Dr. Mariana Bento

Assistant Professor

Biography:

 Dr. Mariana Bento is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Calgary and a leading voice in responsible artificial intelligence for healthcare. Her research focuses on identifying and mitigating bias in AI-driven medical systems, with the goal of advancing equitable care for women, racialized communities, and older adults. Since launching her independent career in 2021, Dr. Bento has built a highly interdisciplinary research program. Beyond her research, she is deeply committed to education, mentorship, and advancing equity in engineering. Dr. Bento is an award-winning engineer, recognized with the 2026 APEGA Summit Award for Women in Engineering, and an active advocate for engaging diverse communities in the future of technology.

Address:Canada

Dr. Raissa Souza

Postdoctoral Associate

Biography:

Dr. Raissa Souza is a postdoctoral associate in the Medical Image Processing and Machine Learning Laboratory with a PhD in Biomedical Engineering with medical imaging specialization (2024) from the University of Calgary. She holds a BSc in Computer Science from São Paulo State University (2017) and studied abroad at the University of California, San Diego. Her interest in applying computer science and engineering methods to improve medical care began during research visits to Simon Fraser University (2014) and the University of California, Los Angeles (2015). She also has four years of industry experience as a software engineer. Her research develops privacy-preserving AI for healthcare, enabling AI models to be trained across multiple healthcare centres without ever sharing patient data. Her work also tackles key challenges with respect to data and model biases and sociotechnical considerations.

Address:Canada

Dr. Sara Saeedi

Assistant Professor

Biography:

Dr. Sara Saeedi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Software Engineering, University of Calgary. Dr. Saeedi brings extensive expertise in IoT and distributed systems, open geospatial standards, intelligent geo-computation, sensor fusion, and integrated navigation systems. She also serves as an adjunct assistant professor in the Geomatics Engineering Department at UofC.

Before joining the University of Calgary, Dr. Saeedi was the Innovation Program Director at the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). At OGC, her work encompassed IoT, high-performance distributed computation, smart sensors, and earth observations, collaborating with esteemed organizations such as NASA, ESA, WHO, NRCan, and I-GUIDE. Her commitment to advancing the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles of geospatial information through open standards is noteworthy.

Previously, Dr. Saeedi served as the Assistant Director and Post-Doctoral Fellow at the "Geo Sensor Web" Research Lab at UofC. In this role, she made significant contributions to IoT research across environmental, oil and gas, and health sectors, partnering with CAE Inc., NRCan, Alberta Innovates, and Rogers.

Dr. Saeedi holds a Ph.D. in Geomatics Engineering from the University of Calgary, where her doctoral research focused on multi-sensor positioning, navigation, and wireless location technologies. During her Ph.D., she developed pioneering MEMS-based sensor algorithms for smartphone-based navigation applications. She also earned her Bachelor of Science (BSc) and Master of Science (MSc) from the University of Tehran, where her MSc thesis on vision-aided IMU navigation systems for UAVs was groundbreaking, garnering various awards and leading to her membership in the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) in 2008.

Address:Canada