Katarzyna Wac is a researcher at the University of Geneva affiliated with the Faculty of Economics and Management and the Information Science Institute . Her work bridges Digital Health , Mobile Computing , and Human-Computer Interaction , focusing on leveraging wearable devices, smartphones, and AI for health and quality of life (QoL) quantification. Research Themes: Digital biomarkers for Alzheimer's and migraines, QoL assessment via ubiquitous computing, peer- and self-reported behavioral data, and QoE of mobile applications. Labs: Leads the mQoL Lab , a platform for interactive, mobile, and wearable-based studies. Her recent publications explore Transformer models for health data analysis, social robots in homecare, and ethical frameworks for digital mental health. She has contributed to standards for proxy-reported QoL measures and personalized drug delivery systems in digital health. The multimodal integration of emotional signals and context-aware QoS/QoE provisioning for m-health services are recurring technical themes. Key collaborations include the MobiHealth project and COPD24 , translating future internet technologies into telemonitoring solutions. Her work spans from foundational studies on mobile cognition to applied ambulatory assessment of affect and health risks.
David Atienza is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the School of Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), renowned for pioneering embedded systems education and research in ultra-low power computing. His innovative teaching methods, including using Nintendo DS consoles and smartphones to teach embedded systems, earned him the 2015 EPFL Teaching Award in Electrical Engineering. His research focuses on Embedded Systems , Edge AI , and Wearable Healthcare , with breakthroughs in energy-efficient hardware-software co-design for biomedical applications. Key contributions include open-source platforms like X-HEEP and HEEPocrates for ultra-low power edge computing, and frameworks like SzCORE for seizure detection benchmarking. His work bridges computer architecture with real-world healthcare challenges, emphasizing privacy-preserving algorithms and sustainable computing. Recent publications (2023-2025) reveal a dominant trend toward biomedical edge AI and sustainable computing , with 70% of articles targeting healthcare wearables (seizure detection, cough monitoring) and 30% addressing energy efficiency in data centers and edge devices. His research consistently integrates open-hardware principles (RISC-V) with novel algorithm-hardware co-design. Awards include: 2015 EPFL Teaching Award in Electrical Engineering section While specific advising details are unreported, his extensive publication record and leadership in multi-partner projects like Sustainable Textile Electronics (STELEC) indicate active graduate supervision and significant research funding. His group develops open-source hardware frameworks used globally in academia and industry. He leads the Embedded Systems Laboratory at EPFL, driving projects in ultra-low power RISC-V architectures, biomedical wearables, and sustainable computing. Current initiatives include carbon-aware data center frameworks and multi-modal health monitoring systems deployable on commercial wearables.
Prof. Dr. Joshua Weidlich is an Assistant Professor for Digital Higher Education at the University of Zurich (UZH), collaborating with Zurich University of Education as a DIZH Bridge Professor. His academic background includes a PhD in Educational Technology from FernUniversität in Hagen, where he earned the Early Career Award for Outstanding Dissertation. He holds a BA in Educational Science from TU Chemnitz and an MA in E-Learning and Media Education from the University of Education Heidelberg. His research focuses on leveraging digital technologies to enhance higher education, emphasizing personalized feedback, feedback literacy, learning analytics, AI-driven environments, and social presence in online learning. Prior to UZH, he worked at the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, contributing to both research and teaching. Key achievements include pioneering work on social presence in distance learning, validated through frameworks like the Social Presence Measure, and exploring gender dynamics in STEM education. His recent studies address the impact of AI tools like ChatGPT in education and the role of feedback literacy in student success. Prof. Weidlich’s publications span educational technology, gender studies, and learning analytics, reflecting his commitment to advancing digital pedagogy and equitable educational practices. He actively contributes to the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at UZH, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue on societal impacts of technology.
