Samantha Smith is a research analyst at the UNLV School of Public Health's Nevada Institute for Children’s Research and Policy (NICRP), where she collaborates with various agencies and community partners to conduct research and coordinate projects aimed at addressing health disparities in Nevada.

Through her role at NICRP, Smith also serves as the program manager for the Nevada Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, which promotes lead-safe home environments for Nevada children. Additionally, Smith conducts research for the Nevada Minority Health and Equity Coalition, and she has co-led and coordinated the Nevada Vaccine Equity Collaborative since February 2021.

As part of her commitment to advancing health equity and community well-being, Smith is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Health, focused on global and environmental initiatives, at UNLV.

Mingon Kang is an assistant professor in UNLV's Department of Computer Science. His research interests include machine learning, big data analytics, data science, and bioinformatics.

Specifically, Kang has been focusing on developing novel computational methodologies for integrative, interpretable, and evidential deep learning. His work has explored topics including genomic/multi-omics data analysis, protein sequence analysis, survival analysis, pathological image analysis, and electronic record data analysis.

Kang has published more than 75 research papers in prestigious journals and conferences, including Briefings in Bioinformatics, Bioinformatics, BMC Bioinformatics, Nature Methods, PNAS, and IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. His research has been supported by funding from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, NASA, Health Resources and Services Administration, and Institute for Information & Communication Technology Promotion. Additionally, he has collaborated with medical research centers such as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.