KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Professor Joseph A. Baur
Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, United States

Joseph Baur, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Physiology and the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. His laboratory studies the basic mechanisms that lead to aging, and how these can be influenced by nutritional or pharmacological interventions. He has published more than 150 papers, spanning topics in aging from the cellular level to whole organisms. Dr. Baur’s work has contributed to our understanding of telomere biology as well as the mechanisms of action for rapamycin, the most robustly validated longevity drug in mice. He is a leader in the field of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) metabolism and has developed mouse models and heavy isotope tracing methods adopted by many researchers in this area, in addition to co-discovering SLC25A51 as the mitochondrial NAD transporter. This work has provided critical insights in the mechanisms of action for nicotinamide riboside and nicotinamide mononucleotide, which are now widely consumed as supplements. Recent work in the lab is focused on strategies to maintain muscle mass and metabolic health during weight loss induced by GLP-1 agonism. Dr. Baur’s broad goal is to identify molecular mechanisms that are amenable to nutritional or pharmacological manipulation and can be translated into therapies to prevent or treat age-related diseases in humans.

Professor Max Nakano
Faculty of Information Sciences and Arts, Toyo University, Japan

Professor Max Nakano is a professor at the faculty of Information Sciences and Arts, Toyo University, Japan. He specializes in emerging technologies in accounting and auditing, with a particular focus on AI audit. He brings an uncommon perspective to academic research: following a thirty-year career in the oil and gas industry — during which he pursued scholarly work in parallel — he transitioned to full-time academic life, committed to advancing AI audit from both theoretical and practical perspectives.

His recent work introduces the concept of Auditability by Design — the principle that auditability must be embedded as a structural design condition in AI systems before and during deployment — and develops integrated governance frameworks that bridge software engineering, internal control, and audit theory.

He has presented his research at the American Accounting Association Annual Meeting for four consecutive years and serves as a Board Member of the Japan Society of Systems Audit. He also leads regular research collaborations with major audit firms and leading IT corporations in Japan, bridging academic inquiry and industry practice in AI governance and AI audit

Professor Hyuksoo Cho
Department of International Trade, Chungnam National University, Korea

Professor Hyuksoo Cho earned his Ph.D. in International Business from Washington State University, USA, in 2004. Since March 2014, he has been a Full Professor in the Department of International Trade at Chungnam National University (CNU), where he received the Excellent Lecturer Award. He currently serves as the Dean of International Affairs at CNU. In addition to his academic and administrative roles, he is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics (AJSL), published by Elsevier, and serves on the boards of several major academic associations in Korea.