The Future of Emerging Technologies in the Americas: Geopolitics, Cooperation, and Development Pathways

Alvaro Soto

Director

Chilean National Center for AI (LatamGPT)

Álvaro Soto is a civil engineer from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Master of Science from Louisiana State University and Doctor of Philosophy and PhD from Carnegie Mellon University. His areas of expertise focus on machine learning, cognitive robotics, visual recognition and big data. He is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at UC and co-founder of the startup Zippedi, a Chilean robot that uses artificial intelligence applied to supermarket and retail. He currently directs the Chilean National Center for Artificial Intelligence.

Emily Allen

Former WHA Program Manager and Senior Advisor on Cybersecurity

MITRE Corporation and U.S. Department of State

Emily Allen is the Former WHA Program Manager at MITRE Corporation and Senior Advisor on Cybersecurity to the Department of State's Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. She is an expert on cyber capacity building, governance, and management across a wide range of scientific, technical, and security domains.

Paula Garnero

Economist & Co-founder

Insight LAC

Paula Garnero is an economist and co-founder of Insight LAC, a regional consultancy focused on innovation, emerging technologies, and sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean. She has worked with governments and multilateral organizations including the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), UNDP, and ECLAC, advising on digital transformation, AI, and productive development strategies. Her work focuses on the intersection of emerging tecnologies, economic development, and public policy, with a particular emphasis on productive transformation and capabilities building. She is a member of expert networks of the OECD’s Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) and collaborates with regional initiatives on AI governance and innovation ecosystems.

Seth Center

Senior Fellow

JHU SAIS

Seth Center is a strategist, tech diplomat, and historian who operates at the intersection of artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, and statecraft. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins SAIS and teaches a course on emerging technology and statecraft. From 2023 to 2025, Center served as the Acting Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technologies at the U.S. Department of State. In this role, he led the United States international strategy and diplomatic engagement on AI, quantum computing, and biotechnology. Previously, Center was Senior Advisor to the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), where he directed the drafting of the Commission’s final report. His government service also includes a tenure as Director for National Security Strategy and History at the National Security Council (2017–2019), where he directed the 2017 National Security Strategy. Center has also served on the State Department’s Policy Planning staff and as the historian for the National Security Council. Outside of government, he has held senior advisory and fellow roles at the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He earned a PhD from the University of Virginia and a BA from Cornell University.

Bruna Santos

Director of the Brazil Program

Inter-American Dialogue

Bruna Santos is the director of the Brazil Program at the Inter-American Dialogue. She previously led the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. Prior to that, she served as vice president and director of innovation at Brazil’s National School of Public Administration (Enap), the country’s premier government training institution. Earlier in her career, she was a director at Comunitas, a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 to promote social development in Brazil.  From 2010 to 2013, she lived and worked in Beijing, China, where she was a market analyst at Chinatex Grains & Oils and co‑founded Radar China, a public relations firm.

Santos is a member of the global network of Eisenhower Fellows and has served as an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s EMPA Global. She was honored by Apolitical and the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Agile Governance as one of the fifty most influential leaders championing innovation in policymaking.

Santos holds a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. She was a program officer at the Columbia Global Centers in Rio de Janeiro. A native Portuguese speaker, she is fluent in English and Spanish and proficient in Mandarin.

Yolanda Martinez

Practice Manager for Digital Development in Latin American and the Caribbean

The World Bank

Yolanda Martínez serves as the practice manager for digital development in Latin American and the Caribbean at the World Bank Group.

Previously, she served as a program lead for the GovStack Initiative at the International Telecommunications Union, assisting governments in expediting the digital transformation of their services. Within the public domain, Yolanda spearheaded Mexico’s National Digital Strategy, oversaw the Digital Government Unit at the Federal Level, and directed the Zapopan Digital City Program at the municipal level. In the private sector, while at Deloitte Consulting, she championed numerous digital transformation projects. On the international front, Yolanda headed the Office of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Chile and partnered with United Nations agencies and the OECD, acting as a peer reviewer for digital government strategies across various Latin American countries. 

She has been recognized as one of the top twenty global influencers in digital government. She earned her PhD in information and knowledge society from the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).

Amb. Brian Nichols

Former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs

U.S. Department of State

Ambassador Brian A. Nichols brings more than 35 years of leadership in international relations, crisis management, and economic development across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. As Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, he shaped U.S. policy across the region, overseeing substantial foreign assistance and operational budgets while advancing initiatives to promote trade, sustainable development, and democratic governance. Amb. Nichols currently serves on the boards of First Quantum Minerals, a global mining company, and the Pan American Development Foundation, an OAS-affiliated nonprofit focused on human development in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Inter-American Dialogue, which provides policy analysis and recommendations on economic, social, and political events across the Americas. He teaches at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Previously, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe and Peru, as well as in multiple senior diplomatic roles in Washington and abroad. He is widely recognized for championing economic growth, forging strategic public-private partnerships, and strengthening legal and regulatory frameworks to support international investment. Amb. Nichols holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tufts University and has received numerous honors for his distinguished service to U.S. foreign policy.

Francisco Gonzalez

Associate Professor of International Political Economy and Latin American Politics

JHU SAIS

Dr. Francisco E. González is an Associate Professor of International Political Economy and Latin American Politics at Johns Hopkins SAIS. His research interests include the political economy of Latin America, global and regional energy issues, and Sino–Latin American relations, among other topics. He earned his master’s (MPhil, 1997) and doctoral (DPhil, 2002) degrees in Politics from the University of Oxford, and his BA in Politics and Public Administration from El Colegio de México (1995). Dr. Gonzalez is a two-time recipient of the JHU SAIS Max M. Fisher Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2012 and 2006).

Tito Cordella

Economist & Senior Lecturer

JHU SAIS

Dr. Tito Cordella is an Economist and Senior Lecturer at Johns Hopkins SAIS. He began his career in academia, teaching at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and the University of Bologna. He then had a long stint at the Bretton Woods Institutions, where, alternating between operational and research activities, he gained extensive policy experience across a wide range of issues. From there, he served in the Monetary and Exchange Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund and later in the Research Department, where he focused on international financial architecture reforms. At the World Bank, he was Lead Economist for Brazil, Deputy Chief Economist for the Latin America and Caribbean region, and Adviser to the World Bank Chief Economist. Tito is an honorary member of LACEA, serves on the Scientific Committee of LTI@UniTO, and is an Advisory Editor of the Latin American Journal of Central Banking and has published widely in banking, international finance/development, and trade.