Two outstanding graduate students from the Feinberg Graduate School will share their personal stories, discuss life as graduate students, and offer their thought-provoking views on the future of research in the fields of diabetes and artificial intelligence. The students will be accompanied by Dr. Ami Shalit, the Academic Secretary of the Feinberg Graduate School.

The study of genetics and gene expression was revolutionized by the discovery of microRNA, small RNAs that can affect the expression of our other genes. Doctoral student Amitai Mandelbaum wants to revolutionize the field once again by studying the role of microRNA in diabetes, and has already discovered a new role of microRNA in the pancreas that could lead to new treatments for the 3.4 million Canadians with diabetes.

Heli Ben Hamu is pursuing her MSc in the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, where her research focuses on geometric deep learning, an exciting and relatively new field with significance for artificial intelligence (AI). She is developing a neural network that generates 3D models of the human body with applications for medical imaging and diagnosis.