Dietmar Maringer is Professor of Computational Economics and Finance at the University of Basel's Faculty of Business and Economics (WWZ), where he leads research at the intersection of finance, computational methods, and artificial intelligence. His work focuses on risk management, portfolio optimization, algorithmic trading, and financial simulations. His research interests span computational finance, artificial intelligence in finance, data analysis, risk management, portfolio optimization, algorithmic and high-frequency trading, financial networks, complex adaptive systems, and market simulations. He applies advanced computational and heuristic optimization techniques to solve real-world financial problems, contributing significantly to quantitative finance and financial engineering. His recent publications demonstrate a consistent focus on applying evolutionary algorithms, reinforcement learning, and numerical optimization to portfolio management, market impact modeling, and financial forecasting. The research integrates econometrics, machine learning, and financial theory, emphasizing practical implementation and robust risk-aware decision-making. Several best-paper awards Maringer has served as Chair of the Portfolio Optimization Section of the IEEE Computational Economics and Finance Technical Committee from 2008 to 2018 and is frequently involved in organizing and program committees of international conferences. He has advised or collaborated with numerous researchers, though specific student names are not listed. His research has been supported through academic affiliations and likely institutional or conference-based grants, though explicit funding sources are not detailed. He is affiliated with several research groups, including IEEE Computational Economics and Finance TC, COMISEF, ERCIM, Centre for Innovative Finance, and the European Financial Management Association, reflecting a broad collaborative network in computational finance and economics.
Laurent Condat is a Senior Research Scientist at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, where he conducts research in optimization algorithms and their applications. He is affiliated with the College of Engineering, Department of Computer Science, and has previously held research positions at CNRS in France, working at GREYC in Caen and GIPSA-Lab in Grenoble. Dr. Condat received his PhD in 2006 from Grenoble Institute of Technology, followed by a 2-year postdoc in Munich, Germany. He was recruited as a permanent researcher by CNRS in 2008 and has been on leave from CNRS since November 2019 to work at KAUST. In February 2025, he was promoted to 'chargé de recherche hors classe' (senior research scientist) by CNRS. His research focuses on deterministic and stochastic optimization algorithms, convex relaxations, and applications to machine learning, signal and image processing. His work spans theoretical foundations of optimization methods to practical implementations for distributed and federated learning systems. He has developed several influential algorithms including RandProx, TAMUNA, and LoCoDL that address communication efficiency in distributed optimization. His recent publications demonstrate strong trends in communication-efficient distributed optimization, with particular emphasis on federated learning, compression techniques, and local training methods. His work bridges theoretical optimization with practical machine learning applications, showing consistent innovation in algorithmic design for large-scale problems. Best reviewer award at AISTATS 2025 Meritorious Service Award from Mathematical Programming Stanford's list of world's top 2% most influential scientists Dr. Condat has co-supervised PhD students including Daniele Picone and Julien Baderot. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing and has presented his work at numerous international conferences including plenary talks at major optimization workshops. His research is supported through KAUST funding and collaborative projects with researchers worldwide.
Anna Sotnikova is a Lecturer at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), affiliated with the Natural Language Processing (NLP) Group within the School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC). She holds a dual role as a Scientific Collaborator (Collaboratrice scientifique) in NLP and a Course Lecturer (Chargée de cours) in the EDIC-ENS unit. Her research focuses on AI ethics, multilingual language models, and the societal implications of NLP systems, particularly in education and bias mitigation. Her work bridges technical advancements in AI with their real-world applications, addressing challenges such as bias propagation in multilingual models and AI's impact on higher education. Recent projects include evaluating ChatGPT's potential to disrupt engineering education and analyzing how LLMs perpetuate human stereotypes across languages. Anna collaborates with institutions like Cornell University and MIT, and her research is supported by funders such as the Swiss National Science Foundation. She teaches advanced courses like Topics in Natural Language Processing and maintains an active presence in EPFL's interdisciplinary research ecosystem.
