Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Monica Lopez, PhD

Biography

Monica is a 21st century polymath leading the way for an ethical, sustainable, and smart future with artificial intelligence (AI) as Business Executive, Brain Scientist, Serial Entrepreneur, Public Speaker, and Educator. She takes a human-centric approach to the design, development and application of emerging smart technologies and advocates interdisciplinary and cross-cultural integration to drive innovation. Monica's work for Cognitive Insights for Artificial Intelligence (CIfAI) uniquely merges deep subject matter expertise across various fields critical to the development, use, and management of AI. When not working on novel research projects for CIfAI, Monica is presenting her vision for a safe and productive AI-enabled autonomous world on national and international stages.

Prior to helming CIfAI, Monica co-founded the research and consulting company La Petite Noiseuse Productions (LPNP) in 2014. As CEO and Chief Science Officer at LPNP Monica created a novel R&D platform to empirically investigate critical questions on human intelligence such as humans' capacity to adapt to ever-changing and multisensory, multi-agent environments. Her research insights, published and presented nationally and internationally, led to advancing multiple projects and endeavors across data management and analytics, technology business solutions, brain-inspired computing, and AI development for a range of clients.

Prior to co-founding LPNP, Monica worked in the biotech industry as director of business development for various biotechnology companies. During that time she applied her scientific and storytelling acumen to bridge the business of healthcare with rising digital challenges. A firm believer in experiential and cross-disciplinary learning within STEMM, Monica has pioneered since 2009 unique and popular Science-Tech-Design-Ethics-Policy courses for all levels of students as teaching faculty at Johns Hopkins University. Monica is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science of the Whiting School of Engineering, faculty in the Artificial Intelligence Program - Engineering for Professionals of the Whiting School of Engineering, faculty in Technology & Innovation in the Master's in International Relations at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and holds a Faculty Joint Appointment in the Department of Neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She has been a program committee member since 2015 for IS&T's Human Vision & Electronic Imaging international conference. Monica has also been a subject editor for the Social Sciences & Humanities Open Journal of Elsevier, Oxford, UK. Monica is also a longtime fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar in Salzburg, Austria and Washington, DC.

Monica’s accolades include being named one of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics in 2022, receiving the prestigious Outstanding Recent Graduate Award from the Office of the President and Alumni Association of the Johns Hopkins University in 2019 and being named one of Baltimore's Top 10 BioHealth Startup CEOs by the Business of Biotech in 2019, becoming a Fellow at the Salzburg Global Seminar in Salzburg, Austria as well as being named a millennial leader of the BioHealth Capital Region (MD, DC, VA) by BioHealth Innovation, Inc. in 2018. In 2016 she was recognized as a particularly imaginative polymath by the Imagination Institute, Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Monica earned BA degrees in Psychology and French, and a MA and PhD in Cognitive Science, all from Johns Hopkins University, a Certificate of Art in Photography from Maryland Institute College of Art, and completed her postdoctoral research fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She also has a Graduate Certificate in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), a Certificate in AI Policy from the Center for AI & Digital Policy in Washington, DC, and the Independent Director Initiative Certificate from VC University and University of California, Berkley School of Law.

For more about Monica see her Resume

Follow her on

Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer

Irene Gonzalez, PhD

Biography

Irene is a bilingual Spanish-English senior executive, entrepreneur, inventor and innovator with more than two decades of experience in the business, management, and finance and operations sectors. Irene has executed numerous projects, contracts, and product development initiatives in the academic, government, and private sectors. Before co-founding Cognitive Insights for Artificial Intelligence (CIfAI) Irene led the management of all business, financial, and operational activities at La Petite Noiseuse Productions.

Irene has extensive experience in recognizing the benefits and perils of AI technologies, big data, and cybercrime as they impact healthcare, finance, and the environment, including their political, legal, and ethical consequences for the global economy and society.

Irene's professional accomplishments include Co-Founder, Director and Chief Financial Officer of La Petite Noiseuse Productions, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Novodux, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Valens Therapeutics; Senior Vice President of Alseres Pharmaceuticals; Vice President of Boston Life Sciences; Scientific Review Officer at the National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH-NIAID); Director of the Molecular Biology Division of Boston Biomedica; Director of Genetic Engineering of Biotrax; Assistant Professor and Tenured Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Mexico; and Research Scientist and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University.

Irene earned BS and MS degrees in Biological Sciences and a joint PhD degree with Johns Hopkins University. Irene has been the recipient and principal investigator of numerous NIH-funded research grants and contracts, has received many awards, and serves on the editorial board of several scientific journals of the American Society for Microbiology and the European and Japanese Society for Marine Biotechnology. She has extensive experience as a consultant in all her areas of expertise. She has also advised and mentored aspiring entrepreneurs, translated scientific articles and patents, and been a sought-after speaker in business and entrepreneurship. Irene has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles, book chapters, and abstracts and is a single inventor in five patents issued by the USPTO.

Follow her on