Third Annual Duke Summit on AI for Health Innovation
October 8–9, 2026
In-Person | North Carolina Biotechnology Center, Research Triangle Park
15 TW Alexander Drive, Durham, NC 27713
View the agenda here: https://aihealth.duke.edu/files/2026/10/2026-Duke-AI-Summit-Program.pdf
Register here: https://events.duke.edu/innovation-summit-2026
Request a scholarship here: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cLPUWYU0upyHAAS
The Duke Summit on AI for Health Innovation is open to healthcare professionals, industry leaders, and business professionals, including faculty, students, and staff from Duke and other academic institutions. Please join us!
Overview
Hosted by the Duke University School of Medicine, the Duke Pratt School of Engineering, and the Duke Center for Computational and Digital Health Innovation, this event will bring together experts from healthcare, research, engineering, industry, and academia to explore how AI can drive health innovation. Duke’s strengths in AI product development and healthcare innovation will be leveraged to explore responsible AI applications that improve health outcomes for patients and communities. The summit, to be held in Durham, North Carolina, will feature extensive Duke student engagement and offer opportunities for participants to engage with the broader AI development community, including industry partners, venture capital, and startups.
Event Highlights
- Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: Engage with a diverse community, including students, industry, healthcare, and academia.
- Networking Opportunities: Connect with industry partners, venture capitalists, and startups to discuss the future of AI in health and healthcare.
- Real-World AI Applications: Discover how AI is shaping research, innovation, and commercialization in health tech.
- Structured Small-Group Engagement: Engage in meaningful discussions and tangible takeaways by joining moderated discussion tables centered around key strategic topics and research challenges.
- Building on Two Years of Momentum: This year’s Summit builds on the success of our 2024 and 2025 Summits.
- Explore highlights from the 2024 Summit and the 2025 Summit
- Learn more about the participant experience and outcomes in the 2024 Summit Impact Report and 2025 Summit Impact Report.
- The recordings from the 2025 Summit are available here.
Registration
The registration fee for the Summit is $375, which includes lunch on both Thursday and Friday. A limited number of discounted registrations are available for members of nonprofit organizations at $150, and for current students with a valid student ID from Duke or other institutions at $25.
All fees are payable through the registration site and are non-refundable. Once registration reaches capacity, a waitlist will be maintained. We will contact individuals on the waitlist as spots become available.
As with all events in the Duke AI Health Community of Practice, we reserve a minimum of 10% of seats with scholarships to waive the registration fee, supporting those who would be otherwise unable to attend.
Register here: https://events.duke.edu/innovation-summit-2026
Request a scholarship: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cLPUWYU0upyHAAS
This summit is designed for those who want to:
- Contribute to the future agenda of AI-driven health innovation.
- Network with leaders from academia, industry, and healthcare.
- Understand AI limitations and opportunities in health and healthcare.
- Learn about the landscape of AI development in healthcare.
Health AI is a rapidly evolving field, rife with innovations that often move it in unexpected directions. In this summit, we will also emphasize how Health AI also bridges two fields – healthcare and engineering – that each demand specialized knowledge and have complex structures of rules and procedures that must be navigated. In such a context, formal education and training is necessarily incomplete, and practitioners must independently problem solve and teach themselves in order to remain competitive. Our vision is that this becomes an ongoing community of practice to advance the overall field.
Venue Details
The Conference Center at NCBiotech is centrally located in the heart of Research Triangle Park, just minutes from RDU Airport, hotels, and restaurants. This premier, flexible event and meeting space regularly hosts life sciences companies, organizations, and educational institutions. Complimentary on-site parking is available.
Sponsorship
We are grateful for our sponsors!
Cisco for their generous support as a Gold-Level sponsor in partnership with Qumulo! Cisco delivers the critical infrastructure to help organizations thrive in the AI era. By fusing networking, security, observability, and collaboration, we power how people and technology work together.
Johnson & Johnson for their generous support as a Gold-Level sponsor! Johnson & Johnson is a global leader in healthcare innovation, committed to advancing science and technology to improve health outcomes and deliver better care to people around the world.
