Carl Vondrick is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University. His research focuses on creating robust and versatile perception systems that leverage video and interaction with the natural world, with applications in 3D reconstruction, visual question answering, and robot manipulation. Former research scientist at Google Visiting researcher at Cruise Education: PhD (2017) from MIT, advised by Antonio Torralba BS (2011) from UC Irvine, advised by Deva Ramanan His research explores multimodal approaches for cross-task and cross-modal transfer, scene dynamics, audiovisual perception, interpretable models, and spatial awareness systems. The lab emphasizes zero-shot generalization and neuro-symbolic methods while addressing safety and robustness in AI systems. Key publication trends include: 2025: Video generation for robotics 2024: Differentiable rendering and cross-modal reasoning 2023: Robust perception and 3D modeling Scientific Awards: 2024 PAMI Young Researcher Award 2021 NSF CAREER Award Teaching Roles: Teaching Computer Vision II (2021-2025), Computer Vision I (2018-2019), and Representation Learning (2020-2022). Advising: Advises 8 current PhD students and has mentored 5 graduated students now at institutions like MBZUAI and UMD. The lab recruits 1-2 PhD students annually through Columbia’s PhD program. Grants and Collaborations: Funded by NSF, DARPA, Toyota Research Institute, Amazon Research, and Google.
Prof. Matthias Nießner is a Professor at the Technical University of Munich , where he leads the Visual Computing Lab . Prior to this, he held a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Stanford University . His work bridges computer vision , graphics , and machine learning , focusing on 3D reconstruction , semantic scene understanding , and AI-driven video synthesis . Prof. Nießner has published over 150 works in top venues like SIGGRAPH , CVPR , and ECCV , with several receiving best paper awards (SIGCHI’14, HPG’15, SPG’18, SIGGRAPH’16 Emerging Tech). His research has garnered international media attention, including features in the New York Times , Wall Street Journal , and MIT Technological Review , as well as TV demonstrations (e.g., Jimmy Kimmel Live for Face2Face technology). Awards : TUM-IAS Rudolph Moessbauer Fellowship (2017–ongoing) Google Faculty Award (2017) Nvidia Professor Partnership Award (2018) ERC Starting Grant (2018, €1.5M) Eurographics Young Researcher Award (2019) Research Trends : 3D Gaussian Splatting for real-time rendering Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) with mesh supervision Audio-driven facial animation via diffusion models Latent space diffusion for 3D scenes Self-supervised and zero-shot methods for 3D and image analysis As a co-founder and director of Synthesia Inc. , he drives democratization of synthetic media. His YouTube channel has over 5 million views, reflecting his impact beyond academia.
Toby Jia-Jun Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, where he leads the SaNDwich Lab. He also serves as the Director of the Human-Centered Responsible AI Lab in the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society and is a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI). Previously, he was affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and GroupLens Research. Dr. Li's research spans the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), End-User Software Engineering, Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language Processing (NLP), with recent work focusing on addressing societal challenges in the future of work through human-AI collaborative approaches. His work has resulted in over 40 publications at premier venues including CHI, UIST, CSCW, ACL, and ICSE, with 8 papers winning Best Paper or Honorable Mention awards. His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on human-AI collaboration across various domains, including code understanding, privacy, accessibility, and creative tools. The work shows a trajectory toward increasingly sophisticated integration of human-centered design with AI capabilities, particularly using large language models to enhance human productivity and address societal challenges. Google Research Scholar Award recipient Recipient of Yahoo! Fellowship ($100,000/year) Best Paper Award at UIST 2020 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award at CHI 2021 Best Paper Award at CSCW 2024 Best Paper Award at CHI 2025 Dr. Li actively mentors Ph.D. students and has established collaborations with Google, Microsoft Research, IBM Research, Adobe, Verizon, and J.P. Morgan. His research has been supported by NSF, Google Research Scholar Program, AnalytiXIN Initiative, Yahoo! InMind project, and J.P. Morgan. He is currently recruiting Ph.D. students and undergraduate researchers for his SaNDwich Lab, which focuses on developing interactive systems to empower individuals to create, configure, and extend AI-powered computing systems.
