Keynote Speakers

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Day 1- June 17, 2025 (Tuesday)

10:00 am, Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Barbara Brown
Director, Exploration Research and Technology Programs
NASA, Kennedy Space Center
Florida, USA

Barbara L. Brown serves as the Director of Exploration Research and Technology Programs at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. She leads processing, assembly, integration, and test of payloads and flight science experiments bound for the International Space Station. She serves as KSC’s lead for the formulation of concepts to support uncrewed operations on the Moon and Mars and directs research, development, testing, and demonstration of flight systems and technologies to advance exploration and space systems.  The programs and projects under her purview span across 4 NASA mission directorates: Explorations Systems,  Space Operations, Space Technology, and Science.

Since beginning her career at NASA in 1983 as a student intern at the Kennedy Space Center, she has worked at Kennedy, NASA Headquarters in Washington DC, and NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Ca., and has held numerous positions, including Kennedy Center Chief Technologist, Kennedy Chief Information Officer, Kennedy Systems Autonomy Demonstration Lead, Kennedy X-34 Test Flight Program Manager, Kennedy Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Manager, Ames Autonomous Cryogenic Loading Operations Lead; Ames Ground Processing Lead for the Crew Exploration Vehicle Integrated Systems Health Management Work Package, Ames Deputy Project Manager for the Human-Centered Computing, and Space Operations Mission Directorate Full Cost manager.

She has authored or co-authored numerous papers and reports on physics-based diagnostics, autonomous cryogenic system operations, and intelligent vehicle & systems health management and has received numerous awards and recognitions, including NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal, NASA’s Outstaning Leadership Medal.

Brown holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Florida State University, a M.S. in Industrial Engineering from University of Central Florida, and is a Harvard Senior Executive Fellow. She is a proud native of Palatka, Florida and a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

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10:40 am, Tuesday, June 17, 2025

David Stubsten
Senior Manager, Development – Industrial Engineering
The Walt Disney Company
Orlando, Florida, United States

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11:20 am – Break

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11:40 am, Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Dr. Christopher Mejia
Research Scientist, MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
Director, MIT SCALE Network for Latin America and the Caribbean
Director, MIT Graduate Certificate in Logistics and SCM (GCLOG) program
Founder & Director, MIT Food and Retail Operations Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Christopher Mejía Argueta is a Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. He develops applied research on retailing operations and food supply chains for multiple stakeholders, including consumer packaged goods manufacturers, carriers, and retailers in the Food and Retail Operations Lab (FaROL). His research focuses on improving the efficiency and flexibility of operations in multiple stakeholders, designing route-to-market and logistics strategies to address changing purchasing patterns, coupling these dynamic consumer profiles with the retail landscape, and reducing undesired socioeconomic and health problems related to income disparity, social backwardness, food malnutrition, food waste by proposing sustainable policies, business models to help vulnerable population segments.

Dr. Chris Mejía is also the Director of the MIT Supply Chain and Global Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Network for Latin America. This initiative, conducted by the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics in the region, aims to lead impactful research and education projects for all companies, the public sector, and society together with top Latin American universities and the support of the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation (CLI). In addition, Dr. Chris Mejía serves as the Director of the MIT Graduate Certificate in Logistics & Supply Chain Management (GCLOG), an elite program from the MIT SCALE Network geared towards outstanding graduate students from Latin America.

He holds a M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering focusing on supply chain management and multicriteria optimization, and a PhD in Industrial Engineering focusing on Humanitarian Operations. Dr. Mejía got both degrees with summa cum laude honors (best grade, top 1% students) in both classes at Monterrey Tech, Mexico. In 2013, Dr. Mejía was the academic leader at CLI, where he developed dozens of projects with industry and other academic partners related to disaster response, green logistics, packaging, and last-mile distribution in emerging markets. Before joining MIT CTL, Dr. Mejía Argueta was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Eindhoven University of Technology (TUe), the Netherlands, where he investigated retailing operations for emerging markets and formulated estimation models to analyze the prevalence of nanostores in emerging markets. He is author and editor of the books: 1) Reaching 50 Million Nanostores: Retail Distribution in Emerging Megacities, 2) Supply Chain Management and Logistics in Latin America: A multi-country perspective and 3) Supply Chain Management and Logistics in Emerging Markets.

