2022 Board of Governors Nominees
 Peter Andras
I believe that INNS has a mission to lead and integrate internationally the research in the area of neutrally inspired machine learning, computational analysis and modelling of neural and cognitive systems, and technological applications of these. I will aim to strengthen the INNS in mathematical neural networks research and computational modelling and analysis of biological neural systems. These are areas where key future innovations will emerge, moving the understanding and application of neural networks to the next step (e.g. understanding and modelling neuromodulation in biological and artificial neural systems). I will aim to expand the activity of the INNS in supporting collaboration and mobility of PhD students across the world. I believe that working with industry is key to the success of scientific societies in technological areas. Thus I will aim to contribute to the improvement and strengthening of industrial links and collaborations of the INNS.
I have been a member of INNS for over 12 years now, served as the Secretary in 2011-2012, and set up the INNS Thailand Chapter in 2012. As the President Elect of APNNS, I’m ready to be a member of the INNS Board of Governors, in order to better facilitate closer cooperation among the various professional societies. Currently, INNS is growing globally, with significant presence in the Asia-Pacific region. One area of focus should be on outreach to broaden our global representation. Also, education in the neural network and computational intelligence field is a timely endeavor. INNS should actively engage and interact with other technical societies to achieve its education goals. I'll leverage my current position as the APNNS VP of Education in the mostly developing but fast-growing ASEAN region to actively promote INNS and help to bridge the digital divide. In addition, I have been campaigning for women in science and engineering with special sessions held since DLAI4.
As an interdisciplinary faculty and cross-domain entrepreneur, I would devote my time and effort in collaborating with other board members to support INNS through my professional knowledge, educational experiences, research passion, technology innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. I will contribute to share in the excitement and discuss with our outstanding younger generation of students, scientists, engineers and the general public from various fields about cutting-edge research topics, new innovations and pioneering technologies in our neural network community; and how to foster research innovation across widely disparate disciplines and commercialize technologies from laboratory prototypes to boost broader social impact. I will also be dedicated as a public servant to generously contribute services to our society by committing all necessary duties and responsibilities if elected to the INNS Board of Governors.
If I am elected to the BoG, I would like to extend outreach to scientists in psychology and neuroscience who could use neural networks as tools to better understand their research. While the engineering and computer scientists community is currently well–represented at IJCNN, increasing outreach to scientists in other fields can facilitate collaborations and create a synergistic research focus that can only result from direct collaborations with those in fields such as computational modeling and biophysical experimentalists. I have a track record of bringing together scientists from various disciplines as the Director of the Center for Brain, Behavior, and NeuroRehabilitation (CEREBBRAL) at Purdue University. A similar approach should work to bring together engineers, computer scientists, psychologists, and neuroscientists to INNS. Also, women are well–represented in psychology and neuroscience, so reaching out to these communities will increase gender diversity in INNS.
I have been a member of INNS for nearly 20 years. As an active INNS member, I will contribute to further support for a better INNS future as I have been doing in the past years and I am doing now in organizing conferences and more activities. Since artificial intelligence is growing so fast in recent years in both research and industries, I will make effort in promoting brain-machine interfaces and intelligent systems for earlier detection and rehabilitation of motor and cognitive impairments in the INNS community. If elected to be a BOG member, I will introduce more young members particularly those newly graduated and graduate students to get involved in INNS activities and join INNS. I would like to ask for more advice from senior INNS members for their support to build a stronger and more prosperous neural network community. Also, not only academia members should be encouraged, but also more members, activities and involvements from industry should be encouraged to join our community.
If elected I will:
a) Focus on promoting the INNS to young researchers to ensure healthy membership.
b) Continue to support the Annual Doctoral Award, Meet the Experts, Doctoral Consortium activities as well as the setting of new activities such as mentoring, INNS educational videos and tutorials and the organisation of regional student research workshops and events
c) Work closely with the Board of Governors to ensure all traditional INNS activities are successfully completed every year and the society continues to flourish as the premier organization for multi- and cross-disciplinary theoretical and computational understanding of the brain.
I would like to significantly contribute to the organization of educational activities. (I had already a discussion with Zenglin Xu, where we came up with ideas which we would like to organize:
Overall lead: Zenglin Xu, Marcus Liwicki
IJCNN 2023 (Ideal time slot for doctoral consortium is after tutorials, before welcome reception):
1. Zenglin, Sana (1h) one-to-one paper feedback
2. Marcus, Sana (1h) mentoring session
3. Zenglin, Huajin Tang: (1h) paper development session - invite editoral board of NN journal
4. Marcus, Zenglin, Danilo Mandic: (1h) Doctoral consortium - give a presentation (20-30min) about the community, its role, and IJCNN, and then a panel open for questions (30min)
5. Marcus, Zenglin discuss with IJCNN organisors (1.5 h meal) networking event (luncheon or dinner)
I have more ideas (but there is a character limit) and would like to help making IJCNN guidelines regarding educational events.
