April 2, 3 and 4 2025 at the Innovation Lab
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Keynote Speakers and Panelists
Katelyn Cooper PhD - April 2
Arizona State University
Small changes, meaningful outcomes: Promoting mental health among undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty in scientific research spaces.
Dr. Cooper is an Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University; she leads the Cooper Biology Education Research Lab and directs the Mental Health Division of the Research for Inclusive STEM Education Center.
Amaury Lendasse PhD - April 3
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Demystifying Explainable LLMs: Unlocking Insights with Embeddings
Amaury Lendasse was born in Tournai, Belgium. He received an M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) in 1996, an M.S. in Control in 1997, and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (Engineering) in 2003 from the same university. In 2003, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Computational Neurodynamics Lab at the University of Memphis. From 2004 to 2014, he was a Professor pro tempore and Senior Researcher in Computer Science at Aalto University in Finland, where he created and led the Environmental and Industrial Machine Learning (EIML) group. From 2014 to 2018, he was an Associate Professor at The University of Iowa (USA). From 2018 to 2024, he served as the Chair of the Information Science Technology department at the University of Houston. He is now a Full Professor, and the Chair of the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering at the Missouri University of Science & Technology. He has also been a visiting Professor at the Arcada University of Applied Sciences in Finland for several years.
Lendasse was the Chairman of the annual ESTSP conference (European Symposium on Time Series Prediction) and is a member of the editorial board and program committee of several journals and conferences on machine learning. He is the author or co-author of more than 250 scientific papers in international journals, books, or conference proceedings. His research focuses on Data Science, Large Language Models, Explainable Machine Learning, Big Data, time series prediction, variable selection, and handling missing data. According to Google Scholar, he has approximately 10,650 citations and an h-index of 49. At the International Conference on Extreme Learning Machines in Yantai (China) in October 2017, he received the Pioneer Award for his contributions to Machine Learning and Extreme Learning Machines.
Garry Grubbs PhD - April 4 - Perspectives on research in academia
Interim vice Provost for Graduate Studies, Missouri S&T
Garry “Smitty” Grubbs II received his bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University and his PhD from the University of North Texas where he studied microwave rotational spectroscopy with Stephen Cooke. He went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, under the advisement of Stewart Novick. After his postdoc, he joined the Missouri S&T Chemistry Department as an Assistant Professor with research focusing on microwave spectroscopy of species both difficult to create and assign. In 2019, he received tenure at Missouri S&T and was promoted to Associate Professor. In that same year, he received the Flygare Award from the International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy, given biannually to spectroscopists who showcase outstanding achievements in molecular spectroscopy within 5-10 years of their PhD and the State of Texas TRiO Achiever Award – given to outstanding graduates of TRiO programs. In 2024 he was promoted to full professor and also named interim Vice Provost for Graduate Education. He has served the South Central Missouri Local Section of the American Chemical Society as either Chair-Elect, Chair, Immediate Past Chair, Treasurer, or Publicity Chair since 2013. Since Covid, he has partnered with the Missouri S&T Kummer STEM K-12 Education Center and the local ACS to provide multiple educational chemistry demonstrations to the public’s youth with a focus on STEM underrepresented communities. He has published 64 peer-reviewed journal articles, has served on the editorial board of multiple peer-reviewed journals, and received multiple departmental, campus and press awards and highlights for his teaching, outreach, and ingenuity.
Shenda Baker PhD - April 4 - The pros and cons of government funding in industry
Biopharmaceutical Consultant
Dr. Baker is a biopharmaceutical consultant with experience in both pharmaceutical product and medical device development. She was a Founder, President and CEO of Synedgen, and a member of its Board of Directors. She is on the Board of Directors of Synspire Therapeutics, to whom Synedgen out-licensed an inhaled pulmonary drug, now in Phase 2 clinical studies. She led the research and development of the current polysaccharide platform of products that target important diseases of the lungs and gastrointestinal tract. She has raised over $140M in non-dilutive funding along with $12M in investment capital for Synedgen. She is also currently on the Board of Directors of the Materials Research Society and is its’ Treasurer. Dr. Baker was a Professor of Chemistry at Harvey Mudd College for over 20 years and was awarded the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation and Presidential Early Career Award from the Department of Energy. Dr. Baker received Bachelor degrees in Chemistry and French from Grinnell College, and earned a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. She completed Postdoctoral Research at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Laura Grubbs PhD - April 4 - Product development at a global company
Product Management Manager, Brewer Science
Laura Grubbs received her bachelor’s degree from Texas Woman’s University and PhD from the University of North Texas where she studied solution thermodynamics including the development of linear free energy relationships to describe chromatic separations on novel liquid crystalline stationary phases with William E. Acree, Jr. After being an assistant professor in residence at the University of Connecticut’s West Hartford Campus and revamping the general chemistry program, she joined Brewer Science in Rolla Missouri. Her roles have included work in research and development, analytical testing method development, applications engineering for wafer level packaging solutions, project and product management. She received her project management professional (PMP) certification in 2020 and is passionate about applying project management principles to technical product development. Since 2013, Laura has been an active member of the South Central Missouri local section of the American Chemical Society holding roles including Executive Committee Secretary, Alternate Councilor, National Chemistry Week Outreach Coordinator, and Chemist Celebrate Earth Week Outreach Coordinator.
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