He has over 15 years of experience, and his work in over 16 countries worldwide has focused on improving the efficiency of operations across the supply chains. He is a co-editor of various special issues in recognized journals and an author of scientific papers published in top journals. He has developed dozens of industry projects focused on the reality of emerging markets regarding transportation, logistics, retailing, and supply chain management.

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12:20 pm, Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Michael Tanis
Sr Manager Industrial Engineer
Blue Origin
Merritt Island, Florida
USA

I was born and risen in France from a French Father and American Mother. I used to spend most of my summers in the upper state New York at my grandparent’s place where I learned how to fish. It is to this date my favorite hobby alongside with spending time in the outdoors with my wife and kids. I acquired a Master of Science in industrial Engineering from HEI school in Lille and a Specialized Master’s in advanced manufacturing Processes for Aeronautical Structures from ISAE SupAero and Mines D’Albi. I first started working deploying factories for household products manufacturing in Mexico where I spent 4 years, then China and Southeast Asia. I started my aerospace adventure at Airbus where I was in charge of leading the insertion of the NEO A320 single isle aircraft to the Toulouse Final Assembly lines and finally joined Blue Origin 6 years ago.

I am currently the Sr Manager of the Industrial Engineering team in Florida for the New Glenn and Lunar Program.

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Day 2 – June 18, 2025 (Wednesday)

10:00 am, Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Dr. Waldemar Karwowski
Pegasus Professor and Chairman
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida, USA

Waldemar Karwowski is Pegasus Professor and Chairman, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, University of Central Florida, USA. He holds an M.S. in Production Engineering and Management from the University of Technology Wroclaw, Poland, and a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Texas Tech University, USA. He was awarded D.Sc. in management science by the Institute for Organization and Management in Industry, Warsaw, and received the National Professorship title from the President of Poland (2012). Three Central European universities also awarded him Doctor Honoris Causa degrees. Dr. Karwowski served on the Board on Human Systems Integration, National Research Council, USA (2007–2011). He currently is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science journal, Editor-in-Chief of Human-Intelligent Systems Integration journal, and Field Chief Editor of the Frontiers in Neuroergonomics. Dr. Karwowski has over 550 research publications, including over 200 journal papers. He is Fellow of the Ergonomics Society (U.K.), Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), and the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), and served as President of both HFES (2006-2007) and IEA (2000-2003). He received the William Floyd Award from the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors, the United Kingdom in 2017, and the David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award. Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, Atlanta, USA, in 2020. He was elected to Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida (ASEMFL), Orlando, Florida, USA, November 2020.

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10:40 am, Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Dr. Ivan Garibay
Associate Professor
Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida, USA
Director, UCF Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Initiative
Director, Master of Science in Data Analytics
Director, Complex Adaptive Systems Laboratory
Founding Director, UCF I-Corps program
Affiliated appointments to Computer Science and Modeling and Simulation

Dr. Ivan Garibay is an Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, University of Central Florida. He is the Director of UCF Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Initiative, Director of Master of Science Program in Data Analytics, and the Director of the Complex Adaptive Systems Laboratory. He is also the Founding Director of the UCF I‐Corps program. His interests lie in studying complex socio‐technical systems such as social media and artificial social intelligence. He received Ph.D. in Computer Science and M.S. in Computer Science from University of Central Florida, P.E. in Electronic Engineering (Titulo Profesional) and B.S. in Electronic Engineering from Ricardo Palma University, Peru.

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11:20 am – Break

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11:40 am, Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Javad Mokhbery
CEO and President
FUTEK Advanced Sensor Technology, Inc.
Irvine, California, United States

By all accounts, Javad Mokhbery is a brilliant man. Without any financial help, he built his company, FUTEK Advanced Sensor Technology, Inc., from one bed room apartment to be the leading manufacturer of sensors for a wide variety of industries throughout the world. As a mechanical engineer and innovator, he stays ahead of the trends and positions his company as a pioneer within the evolving industries that he serves. Today, his sensors are used on drills deep down in the Earth for the oil and gas industry and on the surface of Mars where NASA’s rover Curiosity has been exploring since 2012 and making new discoveries each day with the help of FUTEK’s technology. FUTEK sensors are also used in the manufacturing process of the world’s leading smartphones and wearable devices. Indeed, he is extremely smart.

