SD Biomedical Computation Consortium

Join us for the University of South Dakota’s 2nd Annual South Dakota Biomedical Computation Consortium (SDBCC), held in conjunction with the 8th Annual Artificial Intelligence Symposium. This event brings together thought leaders from academia, industry and government to explore the areas of artificial intelligence, data engineering, healthcare and biomedical computing. 

Time:
September 9, 2026 | 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM

Location:
USD Vermillion Campus
Muenster University Center Ballroom (MUC 225)
349-499 East Cherry St. 
Vermillion, SD 57069

Registration: Free of Charge!

SDBCC and AI Symposium Registration

Schedule of Events

8:30 AM – 9 AM: Morning Networking Session (coffee/refreshments)

9:00 AM – 9:30 AM: Welcome session with Senator Mike Rounds, USD President and Vice Presidents, SDBCC leadership and SDBCC program overview

9:30 AM - 10:30 AM:  Keynote talk: Ron Weiss, Ph.D., Professor and Director of the Synthetic Biology Center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Talk Title: Mammalian Synthetic Biology Therapeutic Applications and Neuromorphic Computing

10:30 AM - 10:50 AM:  Break

10:50 AM - 12:00 PM: Invited Talks: Translational Science Session 

10:50 AM - 11:25 PM: Jonathon Silva, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science and Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis. Talk Title: Precision Antiarrhythmic Medicine: Multiscale Modeling from Ion Channel to Patient

11:25 AM -  12:00 PM: Nicholas Butzin, PhD, Associate Professor of Synthetic Biology, Department of Biology and Microbiology, South Dakota State University. Talk Title: Discovering Antibiotics by Combining Old with New Technologies

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Roundtable Lunch Discussion with Speakers and Poster Viewing

12:30 PM - 12:50 PM: Biomedical Computation and Ai Educational Workshop for k-12 education, Speaker: Benjamin Benson, Research Education Specialist, Sanford Research South Dakota

1:00 PM - 2:45 PM: Invited Talks: Clinical Science Session

1:00 PM- 1:35 PM: Samuel Aronson, ALM, MA, Executive Director of IT and AI Solutions for Mass General Brigham Personalized Medicine and the Senior Director of IT for our Accelerator for Clinical Transformation. Talk Title: Using AI in Clinical Trial Recruitment - An Example of an End Journey?

1:35 PM - 2:10 PM: Benson Hsu, MD, MBA, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, Avera Children's Hospital, and Professor of Pediatrics, USD Sanford School of Medicine Talk Title: Meet Them Where They Are: Building AI Rural Clinicians Actually Use

2:10 PM - 2:45 PM: Rohit Sharma, MD, MBA, Chief of Service, Surgery Services and Associate Chief Medical Officer, Sanford Health Marshfield, and Clinical Adjunct Professor of Surgery, University of Wisconsin Madison Talk Title: From Scalpels to Signatures: How Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are Redefining Clinical Oncology

2:45 PM - 3:00 PM: Break

3:00 PM - 4:30 PM: Biomed Computation and AI Panel Discussion (SDBCC leadership, SDSMT and SDSU leadership, SD Biotech, Healthcare, and Academia)

Panelists: William C.W. Chen (USD SSOM) , Debesh Jha (USD CS), Rodrigue Rizk (USD CS), Michael Harl (Sanford Research Marshfield WI), Safiya Khurshid (Sanford Research Sioux Falls SD), Benjamin Benson (Sanford Education)