North Carolina Biotechnology Center for their generous support as a Silver-Level sponsor! The NC Biotechnology Center is a vital driver of life sciences innovation and economic development in North Carolina, supporting research, entrepreneurship, and industry growth across the state.
Qumulo for their generous support as a Gold-Level sponsor in partnership with Cisco! Qumulo is an enterprise-grade data platform designed to manage file data at scale across on-premises, edge, and cloud environments.
VAST Data for their generous support as a Silver-Level sponsor! VAST Data is building the AI Operating System, a global data platform that empowers intelligent agents to store, think, communicate, and act.
Wolters Kluwer Health for their generous support as a Bronze-Level sponsor! Wolters Kluwer is a global leader in information solutions, software, and services for professionals in healthcare; tax and accounting; financial and corporate compliance; legal and regulatory; corporate performance and ESG.
Our sponsorship opportunities are structured as:
Gold-Level Sponsorship: $15,000
- Includes Breakfast or Lunch Sponsorship recognition
- Six complimentary registrations for your organization’s use
- Company table in reception area
- Invitation to work with event directors in developing a panel topic
Silver-Level Sponsorship: $10,000
- Four complimentary registrations for your organization’s use
- Company table in reception area
- Invitation to participate in a panel topic
Bronze-Level Sponsorship: $5,000
- Two complimentary registrations for your organization’s use
- Company table in reception area
For sponsorship inquiries, contact Jonathan Owens, MBA, Director of Industry Partnerships, Pratt School of Engineering: jonathan.owens@duke.edu
Presenter Bios
Please check back as presenters as being finalized.
Lisa Bourget is Senior Director of Global Partnerships and Innovation at Duke University. She advances Duke’s global partnership priorities by designing and enabling high-impact collaborations across academia, industry, philanthropy, and government — helping Duke show up as One Duke globally through clearer pathways, stronger coordination, and partnerships aligned with Duke’s global priorities and metrics of success.
Lisa brings deep experience operating at the intersection of the academic enterprise and the private sector. She has built and stewarded partnerships across Duke’s three missions — research, education, and the clinical enterprise. In her concurrent role as Senior Director of Strategy, Management and Partnerships at the Duke Global Health Innovation Center and Innovations in Healthcare, she leads strategy and partner engagement across research and capacity-building programs and a global network of healthcare innovators focused on scaling evidence-based solutions. Please visit Lisa’s faculty profile: https://global.duke.edu/about/our-team
Emma Chory, PhD; Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University
Suzana Couto, DVM, PhD, Diplomate ACVP, is a senior biopharmaceutical executive, board-certified veterinary pathologist, and translational science leader with more than two decades of experience spanning discovery, preclinical research, nonclinical safety, biomarker development, translational medicine, and early clinical development. She has built and led global, multidisciplinary teams across biotechnology and pharmaceutical organizations, integrating pathology, toxicology, pharmacology, clinical development, regulatory strategy, companion diagnostics, data science, and business planning to advance diverse therapeutic modalities.
A hallmark of her career is her depth of experience in artificial intelligence for health, spanning digital and computational pathology, medical imaging, and predictive models of both therapeutic efficacy and safety. Working at the interface of pathology, data science, and clinical development, she has applied deep learning and multimodal data integration to questions of target selection, patient stratification, response prediction, companion diagnostics, and early detection of safety signals. She is currently part of a cross-disciplinary team working towards enterprise-wide AI initiatives at Johnson & Johnson.
Jessilyn Dunn, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Duke University with appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Biostatistics & Bioinformatics. Her research focuses on developing innovative tools and infrastructure for multi-modal biomedical data integration to advance precision and personalized approaches for early disease detection, intervention, and prevention. Dr. Dunn earned her PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2015 and continues to lead efforts in health data science to improve patient outcomes. For more information, please visit her faculty profile: Jessilyn Dunn | Duke BME & Biostatistics
Valerie Foushee represents North Carolina’s Fourth District which includes Durham and Orange Counties and parts of Chatham and Wake Counties.
Before she began serving in Congress, Valerie worked as an administrator for the Chapel Hill Police Department and served 25 years as a local and state elected official. She went from serving on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board, to being the first African American woman elected to chair the Orange County Board of Commissioners, to serving in the North Carolina State House and the North Carolina State Senate.