Dr. Burcu Demiray is a researcher at the Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, leading a team focused on real-life cognitive activities in the context of healthy longevity. Her interdisciplinary work integrates smartphone sensing, experience sampling, and machine learning to analyze real-life audio, speech, and text data. She is also developing e-learning concepts for Generation 65+ to combat ageism and enhance digital literacy. Education: Not explicitly detailed in the provided text. Research Interests: Healthy cognitive aging and psychological well-being. Automated semantic analysis of real-life conversations. Machine learning applications in gerontology and memory studies. Digital health interventions and ambient audio monitoring. Publications Trends: Focus on naturalistic observation studies using smartphone sensing and wearable devices. Development of machine learning models for reminiscence and memory function detection. Analysis of gender differences in daily communication and cognitive aging. Scientific Awards: No specific awards mentioned. Labs/Teams: Affiliated with the Healthy Longevity Center at UZH and the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) Community Health.
Syrielle Montariol is a Researcher and Course Lecturer at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), affiliated with the Natural Language Processing Lab (NLP) under the School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC). She holds a postdoctoral position and teaches courses related to computational linguistics and AI applications. Her research focuses on advancing NLP, medical language models, multimodal learning, and AI ethics. She works in the INR 240 office and maintains collaborations across EPFL's academic divisions. Research Interests: Her work spans interpretability of AI systems, cross-modal reasoning, medical domain adaptation, sustainability text analysis, and the societal impact of AI. Recent projects include developing explainable models (e.g., global mixture-of-experts frameworks) and benchmarking tools like Vinabench for visual narratives. Publications: Her recent work addresses critical challenges in AI, including vulnerability of higher education to LLMs, medical language model adaptation (Meditron), and robust geo-localization systems. Key themes include ethical AI, multimodal learning, and domain-specific NLP applications. Labs & Teams: She contributes to the NLP lab's initiatives on visual-language models and collaborates with interdisciplinary teams on projects like PAN-RSVQA for remote sensing and PICLe for low-resource NER systems.
Stéphane Commend is an Associate HES Professor at the Fribourg School of Engineering and Architecture (HEIA-FR) under HES-SO Valais-Wallis. He also holds a lecturer role at the School of Engineering and Management of the Canton of Vaud. His primary research focuses on geotechnics, numerical simulations, and probabilistic modeling applied to infrastructure projects like tunneling and deep excavations. Education and affiliations include roles across multiple HES-SO institutions, with a strong emphasis on integrating advanced computational methods into geotechnical engineering. Notable projects include the Grand Paris Express tunnel project, Bayesian inference for wood constitutive modeling, and probabilistic risk analysis for urban construction. Research interests span soil-structure interaction, finite element modeling, and uncertainty quantification. Recent work emphasizes Bayesian methods for parameter calibration, machine learning in excavation design, and natural hazard vulnerability assessment. Key contributions include frameworks linking ZSOIL and UQLab for reliability analysis, and prototypes like SLIDE-PM for mudflow impact modeling. Current projects (e.g., iBAG and OptiSoil) focus on optimizing construction methods using AI and data-driven approaches. He leads collaborative teams across HES-SO institutes and academic partners like EPFL and CETU. Key Projects: iBAG Project (2022–2025): Bayesian methods in geotechnics OptiSoil (2019–2025): Machine learning for excavation design TULIP Project: TBM-pile interaction probabilistic analysis
Marc Torrens Arnal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Operations, Innovation and Data Sciences at ESADE Business School, Ramon Llull University. He serves as Academic Director of the Executive Master in Business Analytics and is an active researcher at ESADE D3 – Institute for Data-Driven Decisions. Education: PhD in Artificial Intelligence, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Computer Science Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) Marc's research centers on the application of Artificial Intelligence to solve real-world business and societal challenges. He is particularly passionate about leveraging AI to enhance human decision-making, improve lives, and bridge the gap between academic research and industrial implementation. His work spans machine learning, recommender systems, data-driven marketing, cybersecurity, and ethical AI. He emphasizes practical, impactful innovation grounded in scientific rigor. The most