Technical Sharing Session – IBM Research Day with NUS

Priya Nagpurkar is the Vice President of Hybrid Cloud and AI Platform Research at I.B.M.'s T.J. Watson Research Center. Priya is passionate about making computing consumable and fast. She leads a global team of AI and distributed systems experts working on all interesting aspects of evolving the hybrid cloud platform for emerging workloads. Her team has worked on and contributed to multiple influential open-source projects for the genAI era such as llm-d, PyTorch, vLLM and in the past Istio, Knative as well as contributed to several impactful IBM offerings including OpenShift AI and watsonx. Her previous work at IBM focused on characterising and optimising emerging workloads across different layers of the application and systems stack, with an emphasis on programming language runtimes and processor architecture and design. Priya holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Ramesh is a seasoned technology executive responsible for driving the technical strategy and execution of strategic AI partnerships at IBM Research. In this role, he leads collaborative initiatives that accelerate AI innovation. Previously, he led Organic Growth Ventures, an incubation programme within IBM’s Corporate Strategy group focused on identifying and scaling high-impact opportunities. Before that, Ramesh played a pivotal role in establishing and growing IBM’s blockchain solutions business, working with leading clients across sectors such as food safety, banking and financial services, and global supply chains. He was instrumental in the development of IBM Food Trust, a blockchain-based solution enhancing food traceability and safety. The underlying platform continues to power supply chain applications across multiple industries. Since joining IBM Research in 1994, he has led the development of key IBM products and services across a wide spectrum of technologies, including AI (speech and text analytics), collaboration tools, mobile computing, and cloud platforms. Ramesh holds a Ph.D. (1993) and M.S. (1990) from Rice University, and a B.Tech. (1987) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai.

Campbell Watson is a Senior Research Manager & Master Inventor at IBM Research in New York. He leads the Climate and Sustainability team at the T. J. Watson Research Center in New York with a focus on AI foundation models and algorithm development. He has received multiple awards for his research, including the 2025 NASA Group Achievement Award and the 2025 American Geophysical Union’s Open Science Recognition Prize. Campbell moved to the United States in 2012 for a postdoc position at Yale University where he studied clouds physics over Dominica and gravity waves over New Zealand. He received a PhD in Atmospheric Science from The University of Melbourne in Australia.

Dr. Tamar Eilam is an IBM Fellow and a Chief Scientist for Sustainable Computing in the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in New York. She leads research in Broad AI Sustainability and AI efficiency, with a current focus on AI control plane optimisation techniques for inference and fine-tuning. Dr. Eilam serves as an Ex-Officio member of the National Academies Roundtable on AI and Climate, and represents IBM on the Green Software Foundation, where she advises on AI efficiency standards. She is a prolific researcher with numerous publications and patents spanning cloud computing, DevOps, and sustainability, and is a frequent international keynote speaker.

Shintaro Yamamichi received his M.E. and Ph. D. degrees in electrical engineering, from Kyoto University, Japan in 1989 and 2002, respectively. He was involved in semiconductor and advanced packaging R&D in Japanese semiconductor companies. He was also a Visiting Industrial Fellow at University of California, Berkeley in 1997. In 2013, he joined IBM Japan, Science and Technology team in Tokyo. From 2016, He led the research projects, including quantum computer installation, AI hardware, advanced packaging, and material informatics. From 2023, he is the Director of IBM Semiconductors Japan, IBM Research -Tokyo, leading circuit design, chiplet technology, fab automation and data science activities and the collaboration with research partners in global.

Dr. Oliver Dial was named an IBM Fellow in 2021 for his contributions to quantum computing hardware. He is IBM Quantum’s CTO, ensuring IBM’s quantum hardware and software together lead the industry in quality and performance. Oliver received his PhD from MIT in 2007 for research in two-dimensional electron and hole systems. He then entered the field of quantum computing as a post-doc at Harvard, demonstrating the first two-qubit gate between semiconductor singlet-triplet qubits. He joined IBM as a research scientist in 2012, and has worked on multiqubit device architectures, qubit coherence, and quantum device control software.

Michael Osborne is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and serves as the CTO for IBM Quantum Safe globally. He oversees cryptographic research at the IBM Research Center in Rüschlikon, Switzerland. His current work involves developing new generations of advanced cryptography, including those selected by NIST as the next generation of PQC algorithms. He also directs efforts to create technologies for migrating cryptography to these new standards and to enhance IBM’s products and services. Additionally, he advises national security agencies and standards organizations on the transition to quantum-safe solutions. Michael holds over 80 patents related to security and cryptography.

Dr. Ying Chen is an applied mathematician. She develops modelling, methods and algorithms customized for nonstationary, high frequency and large scale complex data in finance and energy. Her current research includes AI forecasting and optimization, quantum computing in finance, credit modelling and rating, citation analysis and research metrics, etc. Dr. Chen is Associate Professor in Department of Mathematics, Director of Centre for Quantitative Finance, PI of Asian Institute of Digital Finance. She also holds Joint Appointment in Risk Management Institute, National University of Singapore. She is Council Member of the International Statistical Institute for the period 2023 – 2027 and President for Society of Algorithmic Intelligence for 2025-2027.

Tulika Mitra is Provost’s Chair Professor, Dean of the School of Computing, and Vice Provost (Special Projects) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She is internationally recognized for her pioneering research in hardware-software co-design of computing systems, with a focus on real-time embedded systems and energy-efficient accelerators. She has served as Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, as a member of the ACM Publications Board, and as General or Program Chair of leading conferences including ESWEEK and ICCAD. Her contributions have been recognized with Embedded Systems Week Test-of-Time Award, multiple best paper awards, ACM SIGDA Distinguished Service Award, among others.