Opening Plenary Speaker

Joe Hellerstein
University of California, Berkeley
Title: Data Context in the Field and in the Lab
Abstract: The way that organizations use data has changed dramatically in recent years. Part of this change is due to the realization of past-generation Big Data hype: organizations both old and new are now in fact shifting data usage from “bottom-line” bookkeeping to creative “top-line” value generation. This shifts many aspects of data management, not least being the user demographics and skill sets involved in the process. An emerging change is the quick rise of next-generation machine learning, which is moving computer science increasingly into the realm of the experimental sciences. These changes have implications for the whole data lifecycle. I will discuss experiences from users of Trifacta, and overview two new projects in the Berkeley RISELab: Ground (a data context system), and Jarvis (an above-Ground experiment management framework).
Bio: Joseph M. Hellerstein is the Jim Gray Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, whose work focuses on data-centric systems and the way they drive computing. He is an ACM Fellow, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and the recipient of three ACM-SIGMOD "Test of Time" awards for his research. In 2010, Fortune Magazine included him in their list of 50 smartest people in technology , and MIT's Technology Review magazine included his work on their TR10 list of the 10 technologies "most likely to change our world". Hellerstein is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Trifacta, a software vendor providing intelligent interactive solutions to the messy problem of wrangling data. He serves on the technical advisory boards of a number of computing and Internet companies including Dell EMC, SurveyMonkey, Captricity, and Datometry, and previously served as the Director of Intel Research, Berkeley.

Closing Plenary Speaker

Serge Abiteboul
INRIA, ENS Paris
Title: Issues in Ethical Data Management
Bio: Serge Abiteboul obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, and a State Doctoral Thesis from the University of Paris-Sud. He is a member of the Board of the French Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et de le Poste. He has been a researcher at the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique since 1982, Directeur de Recherche CE since 01/01/2004, in a research team located at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris, since 2016. He is Distinguished Affiliated Professor at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan . He was a Lecturer at the École Polytechnique and Visiting Professor at Stanford and Oxford University. He has been Chair Professor at Collège de France in 2011-12 and Francqui Chair Professor at Namur University in 2012-2013. He co-founded the company Xyleme in 2000. Serge Abiteboul has received the ACM SIGMOD Innovation Award in 1998, the EADS Award from the French Academy of sciences in 2007; the Milner Award from the Royal Society in 2013; and a European Research Council Fellowship (2008-2013). He became a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 2008, and a member the Academy of Europe in 2011. He has been a member of the Conseil national du numérique (2013-2016) and Chairman of the Scientific board of the Société d'Informatique de France (2013-2015). He is, since 1917, Chair of the Stretegic Council of the Blaise Pascal Foundation. His research work focuses mainly on data, information and knowledge management, particularly on the Web. He founded and is an editor of the blog binaire.blogs.lemonde.fr. Serge Abiteboul also writes novels, essays, and is editor and founder of the Blog Binaire. He was scientific curator of the exhibiti "Terra Data" at the Cité des Sciences in 2017-2018.

Invited Speaker

Naresh Agarwal
Simmons School of Library and Information Science
Title: What do we mean when we talk about Context?
Bio: Naresh Agarwal is an Associate Professor at the Simmons School of Library and Information Science (College of Organizational, Computational, and Information Sciences) in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore (NUS)’s Department of Information Systems, School of Computing. Naresh has published more than 40 articles in international journals, conference proceedings, and as book chapters in the fields of information behavior and knowledge management. Naresh looks at the way people look for information and the contextual factors that impact their choice of information sources. He seeks to understand and synthesize the apparent contradictions in this phenomenon and tries to reconcile multiple perspectives. His book 'Exploring Context in Information Behavior: Seeker, situation, surroundings, and shared identities' was recently published by Morgan & Claypool. Naresh also studies serendipitous information encountering and the causes and effects — both on the recipient and the sender — of information stopping and information avoidance behaviors, especially by people who use smartphones and social media. Naresh teaches courses in technology and web development, theories of information science, knowledge management, and evaluation of information services. He has held various leadership positions at ASIS&T (the Association for Information Science and Technology). He was a member of its Board of Directors from 2012–2014. Naresh was the Chair of its Membership Committee (2015–2017), the Conference Co-Chair of its 80th Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., Oct. 27–Nov. 1, 2017, and was awarded the ASIS&T James M. Cretsos Leadership Award in 2012. Prior to entering the doctoral program at NUS, Naresh worked for six years in technology roles in the voice-over-IP, bioInformatics, and digital cinema industries.