Prof. Dr. Michael Gröschel is a Professor of Business Informatics at the Faculty of Computer Science, Mannheim University of Technology. His expertise spans Business Process Management (BPMN, Process Mining), Digital Transformation, and innovative Business Models. He teaches courses on BPM, project management, and e-business, often collaborating with industry clients through student projects. As a consultant, he specializes in BPMN training and IT-driven business strategy. His work emphasizes practical applications of IT tools like RPA and low-code platforms. Recent publications focus on RPA bot performance evaluation, AI in automotive trade, and business model-IT alignment. Prof. Gröschel’s research bridges academic insights with real-world challenges, particularly in leveraging technology for business innovation. He has authored books and articles on business intelligence tools, mobile business strategies, and digital customer care. His consulting services include executive coaching for academic career advancement and enterprise IT management best practices. Office: Building A, Room 007c | Phone: +49 621 292-6764 | Professional website available for further engagement opportunities.
Ulrik Schroeder is a Universitätsprofessor (Full Professor) at RWTH Aachen University, leading the Chair of Learning Technologies within the Faculty of Computer Science. His research focuses on the intersection of educational technology, learning analytics, and immersive technologies with particular emphasis on practical implementations in higher education settings. Professor Schroeder's research spans multiple interconnected domains in educational technology. His primary interests include Learning Analytics implementation (particularly using xAPI standards), Virtual Reality applications for education, Open Educational Resources development and conversion, and gamification approaches for programming education. He has developed several notable tools including convOERter for OER conversion, WebWriter for creating explorable explanations, and various xAPI-based learning analytics infrastructures. His work consistently bridges theoretical frameworks with practical educational applications, often focusing on computer science education contexts. Analysis of his recent publications reveals a strong trend toward integrating Learning Analytics with immersive technologies, particularly Virtual Reality environments. His research demonstrates a systematic approach to educational technology development, with emphasis on scalability, interoperability through standards like xAPI, and practical implementation in real educational settings. The work increasingly focuses on personalized learning paths, quality assurance for educational resources, and privacy-conscious data collection. Co-editor of 21. Fachtagung Bildungstechnologien (DELFI) (2023) Co-editor of Hochschuldidaktik der Informatik HDI 2018 Co-editor of DeLFI 2018 conference proceedings Professor Schroeder has supervised numerous doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who frequently appear as co-authors on his publications, indicating an active research group. His projects often involve interdisciplinary collaborations across computer science, education, and psychology. Current major initiatives include the AIStudyBuddy project for study path analysis and the development of VR classroom simulations for teacher training. His research group, the Learning Technologies Innovation Lab, develops open research tools that support various aspects of educational technology research and implementation.
Sophia Hunger is an Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science at the University of Bremen and a visiting scholar at the Center for Civil Society Research (WZB Berlin Social Science Center). She completed her doctorate at the European University Institute in 2020 and remains associated with WZB as a guest researcher. Research Focus : Protest movements, political polarization, immigration policy, and computational methods like quantitative text analysis and automated event extraction. Projects : MOTRA (radicalization monitoring) and PolCon (political conflict in Europe). Publications : Appeared in Political Science Research and Methods , European Political Science Review , and Swiss Political Science Review . Media Engagement : Contributed expert opinions to ARD , El País , France24 , and Süddeutsche Zeitung . Teaching : Co-taught courses on protest politics at Free University of Berlin and conducted workshops on text-as-data approaches at institutions like the European University Institute and WZB. Methodological Innovation : Developed semi-automated protest event data systems and dictionaries to track immigration-related discourse and polarization trends.