In Congress, Valerie serves as a Co-Chair of the House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy, as well as on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
Sharon Gerecht, PhD; Chair of Biomedical Engineering, Paul M. Gross Distinguished Professor, Duke University
State Representative Zack Hawkins believes in A Better North Carolina—a state where everyone, from Murphy to Manteo, can reach their full potential, especially when we remove unnecessary barriers. A proud native of North Carolina and double HBCU graduate, Zack has spent over two decades in Durham as a science teacher, nonprofit leader, and public servant. Elected in 2018 as the youngest representative for NC House District 31, he has been a leading voice on education, healthcare, transportation, and workforce equity.
He co-chairs the bipartisan HBCU, IDD, AI Caucuses and has served on key House committees, including Appropriations, Education, and Redistricting. Among his legislative accomplishments are expanding acceptable voter ID forms, securing paid leave for state employees, supporting environmental reform, diversifying the teaching workforce, reforming ABC laws, and sponsoring the sports betting bill that brought billions to the state. He is also currently serving on the NC Cannabis Council and the AI Leadership Council, where he will help shape the future impacts of these topics on our state, financially and legislatively. Zack’s work is rooted in his belief that North Carolina is still a place “where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great.” He lives in Durham with his wife Tracey and their three sons.
Chris Lindsell, PhD, is the Vice Dean for Data Science and AI in the Duke University School of Medicine where he leads the strategy, execution, and governance of AI and data science across the School of Medicine while collaborating closely with key partners in the Duke University Health System and the university. A nationally recognized biostatistician and clinical trials methodologist, Dr. Lindsell is also co-principal investigator for Duke’s Clinical and Translational Science Award grant from the National Institutes of Health and director of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics for the Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute. He is a professor in the Department of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics and serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. His portfolio of research interests spans learning health systems, multi‑site clinical research networks, and the application of AI, machine learning, and other data science methods to improving clinical research and patient care. For more information, please visit his faculty profile: Chris Lindsell | Duke Clinical Research Institute
Jerome P. Lynch, PhD, is the Vinik Dean of Engineering at Duke University. He is an expert in advanced sensing and information technologies for monitoring and control of civil infrastructure systems and is widely recognized for his pioneering work in structural health monitoring. His research advances cyber-physical system architectures that integrate sensing, computing, and control to create intelligent and resilient infrastructure. Dr. Lynch also co-founded the Urban Collaboratory at the University of Michigan, bringing together interdisciplinary researchers and community stakeholders to design sustainable solutions for smart cities. For more information, please visit his faculty profile: Jerome Lynch | Duke Pratt School of Engineering
Ajit Menon is Chief Global Commercial Data and AI Officer for Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine. A recognized leader in data, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI), he oversees global commercial strategies that harness data and AI capabilities to drive innovation, support successful launches, and enhance the delivery of medicines to patients around the world. With responsible AI always at the center, he leads a team in driving results across the Innovative Medicine global commercial organization to advance commercialization, accelerate innovation, and deepen patient impact.
Ajit previously led Customer Engagement and Digital Transformation for the North America Innovative Medicine business, where he successfully led a team in delivering data, AI, content and media strategies and the development and deployment of novel generative and agentic AI to enable intelligent go-to-market models. In this role, he led the U.S. development and scaling of Engagement.ai, a strategic AI-driven analytics platform that uses extensive real-world healthcare data and interactions with customers to help advance the availability of medicines and benefit more patients worldwide. These tailored insights are helping to inform HCPs as they consider treatment strategies for their patients, often early in the patient treatment journey. He started his career at J&J leading the Global Analytics Hub.
Ajit brings more than 20 years of experience in roles across consulting, biotech, and large pharmaceutical companies. Throughout his career, he has excelled at scaling innovative technology solutions and leading large business transformations that achieve meaningful outcomes. His strong mix of global and operating company experience drive him to keenly focus on customer and market needs. He has a passion for developing people and high-performing teams.
