Kostas Bekris, Rutgers University

Alex Carroll, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Alston Ghafourifar, Entefy

Abstract

Bio:  Kostas Bekris

Kostas Bekris is a Professor of Computer Science at Rutgers University and an Amazon Scholar with Amazon Robotics. He is working in AI for Robotics, where his group is developing algorithms for robot planning, learning and perception especially in the context of robot manipulation, dealing with significant dynamics and for novel soft, adaptive mechanisms. Applications include logistics and manufacturing, as well as field robotics. He has served as Program Chair for selective robotics conferences, the "Robotics: Science and Systems" (RSS), as well as the World symposium on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR). He currently serves on the RSS Foundation Board. His research has been supported by NSF, DHS, DOD and NASA, including a NASA Early Career Faculty award.

Bio:  Alex Carroll 

Alex Carroll is a doctoral researcher at MIT's Center for Transportation and Logistics, where his work sits at the intersection of agentic AI, reinforcement learning, and maritime logistics. His research includes deep RL-based dynamic pricing for Mississippi River container barge services and AI-powered automation in port and intermodal systems. He is currently building modular multi-agent retrieval architectures for supply chain decision support, with an emphasis on auditable, governance-first AI. Alex holds an MIT Master of Applied Science in Supply Chain Management and brings industry experience from Amazon Logistics in Tokyo, Flock Freight, Zillow, and Arrive Logistics, where he built and deployed pricing and analytics systems at scale.

Bio:  Alston Ghafourifar

Alston Ghafourifar is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and a published inventor. As CEO and Co-Founder of Entefy, he leads the global technology team that drives AI innovation from original research and IP creation to full commercialization with Fortune 500 enterprise customers. To date, Alston has been awarded 55 patents by the USPTO, covering a number of technical fields including multisensory AI, agentic model orchestration, universal interaction, privacy-preserving machine learning, blockchain, as well as core paradigms and frameworks for agentic AI. Alston has been a speaker and guest lecturer at several universities including UC Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT on a variety of topics such as the future of machine intelligence, enterprise AI, and innovation-led ventures.