SPEAKERS

Professor, PhD, FRGS, FCMI, FRSA Founder, Chairperson and CEO, eWorldwide Group.

Professor Abbasi has been successfully creating strategies, frameworks and initiatives that disrupt, integrate and reform policies and systems to drive sustainable inclusive digital transformation, leveraging innovative technologies, along with driving ethical standardisation for prevailing technologies, data privacy, trust, and cybersecurity for Governments, development agencies and private sector.

She has researched and published several papers highlighting the importance to understand the unknown risks and unethical challenges from Artificial Intelligence Systems (AIS) and is actively working with the IEEE and think tanks to develop a series of global standards, ethical AI frameworks, and guidelines for governance, transparency, accountability, explainability, and algorithmic biased, and policy papers.

Leveraging her global experience as the former Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer for Lucent Technologies, with over 40 years' experience in the fields of technology, innovation, and people-centric design, she is an advisory board member for several international organizations advocating and contributing for international collaborations, inclusive policies, industry standards, and guidelines to enable sustainable digital transformation, ethical AI, the metaverse, IoT, and resilient cyberspace. 

CONFERENCE:

The Power of AI, how prepared are we ? 

President of the Latino Professionals in Aerospace (LPA)

Captain A320.

She is an Airbus A320 Captain and Line Check Pilot for a major U.S. legacy carrier, with nearly three decades of experience in aviation in operations, flight training, and leadership. She currently serves as President of Latino Professionals in Aerospace (LPA), a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing Latino representation and inclusion across the different careers available in aerospace.

Claudia’s aviation journey began in 1995 at a small low cost carrier, where she worked in reservations and crew scheduling before becoming a flight attendant with a legacy carrier in 1997. Her long held passion for flight led her to begin pilot training towards the end of 2000. Following the events of September 11, 2001, her flight school closed, forcing her to rebuild her path in aviation, an experience that impacted and shaped her understanding of resilience and perseverance.

As a leader, mentor, and advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, Claudia was honored in 2025 with the Inspirational Role Model Award by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for her commitment to fostering belonging and equitable opportunity in the aviation industry. She also testified in 2021 before the 117th U.S. Congress on the importance of building a more inclusive and sustainable aviation workforce.

In her presentation, “Supporting Change and Building Resiliency in the  Aviation Workforce,” Claudia shares lessons from her journey and highlights how organizations can strengthen resiliency and performance through inclusion. Drawing on current team diversity research, including the work of Dr. Kimberly Perkins on resilience and psychological safety, she connects the dots between diverse teams, improved safety outcomes, and long-term organizational success.

Through her work with LPA, Claudia continues to champion mentorship, community, and inclusive leadership as essential to a resilient and innovative global aviation industry. 

CONFERENCE:

Inclusivity drives performance and resilience.

PhD / Boeing 787 airline pilot / Research Scientist at the University of Washington.

She leads a research team reimagining risk management for the aviation industry, where emotional intelligence, psychological safety, and ethical AI converge to create stronger, more adaptive teams. Her work empowers professionals in high-stakes environments to thrive, not just perform.

With two decades of global flying experience, Kimberly knows that safety isn’t just about procedures; it’s about people. She brings together insights from the flight deck and her doctoral research to shape a new, behavioral science–driven approach to human factors training. 

Her work includes designing the first human performance platform that turns Crew Resource Management theory into real-world team practice. Central to Kimberly’s work is a co-design philosophy. By building with pilots and safety professionals, her research brings human factors to life - rooted in experience, designed for impact.

Kimberly was honored to receive her company’s Trailblazer Award in recognition of her leadership in using technology to support and empower women in aviation. And, in 2025, she completed leadership training at Harvard as the recipient of the Women in Aviation Harvard Leadership scholarship.

Outside the flight deck and lab, she’s passionate about literacy and mental wellbeing for children displaced by conflict through her work on the board of the not-for-profit organization, Rise Up and Read. Kimberly also serves on the Human Performance Excellence Council at CAE, is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

In her presentation, “Human Factors Reimagined: A Behavioral Science Approach to Building Resilient Teams”Kimberly brings research to life - showing how the science of teamwork and communication translates into safer, stronger performance. She introduces an interactive tool that turns theory into action, helping crews apply human performance and CRM principles in real time. Grounded in behavioral science and human factors, her work reveals how ethical AI can reimagine safety culture - enhancing connection, adaptability, and wellbeing across the aviation ecosystem. 

CONFERENCE:

Human Factors Reimagined

“At the centre of Aviation’s complex systems, are people”. 

Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading

Dr Paul Williams was educated in physics to PhD level at Oxford and is now Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading. He is a world-leading expert on aviation turbulence, being the scientist who discovered that turbulence is increasing because of climate change. He has published two books and over 70 papers in leading scientific journals.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Royal Meteorological Society. He is a consultant to Guinness World Records on extreme atmospheric events. He is a frequent expert commentator for major broadcasting networks including the BBC, CNN, The Discovery Channel, and The Weather Channel, and he has been quoted on the front page of the New York Times.