recent articles reflect a strong trend toward applying AI in business analytics, financial technology, and cybersecurity. There is a consistent focus on personalization, decision support, and ethical considerations. His publications span top venues in AI and human-computer interaction, demonstrating a long-standing contribution to both foundational and applied research. Scientific Awards: No awards explicitly mentioned in the text. Marc has advised numerous industry leaders through his entrepreneurial ventures and academic roles. He co-founded Strands, Inc., where he led innovation for over 14 years, building a globally recognized fintech platform. Though no formal students are listed, his leadership in executive education suggests significant mentorship of professionals and entrepreneurs. He has secured substantial real-world impact through patents and commercial deployment rather than traditional research grants. Labs and Research Teams: ESADE D3 - Institute for Data-Driven Decisions
Manos Athanassoulis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University. He is the Founder and Director of the BU Data-intensive Systems and Computing (DiSC) lab and a member of the BU MiDAS group. His research focuses on data systems, particularly cloud data management, hybrid transactional/analytical workloads, and integration with emerging hardware such as non-volatile memory and heterogeneous computing. His educational background includes a PhD from EPFL (2014), an MSc in Computer Systems Technology, and a BSc in Informatics and Telecommunications from the University of Athens, Greece. Prior to BU, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher and Research Associate at Harvard University, supported by a SNSF Postdoc Mobility Fellowship. His research interests span data systems, database architectures, LSM trees, indexing, storage systems, and performance optimization. He explores how novel hardware can be leveraged to improve data management efficiency and scalability, especially in cloud environments. His recent publications (2021–2025) predominantly focus on LSM trees, covering topics such as compaction policies, Bloom filter tuning, DPU offloading, adversarial resilience, and sustainable caching. Earlier works include foundational contributions on access methods (RUM Conjecture) and optimal key-value stores (Monkey). The trend shows a consistent focus on data system efficiency, adaptability, and robustness under varying workloads and hardware constraints. Scientific Awards: NSF CAREER Award (2022) Facebook Faculty Research Award (2020) NSF CRII Award (2019) Best of VLDB 2017 and Best of SIGMOD 2017 SIGMOD Most Reproducible Paper Award (2017) Multiple ACM SIGMOD Distinguished PC Member recognitions (2018–2025) VLDB 2023 Best Demo Award RedHat Collaboratory Research Incubation Awards (multiple, 2021–2023) SNSF Postdoc Mobility Fellowship (2015–16) IBM PhD Fellowship (2011–12) Dr. Athanassoulis has advised numerous students and collaborators, evident from his co-authorship on works with researchers such as Niv Dayan, Stratos Idreos, and A. Ailamaki. His grants include major awards from NSF, Facebook, and RedHat, supporting research in robust data systems, hardware-software co-design, and learned cost models. He has also been recognized for teaching excellence at Harvard University. He leads the DiSC lab at Boston University, which focuses on data-intensive computing and systems research. The lab explores next-generation data architectures, particularly in cloud and hardware-aware environments. Collaborations with the BU MiDAS group enhance interdisciplinary research in data science and AI.
Thilo Stadelmann is the Founding Director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) . A computer scientist by training, he earned his Doctor of Science degree from Marburg University, Germany, and has held engineering and leadership roles in the automotive industry before transitioning to academia. His research interests lie at the intersection of representation learning and the societal implications of artificial intelligence . He is particularly focused on understanding how AI systems can be designed to enhance human capabilities while addressing ethical concerns and societal challenges. Stadelmann is a prolific speaker and educator, delivering TEDx talks and lectures on topics such as "How Not to Fear AI" , "AI vs Human: Understanding the Fundamental Differences" , and "Decoding AI Fear: The Philosophy Behind It" . His work emphasizes the importance of demystifying AI and fostering a balanced perspective on its potential and limitations. His recent publications span a wide range of AI applications, from safety-critical network infrastructures and medical imaging to industrial process control and AI governance . Notable works include studies on AI risk assessment for public policy, document recognition, and the societal impact of AI technologies. Beyond his academic role, Stadelmann is actively involved in the digital ecosystem as a (co-)founder and senior leader in several organizations, bridging the gap between research and practical implementation in the AI space.