Yet this is not what makes Javad an effective entrepreneur. Pure intelligence, he says, only gets one so far in business. Even if you boast the top mind in your field and balance it with a knack for business and science, you are still missing a huge piece of the equation – emotional intelligence (EQ).

Javad says his EQ has been his key to entrepreneurial success. It’s not something that can be taught through a traditional education, and it’s not necessarily something one is born with either. Rather, Javad credits his unique upbringing and life experiences.

Born in Iran in 1952, Javad was raised by religiously conservative parents, and his father was a successful businessman. By the early 1960s, Javad knew he wanted to study in America, but his parents did not approve. Refusing to take “no” for an answer, he began recruiting random tourists off the street and invited them over for lunch or dinner to expose his folks to the West and show them that foreigners weren’t bad while making friends, practicing English and learning their culture. Then again, we are talking about 1960s; there were no internet or social media like today.

The strategy forged a special kind of EQ in Javad, which serves him to this very day. As an Iranian pre-teen, he said that conversations with strangers from places like Switzerland and Germany helped him empathize and connect with people from all walks of life. He was able to connect with his parents in a powerful way as well. Emotional Intelligence is largely about knowing what other people want or need, and Javad pulled this off in an unusual fashion. When he was 19, they agreed to let him go study in England.

In January 1974, he moved from London to Detroit to advance his education first at DIT (Detroit Institute of Technology). Then at OCC (Oakland Community College) and finally at the Lawrence Institute of Technology (LIT). The move was drastic. He wound up in some of the most dangerous areas of the city and worked there as an ice cream salesman to pay for his education. Though he easily could have, Javad never asked his parents for money. Instead, he worked hard and used his EQ to forge relationships in some of the most undesirable neighborhoods of Detroit to pay for this stage of his education.

Upon graduating from LIT, Javad worked his way up at sensor Production Company in Detroit called GSE. With no green card but with practical training permit from the government, he started in 1979 as the lowest paid engineer at the company and left in 1985 as the highest paid engineer, just below his manager. Then he moved to Southern California to another sensor company in Cerritos called Transducers Inc. and later worked primarily as a contractor to aerospace manufacturers at Rockwell International in Downey, including NASA’s Space Shuttle program.

In 1988, Javad Used up all his saving to buy his first house in Aliso Viejo Ca, got married, ended his journey and his full-time job at Rockwell International and committed to FUTEK with his brother Mohammad Mokhberi, who joined him from Sweden. Upon Javad’s Arrival in California, FUTECH was originally founded in 1985 , which stands for “future technology,” They built the company from the ground up with no money and no commercial loans. The only financing Javad had available to him was his home equity loan on his house in Aliso Viejo and credit cards.

For seven years they struggled, but by the mid-1990s FUTEK had caught its stride, and it was innovating sensors ahead of any other manufacturer in the space. Javad said FUTEK has been successful because of its ability to foresee where other industries are going and develop a sensor for that new direction before the technology needing the sensor actually exists. This approach which follows Blue Ocean Strategy as well as Bayesian Strategy has enabled FUTEK to make its own markets and have huge sectors essentially all to themselves.

The result has been almost two decades of exponential growth. FUTEK employs over 140 people at its Irvine headquarters, where it develops and manufactures all of its sensors. Javad takes great pride in making all of his products in the U.S., and he uses all American-sourced raw materials as well. Not only does he not buy components from China, which is done by many other players in his market, but as a global U.S. company he sells many sensors to China at a premium.

FUTEK’s sensors have a great reputation with high volume medical, aerospace and automation OEM accounts maintaining a zero field reject rate, with the mindset that “Failure is not an option“, something that is extremely rare at this level of precision manufacturing. However, an even greater source of pride for Javad is the fact that FUTEK has never laid off an employee since inception. Even during a lean period following implementation of Oracle Business Suite in 2009, FUTEK kept everyone on staff even though the orders had temporarily dried up. He puts machinist and skilled technicians to work doing other things around the office, such as landscaping, just to keep them productive until activities picked up again.

He insists on a “quality culture” as opposed to “quality control,” which gives manufacturing ownership to his team and yields FUTEK’s coveted zero field rejection rate. The dedication to his team is part of Javad’s Emotional Intelligence philosophy towards entrepreneurship, and it guides different management strategies that he’s deployed at FUTEK.

