Nemertes [Next] Virtual Conference Spring 2026

Dan leads the technology strategy and product development for BiasSync. Before joining BiasSync, Dan was Vice President of Technology at Tinder. His teams developed core features of the Tinder algorithm, built-out the data infrastructure, and used data science to help grow the company to more than $1 billion in revenue. Dan previously founded Chill, a video discovery tool acquired by Tinder and Newroo, a machine learning-based news service that was acquired by Fox News Corp. As VP of Technology at Fox, he helped build their highly successful ad network.

James Hendler is the Director of the Institute for Data Exploration and Applications and the Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web and Cognitive Sciences at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also serves as a Director of the UK’s charitable Web Science Trust. Hendler has authored over 200 technical papers in the areas of Semantic Web, artificial intelligence, agent-based computing and high performance processing. One of the originators of the “Semantic Web,” Hendler was the recipient of a 1995 Fulbright Foundation Fellowship, is a former member of the US Air Force Science Advisory Board, and is a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the British Computer Society, the IEEE and the AAAS. He is also the former Chief Scientist of the Information Systems Office at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and was awarded a US Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal in 2002.

Hendler is the first computer scientist to serve on the Board of Reviewing editors for Science. In 2010, he was named one of the 20 most innovative professors in America by Playboy magazine and was selected as an “Internet Web Expert” by the US government. In 2012, he was one of the inaugural recipients of the Strata Conference “Big Data” awards for his work on large-scale open government data, and he is a columnist and associate editor of the Big Data journal. In 2013, he was appointed by the governor as the Open Data Advisor to New York State.

For the last two decades, Krisztina Holly—aka “Z”—has been scouting, cultivating, and investing in innovators at the frontier. She is currently a venture partner at Good Growth Capital, investing in early-stage complex science and technology ventures. An MIT-trained engineer and serial tech entrepreneur, Z is probably best known as the curator of the first-ever TEDx event and the former vice provost for innovation at the University of Southern California. She built pioneering innovation centers at MIT and USC and started her career as a founder and key team member at tech companies in Boston and Silicon Valley. Since then, she has advised hundreds of leaders across the private sector, academia, and government, including entrepreneurs who have raised over $1B in capital. An instrument-rated private pilot and avid backcountry skier, Z has B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering and is based in Los Angeles.

Bio

Johna Till Johnson is CEO and Founder of Nemertes Research, where she sets research direction and works with strategic clients. Under her leadership, Nemertes has emerged as a leading trusted advisor to Fortune-50 and other world-class organizations.

A widely regarded expert, Ms. Johnson currently serves as the content committee chair at the Wall St. Technology Association (WSTA), which provides technology guidance to some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated financial services firms. She regularly speaks at industry trade shows, conferences, and seminars, including Nemertes Navigator360, IDG’s FutureIT, ISC, and (WSTA). She writes regular columns on cybersecurity and IoT for TechTarget. Prior to founding Nemertes in 2002,

Ms. Johnson served as chief technology officer (CTO) at Greenwich Technology Partners, a global consulting and engineering firm. Prior to that, she led the Global Networking Strategies Service business unit of META Group. Prior to that, as Senior Technology Editor she oversaw the lab-testing program at Data Communications magazine, providing testing and assessment of up to 16 emerging technologies per year. She also has designed and developed security, speech-synthesis, and free-space laser products at companies including Mosler Security Systems and Digitus Corp.

Ms. Johnson holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering/computer science (BSEE/CS) from The Johns Hopkins University, has conducted graduate work in nuclear and particle physics at the University of Rochester, speaks three languages, and has published a science fiction novel. She is an avid urban kayaker and novice woodworker and candymaker.

Leonard Kleinrock is Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UCLA. He is considered a father of the Internet, having developed the mathematical theory of data networks, the technology underpinning the Internet as an MIT graduate student in 1962. His UCLA Host computer became the first node of the Internet in September 1969 from which he directed the transmission of the first Internet message. Kleinrock received the 2007 National Medal of Science “For fundamental contributions to the mathematical theory of modern data networks…”, the highest honor for achievement in science bestowed by the President of the United States.

Leonard Kleinrock received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1963. He has served as Professor of Computer Science at UCLA since then, and was department Chairman from 1991-1995. He received a BEE degree (fully at night school while working daytime as an engineer) from CCNY in 1957 and an MS degree from MIT in 1959. He has received eight honorary degrees, has published over 250 papers, authored six books, and has supervised the research for over 50 Ph.D. students on a wide array of subjects, including packet switching networks, packet radio networks, local area networks, broadband networks, queueing theory, congestion control, gigabit networks, nomadic computing, intelligent software agents, performance evaluation, peer-to-peer networks and blockchain performance.

