Our team

Michael A. Santoro is the founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ardelia. He is Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, where he teaches business ethics and directs the Artificial Intelligence, Business Ethics, and Human Rights Lab. His work examines how companies, and increasingly AI systems, can be held accountable for their effects on human rights. He co-founded the Business and Human Rights Journal and served as its Co-Editor-in-Chief from 2014 to 2022, and he has written on AI accountability and governance in publications including the American Journal of Bioethics. He is the author of two books on human rights and global business in China, and co-author of a Cambridge University Press book on the legal, regulatory and ethical aspects of the pharmaceutical industry. He holds a J.D. from New York University and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University, and was a Fulbright scholar in Hong Kong. A lifelong lover of art, he founded Ardelia after being moved by a friend’s search for a family artwork stolen during World War II.

Michele Samorani is an Associate Professor of Information Systems and Analytics at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, and Program Director of its Master of Science in Information Systems. His research combines machine learning and optimization to help organizations improve their operations. His work on reducing racial disparity in medical appointment scheduling, when machine learning is used to predict no-shows, was featured in major media, included in a United Nations report, and won the 2021 INFORMS Minority Issues Forum Paper Competition. His papers have appeared in leading journals, including MIS Quarterly, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and the INFORMS Journal on Computing. He holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in computer science from the University of Bologna and a Ph.D. in operations and information management from the University of Colorado Boulder. At Ardelia, he leads all of the technology, from the data pipelines to the AI matching.