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12:20 pm, Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Dr. Soheil Sabri, UCF

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Day 3 – June 19, 2025 (Thursday)

9:40 – 10:00 am, Thursday, June 19, 2025

Lee R. Lambert
A Founder of the PMP
Powell, Ohio, United States

Lee R. Lambert is considered throughout the world as one of the project management profession’s thought leaders.  He has been spreading the PM word for over 50 years and was one of the Founders of the PMP.  Lee has been recognized by the Project Management Institute as one of only 85 PMI Fellows and in 2024 he received the Distinguished Leader in Project Management Award from the IEOM Society.    He brings a “real world” message to those hoping to excel in their role of managing projects.  His unique and humorous style creates an enjoyable and productive learning environment.

Lambert has implemented four enterprise-wide project management information systems and his work in developing High Performance Teams has been judged a miracle.   He has prepared and delivered user training to thousands of employees at AT&T, IBM, General Electric, MicroSoft, Roche and countless others.  His value-add consulting and training has been instrumental in creating successful PMOs to drive rapid implementation. He has provided “public” training programs for more than 50,000 professionals in 51 countries.  Lee loves sharing his experience and knowledge on a variety of project management methodologies.

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10:00 – 10:40 am, Thursday, June 19, 2025

Dr. Cristian Barria
Professor
Director, Master of Engineering and Information Security
Director of the Cybersecurity Research Center
Universidad Mayor
Santiago, Chile

Ph.D. in Computer Engineering with postdoctoral studies in Advanced Research in Multicultural Education and Social Media Management. Holds a Master’s in Computer Engineering and a Master’s in Educational Management and Planning, as well as degrees in Computer Engineering and Administration Engineering. Currently serves as the Director of the Cybersecurity Research Center at Universidad Mayor, Chile.

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10:40 – 11:20 am, Thursday, June 19, 2025

Emmanuel Urquieta, M.D., M.S., FAsMA
Vice Chair of Aerospace Medicine and Associate Professor of Medicine
University of Central Florida – College of Medicine

Emmanuel Urquieta, M.D., M.S., FAsMA, is the Vice Chair of Aerospace Medicine and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Central Florida – College of Medicine.

In his role at UCF, he oversees the development of research, education, and partnerships in the domain of aerospace medicine.

Prior to joining UCF,  Dr. Urquieta served as the Chief Medical Officer at the NASA-funded Translational Research Institute for Space Health where we managed a multimillion-dollar portfolio of medical research for missions to the Moon and Mars, the commercial spaceflight program EXPAND, and analog capabilities, including partnerships with the Australian Antarctic Division.

Dr. Urquieta has extensive experience providing medical care in austere and remote environments serving as a flight surgeon in Mexico City’s Police Department Helicopter Emergency Medical Services, participating in hundreds of rescue missions and aeromedical evacuations. He has volunteered in medical missions around the world. In 2017, Dr. Urquieta was selected as a crew member of the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) XI mission at NASA Johnson Space Center, spending 30 days in a capsule simulating a deep space long-duration mission. He is a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association, and an academician of the International Academy of Astronautics, and has authored and co-authored dozens of publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Dr. Urquieta holds a medical degree and specialty in emergency medicine from Anahuac University in Mexico City and an M.S. in aerospace medicine from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Urquieta frequently appears at scientific meetings and connects with reporters to discuss the effects of space on the human body and potential interventions to promote human space exploration.

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11:20 – 11:40 am – Break

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11:40 am – 12:20 pm, Thursday, June 19, 2025

Professor Christopher S. Cerqueira
Brazilian Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA)
São José dos Campos
Brazil

Prof. Dr. Christopher Schneider Cerqueira is an esteemed researcher specializing in Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and multidomain (system-of-systems) integration. As a faculty member at the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA)—one of Brazil’s leading institutions in aerospace engineering and technology education—he teaches advanced courses such as Systems Engineering, Verification and Quality of Aerospace Systems, Model-Based Systems Engineering, and Sustainability in Aerospace. His research significantly contributes to advancing MBSE methodologies, particularly through the seamless integration of digital technologies into traditional systems engineering practices.

Dr. Schneider’s innovative work supports ITA’s mission of developing cutting-edge aerospace solutions and cultivating expertise that drives technological advancements both nationally and internationally.

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12:20 – 1:00 pm, Thursday, June 19, 2025

Dr. Ahmed Elattar
TeamViewer

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Contact: info@ieomsociety.org