Simone Ferlin is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Karlstad University working with 5G and Internet evolution. She completed her PhD in computer science in 2017 at the Simula Research Lab and Universitetet i Oslo under the supervision of Dr. Ozgu Alay and Prof. Michael Welzl. Her PhD dissertation focused on increasing robustness in multipath transport with MPTCP. Dr. Ferlin's educational background includes a PhD in Computer Science from the Simula Research Lab and Universitetet i Oslo (2017). Her doctoral research centered on enhancing robustness in multipath transport protocols, specifically focusing on MPTCP (Multipath TCP). She also completed undergraduate work that contributed to a book project with Prof. Friedrich Oehme on electronics and circuit technology. Dr. Ferlin's research spans multiple domains at the intersection of networking, systems, and performance engineering. Her primary interests include network and system measurements, performance analysis, security, and congestion control. She investigates how networks like the Internet evolve, examining technology development, adoption patterns, and their impacts on various entities. Additionally, she explores ways to harmonize security and privacy while making them more usable and assessable. Her work particularly focuses on transport layer and multipath transport protocols, examining their performance and security aspects. She also investigates application and transport layer performance, automation, and monitoring. Her research extends to network programming in both Linux kernel and user space, mobile broadband networks from 2G to 5G, and their intersection with the Internet. She is deeply engaged in observability, distributed and system performance monitoring, and automation. Analysis of Dr. Ferlin's recent publications reveals a strong focus on next-generation networking technologies. Her work spans multiple domains including 5G/6G networks, transport protocols (particularly QUIC and MPTCP), network virtualization, container orchestration, and the application of machine learning to networking problems. She has increasingly incorporated large language models into network configuration and automation research. Her publications demonstrate a consistent emphasis on performance measurement, optimization, and security across diverse networking environments from the edge to the cloud. Dr. Ferlin has received notable recognition for her research contributions: Best paper award at IEEE ICIN'21 for 'Learning-based Incast Performance Inference in Software-Defined Data Centers' Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP)'25 winner for 'NetConfEval: Can LLMs Facilitate Network Configuration?' Dr. Ferlin is actively involved in mentoring the next generation of networking researchers. She has co-supervised numerous Master's and PhD students across multiple institutions including Karlstad University, KTH, TU Berlin, University of Oslo, and universities in Brazil. Her students have worked on diverse topics including NAT64 performance comparison, system tracing visualization, network observability, ML applications to multipath transport, FEC integration with QUIC, high-performance networking for 5G, congestion control, shared bottleneck detection, multipath IoT applications, and container runtime performance. She is also involved in several significant research projects including Vinnova's SEMLA (Securing Enterprises via Machine-Learning-based Automation), Horizon Europe's CODECO (Cognitive Decentralised Edge Cloud Orchestration), and the Knowledge Foundation of Sweden's DRIVE (Data-driven Latency-Sensitive Mobile Services for a Digitized Society). Dr. Ferlin serves as Workshop Chair for ACM SIGCOMM '25, is a member of the ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop (ANRW) steering committee, and co-chairs the Internet Congestion Control Research Group (ICCRG) at the IRTF. She previously served as Associate Technical Editor for IEEE Communications Magazine and has been active on numerous program committees for major networking conferences including SIGCOMM, CoNEXT, IMC, and PAM.
Dr. Mahshid Mayar is a DFG-funded Post-Doctoral Researcher at the North American Studies Program within the Department of English, American, and Celtic Studies at the University of Bonn. Her research focuses on intersections of literature and history, empire studies, childhood studies, and archives. She holds an academic blog at http://mahshid-mayar.me/blog/ and can be reached at mahshid.mayar@uibk.ac.at. Her research expertise spans American Poetry and Documental Protest Poetry Transnational/Asian American Studies (race & racialization) Empire Studies, including cartographies and age/race dynamics Childhood Studies and the history of education She also explores sound studies and archival politics, examining silences in cultural narratives. Her articles (2019–2025) critically analyze imperial pedagogies, cartographic scripts, and silences across disciplines. Notable works include studies on video games as cultural-political tools and the role of archives in shaping historical narratives. Dr. Mayar has organized conferences, workshops, and panels, reflecting her commitment to academic outreach. Her work bridges literary analysis with historical and geographical contexts, offering interdisciplinary insights into empire, childhood, and cultural memory.
Miguel Machulla is a Researcher at the Department of Journalism and Communication Research, Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. His academic background includes a Master's in Biology, Music, and Education from Ruhr University Bochum and Technical University Dortmund. He has held research positions at TU Dortmund, University of Cologne, and currently contributes to the BMBF-funded project Degree 5.0 focused on digital teacher education. Research Interests: Machulla's work bridges music psychology, gender/queer studies, and media interactions. He investigates how music shapes intergroup dynamics, supports LGBTQ+ identity formation, and enhances educational methodologies. Key themes include queer music analysis, media's role in environmental advocacy, and video-based reflective practices in pedagogy. Publications: His recent articles and conference papers (2023-2025) demonstrate empirical rigor in studying music's sociocultural impact, particularly through quantitative analysis of queer music characteristics, music functions in identity development, and innovative task designs for music education. Methodologically, he employs structural equation modeling, discourse analysis, and cross-cultural comparisons. Affiliations: Active member of the German Society for Music Psychology (DGM), Society for Music Research (GfM), and Research Hub at Hanover University. Associated with the Cologne Systematic Musicology Lab and BMBF project Degree 5.0 .