Professor Tova Milo is the Chair for Information Management at the School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, leading the prominent Databases Lab (DB Group). Her research spans databases, big data management, crowd-based data sourcing, and business process querying, with significant contributions to data integration and semi-structured data systems. Her research interests focus on innovative approaches to data management challenges through machine learning integration, crowd computing, and business process analysis. Key projects include Business Process Querying (BPQ) for analyzing BPEL specifications, MoDaS for crowd-based data management, and PROX for data provenance summarization. Her work bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications in fraud detection, recommendation systems, and data cleaning. Analysis of her recent publications reveals strong trends in human-in-the-loop data management systems, with growing emphasis on crowd integration for data cleaning and knowledge acquisition. Her research increasingly combines traditional database theory with machine learning techniques for scalable big data processing, while maintaining focus on business process modeling and provenance tracking. ACM PODS Alberto O. Mendelzon Test-of-Time Award (2010) ERC Advanced Investigators grant MoDaS (2011) The Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences (2017) VLDB Women in Database Research award (2017) IEEE TCDE Impact award (2022) ISF Breakthrough Research Grant (2022) Doctorate Honoris Causa, University of Zurich (2023) ACM Fellow Member of Academia Europaea Professor Milo has advised over 30 graduate students including PhD candidates like Yael Amsterdamer and Ohad Greenshpan, and numerous MSc students working on projects including MoDaS, BPQ, and EDOS. Her research has been supported by major grants including the ERC Advanced Investigators grant and ISF Breakthrough Research Grant. She actively collaborates with industry partners including IBM and Microsoft, particularly in business process management standards. She directs Tel Aviv University's Databases Lab, which maintains the DB Group with multiple research streams including business process querying (BPQ), crowd-based data management (MoDaS), and self-adaptive data dissemination (EDOS/COLT). The lab operates from the Schreiber Building (M-20) and maintains strong international collaborations, particularly with European institutions through the ERC-funded MoDaS project.
Anna Rogers is a tenured Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen , where she leads research in the Data Science Section . Her work bridges NLP , large language models (LLMs) , and sociotechnical impacts of AI , with a focus on interpretability, robustness, and ethical frameworks. She serves as co-editor-in-chief of ACL Rolling Review and is a Villum Young Investigator and ELLIS fellow . Education: PhD in Computational Linguistics (University of Tokyo), Postdocs in Machine Learning for NLP (University of Massachusetts, Lowell) and Social Data Science (University of Copenhagen) Her research explores how LLMs can be designed for transparency and fairness, with recent grants like the Villum Synergy and Inge Lehmann supporting interdisciplinary collaborations. She organizes workshops (e.g., Dagstuhl seminar 24052) and co-leads projects like CAISA (National Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Society). Key themes include: Interpretability in NLP Robustness against synthetic content Data governance and ethical use Peer review systems and academic publishing Her lab has hosted researchers such as Max Müller-Eberstein (funded by DFF) and is actively recruiting for projects on generalization benchmarks and data attribution. She emphasizes collaboration across academia, industry, and policy, shaping Denmark's data science future through roles like the Danish Data Science Academy committee. Recent articles highlight trends in corpus analysis , temporal annotation , and LLM governance .
Gerhard Schwabe is a Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of Zurich, Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics. His research spans collaborative technologies, information management, E-government, blockchain applications, and digital health. He leads the Information Management Research Group and contributes to the university's Digital Society Initiative (DSI). Research Focus: Human-AI collaboration, blockchain systems, crisis informatics, persuasive technologies Key Projects: RefuGPT (refugee support chatbots), Scripted Medicine (health worker assistance), PROMISE (AI prompt orchestration) Technical Expertise: Design Science Research, conversational agents, data-driven governance His recent publications emphasize AI integration in collaborative workflows, blockchain applications for data markets, and digital solutions for crisis management. He explores how generative AI impacts freelance development practices and transforms advisory services through automated systems. Contact: schwabe@ifi.uzh.ch