Ajit is a trained pharmacist and holds a PhD in Health Outcomes Research from the University of Georgia.
Hugo Manuel Paz Morales, MD, is a transplant infectious diseases physician in Curitiba, Brazil, where he cares for stem cell transplant and immunocompromised patients at Hospital Erasto Gaertner and serves as infection prevention consultant across several Brazilian hospitals. He trained in infectious diseases at HC-FMUSP (University of São Paulo) and holds certification in Safety, Quality, Informatics and Leadership from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Morales is Co-founder and Medical Director of Munai, a Brazilian clinical AI company, and a doctoral candidate in Health Sciences at PUC-PR. He is a member of the Technology Committee of the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases. His research portfolio spans AI applied to infection in the immunocompromised host, antimicrobial stewardship, and machine learning models for early detection of clinical deterioration — from emergency triage scores to inpatient risk prediction at the bedside -already deployed in Brazillian hospitals. His work has been supported by the Gates Foundation and Pfizer Foundation and has been published in NEJM AI, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Transplant Infectious Disease and other peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Samira Musah, PhD; Alfred M. Hunt Faculty Scholar Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University
Jonathan Owens, MBA, is the Director of Business Development and Industry Partnerships at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. He brings extensive experience in technology transfer, commercialization, strategic alliances, intellectual property, and new business creation. Prior to joining Duke in 2022, he spent more than 15 years at LORD Corporation, where he launched and led a global business unit that translated aerospace technologies into energy industry applications. He later served as Global Operations Growth and Innovation Director for LORD’s fastest-growing business unit, supporting over $200 million in electric vehicle capital projects across six plants in four countries. For more information, please visit his profile: Jonathan Owens | Duke Pratt School of Engineering
Shelley Rusincovitch, MMCi, FAMIA, is the Managing Director of Duke AI Health, a multidisciplinary initiative within the Duke University School of Medicine that advances research and applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning in medicine and population health. She is an informaticist and technical leader with expertise in healthcare AI, machine learning, data modeling, and data science experiential learning. With more than 20 years of experience in clinical research—including trials, registries, and health system data warehousing—she is a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). In addition to her role at Duke, Ms. Rusincovitch serves as an adjunct instructor in software and web development at Durham Technical Community College. For more information, please visit her profile: Shelley Rusincovitch | Duke AI Health
Richard Shannon, MD, is the Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Quality Officer for Duke Health. In this role, he partners with physician, nurse, and administrative leaders to oversee governance, strategy, and operational outcomes for Duke’s centers of excellence, while also directing the health system’s quality and safety programs. Dr. Shannon previously served in senior leadership roles at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, and Allegheny General Hospital, and has held faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and Drexel University College of Medicine. His research has focused on myocardial metabolism and heart failure, including pioneering discoveries on the cardiovascular effects of incretins, while his innovative work in patient safety has been featured in national media and chronicled in Charles Kenney’s The Best Practice. An elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Dr. Shannon also serves on the Boards of Directors of the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan, where he chairs the Quality Health Improvement Committee. For more information, please visit his faculty profile: Richard Shannon | Duke Health
Shelley Saxena is an entrepreneurial executive and product leader with over 20 years of experience driving innovation at the intersection of frontier AI, digital health and enterprise SaaS. As the Founder and CEO of Sevamob, Shelley built a Gartner-recognized healthcare AI platform from inception to corporate profitability, orchestrating a global team of over 500 full and part time professionals and successfully commercializing eight proprietary AI-based medical devices.
A native tech builder, Shelley began his career at IBM, where he engineered enterprise software architectures and managed product lifecycles for high-growth products generating up to $20M in annual revenue. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), an MBA from Cornell University, holds multiple tech patents, and is a co-author of 8 journal papers.
Event Team
This event is directed by Shelley Rusincovitch (Duke University School of Medicine) and Jonathan Owens (Duke Pratt School of Engineering)
Team: Tiffany Torres, Anurodh Tripathi, Whitney Welsh
With many thanks to Sharlini Sankaran for her expert guidance
Photography: Brian Strickland | Graphic design: Catherine Pipkin
We look forward to welcoming you to Durham for this exciting event.