I would like INNS to grow, taking into account the needs of its membership in all aspects of neural networks, exploring other emerging areas, e.g. big data analytics, AI and cognitive, quantum and computing, nano and other relevant topics. INNS also needs the support of the industry and its representation, and to be more attractive to industry. To maintain universal leadership, INNS must position itself to support, stimulate and encourage these future directions. I have more than 30 years of experience in science, education, and science management. I have been a dean of faculty, deputy rector, and deputy minister, responsible for higher education and science and I will do my best to help INNS rethink its activities to serve members in new and improved ways. I will work to promote diversity (including age, gender, and region) among authors of publications and volunteers, to develop and expand INNS activities, to inspire and encourage early career researchers and students.
I was elected as an INNS Board member in 2017 and served as the INNS Pro Tempore Vice-President for Public Relations for two years. Since 2019, I have been in a position as the INNS Vice-President for Membership to promote a scientific and educational forum for students, scientists, engineers, and the general public. Currently, I have also been working as a board member of the Asia Pacific Neural Network Society (APNNS) and the Japan Neural Network Society (JNNS). I’m the only person in INNS who gets involved throughout the two societies within the Asian Pacific regions and Japan. I will do my best to contribute to mutual cooperation among the three neural network societies: INNS, APNNS, JNNS. If I am elected for the next 3-year term, I pledge to give my sincere dedication to the community of the neural network fields as an INNS board member so that our communities can grow sustainably and mutually.
As a member of the INNS Board of Governors, I will work to increase the participation in the International Neural Network Society of active Latin American researchers in the area of machine learning. I will also work in the organization of high-quality conferences, increase the number of members and contribute to the management of the Society.
I am interested in coming back to INNS as a Board member. I served for two consecutive terms (2009-2011, 2012-2014). I was the program chair of IJCNN 2009 in Atlanta, GA. I was a program co-chair of IJCNN 2003 in Portland, OR. My interests are in the research, development and innovation of engineering applications of neural networks including smart grid technologies and operations. My research program studies brain-like intelligence, advanced neural network architectures and learning mechanism, intelligent sensing and monitoring, stability and control, and signal processing. My goal coming back to the INNS Board will be to grow the society's technical emphasis toward more engineering applications of neural networks and learning systems. I will like to grow the society’s membership attracting more industry participation and members from all continents especially new members from Africa and South America. I look forward to your vote for my nomination to be elected to the INNS Board.
Since becoming INNS Editor-in-Chief of Neural Networks, I have been working tirelessly to strengthen Neural Networks, the official journal of INNS. I am happy to report that the journal has improved a great deal under my leadership, in its reputation and impact, as well as the number of submissions which has multiplied. Serving on INNS’ Board of Governors will allow me to ensure the strong participation of the INNS membership in its official journal. As a board member, my focus will be on enhancing member services, which has been a consistent theme of my INNS activities, whether as its President in 2006, current board member, or editor-in-chief.
International Neural Network Society (INNS) offers great opportunities to its members to connect to professionals all over the world, to link academia and industrial interests in neural networks, and to realize a vibrant exchange of the most recent research in neural network computation via its conferences, webinars, etc. If given the opportunity to be a member of the Board of Governors, I would be honored to serve the society and do my best to make INNS stronger. My short term in INNS goals are as follows.
(1) Encourage more students and early career researchers to shape the future of INNS.
(2) Provide opportunities for students and early career researchers to interact with the great pioneers of INNS.
(3) Focus on activities that engages closely related societies, companies, and agencies.
(4) Continue to strengthen the quality of our INNS conferences.
I will do my best to fulfill my duty as a member of the BoG.
My research addresses a broad range of topics in wireless network communication, Earthquake Nowcast and Classification of emotion features from EEG discreet wavelet. I have written a book and 30 more publications as the primary authors including next generation multimedia access and wireless sensor network. From 2017 to 2018, I worked as an adjunct professor of Computer and Information Science in Towson University and Bowie State University. From 2018 until now, I continues to carry on research on discrete wavelet at minimum free energy operated effortless in neural network and Earthquake Nowcast with wireless sensor network in Fitchburg State University. I work as a judge of Worcester Regional Science and Engineering Fair, FIRST LEGO League and IEEE Robot Challenge. I am IEEE senior member and serve IEEE AESS society and IEEE Robotic Society as the chairs.
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Valeri Mladenov
