering new perspectives in formal verification, probabilistic programming, and reliable machine learning. Additionally, he has created several tools to improve programmer productivity, including the second generation of the Static Driver Verifier toolkit for Microsoft Windows.

Professor Jon Rowe, University of Birmingham and The Alan Turing Institute

Jon Rowe is Professor of Computer Science and Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor for Strategic Projects at the University of Birmingham. He is also Programme Director at The Alan Turing Institute for the “Data Science for Science and Humanities” research programme. He is PI on the SPF funded “AI for Science and Government” project – one of the largest investments in AI made by UKRI. His personal research interests are in randomised heuristic search algorithms studying both theoretical issues, and applications in areas such as biology and medical imaging.

Dr Lisa Strug, University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children

Dr Strug is Professor in the Departments of Statistical Sciences, Computer Science and cross-appointed in Biostatistics at the University of Toronto and is a Senior Scientist in the Program in Genetics and Genome Biology at the Hospital for Sick Children.  Dr Strug is the inaugural Director of the Data Sciences Institute (DSI), a tri-campus, multi-divisional, multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary hub for data science activity at the University of Toronto and affiliated Research Institutes.  The DSI’s goal is to accelerate the impact of data sciences across the disciplines to address pressing societal questions and drive positive social change.  Dr Strug holds several other leadership positions at the University of Toronto including the Director of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute Ontario Region (CANSSI Ontario), and at the Hospital for Sick Children as Associate Director of the Centre for Applied Genomics and the Lead of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Gene Modifier Consortium and the Biology of Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy International Consortium.  She is a statistical geneticist, and her research focuses on the development of novel statistical approaches to analyse and integrate multi-omics data to identify genetic contributors to complex human disease. She has received several honours including the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Genome Data Sciences.