Mia Bloom, Ph.D.

Professor, Communication, Middle East Studies Center, College of Arts and Sciences, Georgia State University

Dr. Mia Bloom is the International Security Fellow at the New America Foundation, a professor at Georgia State University, and member of the Evidence Based Cyber Security at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Bloom has conducted research in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia and speaks eight languages. Bloom has authored books on violent extremism including Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (Columbia 2005), Living Together After Ethnic Killing (Routledge 2007) Bombshell: Women and Terror (UPenn 2011) and Small Arms: Children and Terror (Cornell 2019). She is publishing two books later this year: Veiled Threats: Women and Jihad (Brookings in October) and Pastels and Pedophile: Inside the Mind of QAnon with Sophia Moskalenko (Stanford in June). Dr. Bloom is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has held appointments at Princeton, Cornell, Harvard and McGill Universities. She serves on the boards of the Anti Defamation League, GIFCT: Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, and the UN Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate (UNCTED). Dr. Bloom has a PhD in political science from Columbia University, a Masters in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a Bachelors degree from McGill in Russian, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.

Talk title: "Fostering Extremism Online: Jihadis vs. QAnon"

Patricia L. Mabry, Ph.D.

Research Investigator, HealthPartners Institute

Patricia L. Mabry, PhD. is an interdisciplinary scientist who applies cutting edge methodologies (modeling and simulation, data science, network science, Artificial Intelligence) to research questions in healthcare, tobacco control, diabetes, obesity, colorectal cancer screening, and science of science. She spent many years at NIH including the National Cancer Institute’s Tobacco Control Research Branch, the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) and the Office of Disease Prevention (ODP). Dr. Mabry founded the NIH Systems Science program and the annual training program, Institute on Systems Science and Health. At ODP, she led a team in developing a machine learning-based portfolio analysis tool for classifying NIH-funded prevention research. She was the founding Executive Director and a Sr. Research Scientist at the Indiana University Network Science Institute where she co-developed CADRE (https://cadre.iu.edu/), a cloud-based science gateway to empower researchers to perform reproducible big data analytics on bibliographic data. Dr. Mabry joined HealthPartners Institute in 2019 as a Research Investigator where she is leading several projects: development of a dynamic simulation model to inform strategies for increasing colorectal cancer screening uptake, a feasibility study on using a blood glucose simulation model to improve diabetes patient self-management, and the application of Artificial Intelligence to bibliographic data to understand how patterns of social capital accumulation in scholarly career trajectories may contribute to the Matthew Effect observed in NIH R01 funding. Dr. Mabry has published scientific articles on tobacco cessation, tobacco policy modeling, systems science, reproducibility, mentoring, and more. Career highlights include contributing to the 2014 Surgeon General’s Report on the Health Consequences of Smoking, co-leading the Envision obesity modeling network, and chairing the 3rd International Meeting on Social Computing Behavioral Modeling and Prediction (SBP). Her accolades include Golden Apple Teaching Awards from the Medical University of South Carolina, awards for federal service, and the Applied Systems Thinking Award. Dr. Mabry holds a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Virginia and is a Fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

Talk title: "The Future is Now: Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence, Modeling and Simulation"

Abstract: It has been nearly 30 years since the first BRIMS meeting and more than a dozen years since the first SBP meeting in 2008. While much has changed since then to advance the field, some things remain disappointingly the same – and need to be addressed. Even so, the future for behavioral-social modeling and simulation (B-S M&S) is quite bright with a multitude of exciting opportunities just around the corner. After briefly reflecting on the progress made in behavioral representation in modeling and simulation, Dr. Mabry will share her thoughts on what recent events tell us about the future of the field, how we can prepare for it, and even shape it. As an interdisciplinary scientist who has spent over a decade of her career leading the systems science program out of the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research at the (National Institutes of Health), and has been a researcher in small business, academia and a now in a health care system, Dr. Mabry has a unique multidimensional perspective on the value of B-S M&S and its applications. In this talk, she will identify opportunities and caveats for B-S M&S while challenging the audience to engage in self-reflection and critical thinking about how we can collaboratively take on the most pressing problems of our times. Dr. Mabry will share her optimistic vision of the future of B-S M&S and explain how a wide range of influences lead her to this deduction. Those influences include external events such as the rise of Artificial Intelligence, the COVID-19 pandemic, the quest for precision medicine, issues and opportunities in data and technology. She will also explain her passion for using B-S M&S methods to engage in the science of science, the need for cross-disciplinary collaboration, and suggest ways to foster a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion in the field.