Access Ohio State: Past Events

Peter Mohler, PhD

Peter Mohler is executive vice president for the Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge, leading the university’s efforts to expand cutting-edge research, creative expression and scholarship, stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship, and build strategic partnerships. He also serves as chief scientific officer for The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Ohio State College of Medicine, providing an important connection to research and innovation efforts across all Ohio State’s campuses and the medical center.

Dennis Hirsch, JD

Dennis Hirsch is a professor of law and computer science at The Ohio State University. His research and teaching focus on the law, policy, ethics, and management of AI, and he directs the Ohio State Program on Data and Governance, which studies, convenes events, and advises organizations on these same topics. A former Fulbright Professor (Netherlands, 2010), Professor Hirsch currently serves on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Expert Group on AI Risk and Accountability, and on the Advisory Board for the International Association of Privacy Professional’s AI Governance Center. He is the founding director of the Ohio Data Ethics Working Group.

Mike Rayo, PhD

Mike Rayo is an associate professor in the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering at The Ohio State University and a scientific advisor for patient safety at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.  Dr. Rayo’s focus is on directing attention and, team communication to predicting the effectiveness of AI-fueled solutions in real-world, high-stakes situations.  His research focuses on three different scales: joint human-machine activity, proactive performance monitoring, and societal scale resilience. 

Huan Sun, PhD

Huan Sun is an endowed College of Engineering Innovation Scholar and tenured associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University. Her research interests lie in natural language processing and AI, with emphasis on large language models and language agents.  She is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Google Research Scholar and Google Faculty Award, Ohio State's Lumley Research Award, and the President’s Research Excellence Award, and a SIGKDD Ph.D. Dissertation Runner-Up Award, among others. Her team TacoBot won third place in the first Alexa Prize TaskBot challenge in 2022 and was the only award-winning team in the United States. 

Ben Miller, MBA

A two-time Ohio State graduate, Ben Miller has been with the Office of Corporate Relations (OCR) since 2018 and is in his tenth year serving the Office of Advancement. He and the OCR team pioneer corporate engagement strategies that translate into meaningful outcomes for both the university and our corporate partners.  Leveraging a deep understanding of corporate objectives, he aligns them with Ohio State’s assets to forge high-impact partnerships. Ben works collaboratively with senior leaders and unit development officers to build vision, strategy, and coordination across multiple verticals to create and enhance top-tier corporate relationships.

Josh Knights

Director of Partnerships, The Ohio State University Sustainability Institute

Josh develops partnerships between Ohio State and major stakeholders, including businesses, government agencies, and local communities to help solve global sustainability challenges. He works with colleagues across the university to leverage Ohio State’s core strengths in research, teaching, and using campus as a living laboratory in the fields of sustainable energy, circular economy, ecosystem health, smart and resilient communities, and sustainable resources. Josh believes in the power of collaboration to solve complex challenges facing society.

Prior to joining Ohio State in 2018, Josh held leadership positions at The Nature Conservancy, including Executive Director of the Ohio program and Director of Corporate Partnerships. During 17 years with the nonprofit, Josh helped raise public and private resources for conservation, strengthened relationships with the business and agricultural sectors, and led an expansion into clean energy policy. Early in his career, Josh worked on international trade policy in Washington, D.C., at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the law firm White & Case. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in international relations from The Johns Hopkins University.

Josh lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife Lara and two children, Will and Maya. In his spare time, he enjoys backpacking and kayaking.

Christian Blanco, PhD

Assistant Professor of Operations and Business Analytics, Max M. Fisher College of Business

Christian Blanco is an assistant professor of operations management at the Fisher College of Business. After receiving his Ph.D. from the UCLA Anderson School of Management as a National Science Foundation Fellow, he joined Ohio State's Operations and Business Analytics department. Christian is a member of the Sustainability Institute and the Institute for Materials Research at Ohio State.

His research has been published in Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Risk Analysis, and Energy Policy. Christian is interested in corporate carbon targets, climate risk and resilience, and creating business solutions to environmental problems. His research has been featured in the Network for Business Sustainability, a community of more than 190 sustainability research centers in business schools worldwide. Christian has worked and collaborated with various private and public entities, including PG&E, DSW, OhioHealth, Greif, the CDP, NRC, NETL, and the FDA. Christian has also done research in the area of pharmaceutical manufacturing and the generic drug review process.

He is part of the Greater Columbus Rowing Association and enjoys recreational rowing in the Scioto River.