Dr. Kleinrock is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, is an IEEE fellow, an ACM fellow, an INFORMS fellow, a CHM fellow, an IEC fellow, an inaugural member of the Internet Hall of Fame, a Guggenheim fellow, and an Eminent member of Eta Kappa Nu. Among his many honors, he is the recipient of the National Medal of Science, the Ericsson Prize, the NAE Draper Prize, the Marconi Prize, the Dan David Prize, the Okawa Prize, the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award, the ACM SIGCOMM Award, the SIGMOBILE Inaugural Test of Time Award, the ACM Test of Time Award, the 6G Pioneer Award, the IEEE Computer Society Pioneer Award, the IEEE Leonard G. Abraham Prize Paper Award, the IEEE Harry M. Goode Award, the ORSA Lanchester Outstanding Research Prize, the UCLA Medal and the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal.

As an integral part of the TTI/Vanguard advanced technology membership for senior-level executives, I attended all 125 of their conferences, penning detailed summaries for every presentation—nearly 2000! As this company reached the end of its run, I teamed up with Nemertes to carry the conference series forward as Nemertes [Next]. At Cornell, I taught undergraduate and graduate physical chemistry for many years. Separately, my love of long-distance running leads me to race distances up to 70.5 miles. At age 50, I raced the mile in 5:43 and won a 50-mile race in under 8 hours—both personal bests.

Throughout my decades of summarizing technical talks, I pulled them apart and did independent research before putting them back together to tell stories that made sense. On several occasions, speakers expressed that I had written about the talk they meant to give. Perhaps due to my scientific training—or perhaps I pursued science because of my natural inclinations—I look at most things from multiple angles, searching for holes in arguments or alternative explanations. My goal is to explore the scope of the possible.

K Krasnow Waterman is a polymath, with a history of weaving broad knowledge to rapidly create solutions or transform data-driven entities. She spent years as a "fire jumper" before becoming a Board Director and business mentor. Then, she was known for jumping into the most challenging situations, quickly building or revamping organizations in data-intensive environments, introducing relevant innovation while reducing cost and risk.

She served as a COO, CIO, CTO, Counsel in large scale organizations like Citigroup, the FBI, and a Ranieri private equity firm, as well as founded, managed, and advised small and mid-sized businesses. Direct budgets from $100k to $1B and teams of 2 to 1,500, matrix-management of 10,000+.

Now, she is sought after to share that breadth of knowledge and experience to help others who are building or scaling ventures, ranging from Board Director & Risk Committee Chair for Cross River ($8B fintech) to Entrepreneur in Residence for a multi-disciplinary university incubator to one-time mentor to hundreds of startups. She has helped businesses in verticals that might be expected - FinTech, Crypto, AI & other data analytics, Cybersecurity, Privacy, LegalTech - and the unexpected - pico satellites, natural resource discovery, carbon accounting, interactive chairs, shopping avatars and more. K is also known for her fast-paced, data-packed, and entertaining talks.

At MIT, K does policy reasoning, privacy, security, and other AI research.  She’s also recently written a new piece of genAI software to dynamically generate context.

Juan Moreno is a Principal Technology Evangelist for Quantum Technologies at AWS. Based in Austin, he leads the development and growth of AWS's quantum networking partner ecosystem. With a rich background in infrastructure technical support, Juan has witnessed the technology transformation of both large corporations and nimble startups over the past two decades, from datacenter management to virtualization to cloud computing.

More recently, he has focused on advancing quantum networking, applying his experience to bridge the gap between academia and industry in one of the most challenging and promising areas of the security landscape. A Physics undergraduate student at The Open University, his insights and contributions can be found on AWS blog channels, where he continues to influence and provide practical tips to industry executives and technologists alike.

Ike Nassi is a consultant and an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at UC Santa Cruz, a Founding Trustee at the Computer History Museum and an advisory board member of TTI/Vanguard. Ike was the founder of TidalScale, sold to HPE Dec. 2022. Previously, he was an Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist at SAP.

Ike started or helped to start four companies: Encore Computer Corporation building hierarchical strongly coherent shared memory symmetric multiprocessors (1984); InfoGear Technology, which developed both Internet appliances (including the first iPhone) (1996); Firetide, an early wireless mesh networking company (2000), and TidalScale (2012).

He was SVP for Software at Apple Computer and a Corporate Officer. He worked at Visual Technology, and Digital Equipment Corporation. In the past, Dr. Nassi was a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, twice a Research Scientist at MIT, and a Visiting Scholar at University of California, Berkeley. He has served on the board of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and the IEEE Computer Society Industry Advisory Board. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stony Brook University.

He was awarded two certificates for Distinguished Service from the Department of Defense, one for his work on the design of the programming language Ada and one for his work on DARPA ISAT. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE and a Life member of ACM. He is named on over 35 patents.

Tony is the Founder and CEO of DATAVERSITY. He directs the overall subject matter of DATAVERSITY's educational services, including conferences, publications, and training services, which are focussed on data management strategies in large organizations. Prior to founding DATAVERSITY, he started a dotcom in the identity management space (which went the way of most dotcoms) and was the president of Technology Transfer Institute. He facilitates the strategic technology forum called Nemertes [Next], formerly TTI/Vanguard.