Professor Anestis Terzis serves as a Professor of Digital Systems Design and Head of the Institute for Communication Technology (IKT) at Technische Hochschule Ulm within the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. He coordinates the International Electrical Engineering Program and is responsible for the Vehicle Systems specialization. His office is located in Room W2405 at Albert-Einstein-Allee 53-55, 89081 Ulm, Germany. Professor Terzis specializes in digital system design with focus on FPGA, VHDL, and high-level design methodologies. His research spans Camera Monitor Systems (CMS) for automotive mirror replacement, advanced camera-based driver assistance systems, vehicle electronics, digitalization in laboratory didactics, and autonomous driving technologies. He has pioneered work in digital mirror systems compliant with ISO 16505 standards and has contributed significantly to image processing for automotive applications. His publication record demonstrates consistent contributions to automotive imaging technology, with recent work focusing on image compression impacts on detection quality, CMS image quality parameters, and programmable processing for autonomous vehicles. Professor Terzis has edited the comprehensive Handbook of Camera Monitor Systems published by Springer, establishing himself as a leading authority in this specialized field. As Head of the Institute for Communication Technology, he leads research initiatives connecting digital systems design with automotive applications. He also serves as Coordinator for the Study with In-depth Practice program and is a member of the Institute for Vehicle System Technology (IFS), demonstrating his commitment to both theoretical advancement and practical implementation in automotive electronics.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Juraj Somorovsky is a faculty member at Paderborn University, serving as Head of the System Security department within the Faculty of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. His work focuses on practical security analysis and censorship circumvention techniques. Academic Rank: Professor Department: Computer Science Office: F2.315, Fürstenallee 11, Paderborn Research Interests span multiple subfields of cybersecurity including: Internet censorship resistance TLS protocol security 3D printing vulnerabilities E-learning platform security Network traffic obfuscation Cyber-physical system threats Recent publications demonstrate expertise in combining applied cryptography with practical security analysis. He leads the System Security group and contributes to the NERD postgraduate research training group focused on digitalization challenges.
Sebastian Brüggemann is a German legal scholar specialising in Internet, data-protection and IT law. Since 2013 he has been a part-time lecturer (Lehrbeauftragter) at the Faculty of Law of Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, and he holds parallel teaching appointments in data-protection and IT law at the Universities of Applied Sciences in Kehl and Ludwigsburg as well as at ZHAW School of Management and Law in Winterthur, Switzerland. In private practice he works as in-house counsel (Syndikusrechtsanwalt) for a large international IT company, focusing on data-protection and technology law. Education: 2003-2011: Studies of Law and General Rhetoric, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen 2009: First State Law Examination, Tübingen 2011: Magister Artium in General Rhetoric, Tübingen 2010-2012: Legal clerkship (Referendariat), including stages at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer and eco – Verband der Internetwirtschaft 2012: Doctorate in Law (Dr. iur.), Tübingen – dissertation on third-party disclosure claims against Internet providers in copyright enforcement 2013: Admission as attorney (Rechtsanwalt) 2013-2015: Part-time LL.M. in Information Technology Law, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg Research interests span the intersection of law and digital technology: data-protection compliance under the GDPR, cybersecurity regulation, copyright in digital media, network neutrality, M2M/IoT legal issues, and the legal framework of behavioural advertising. His work frequently analyses German, European and comparative US developments. He has authored a monograph, numerous commentaries to GDPR/BDSG provisions, model IT contracts, and more than two dozen peer-reviewed articles and case notes since 2013, identifying recurring themes such as data portability, ISP liability, streaming and copyright, and the challenges of Industrie 4.0. Professional memberships & science communication: editorial board of Privacy in Germany , core team member of the Telemedicus IT-law portal, member of IAPP, DGRI and GRUR, and co-author of sector guidelines issued by Bitkom and eco association. There is no indication of supervised doctoral or master’s students in the supplied material; his teaching activities concentrate on specialised continuing-education courses and part-time lectures.
Dr. Daniel Possler is a research assistant at the Department of Journalism and Communication Research at Leibniz University Hannover . He previously held a research assistant position at the Department of Media and Business Communication at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (2022-2024). His work focuses on media psychology , entertainment research , and the use and effects of digital media , particularly video games and social media. He also explores environmental communication and computational methods in social research. PhD (2020): "Fascinating Entertainment: The Elicitation and Entertaining Quality of the Emotion Awe in Media Reception Using Video Games as a Case Example" Research Interests include player-avatar relationships, emotional responses to media (especially awe), pro-environmental messaging through documentaries, and computational approaches to analyzing communication data. His recent publications examine dual-process entertainment models, eudaimonic gaming motives, and automated content analysis tools. Professional Activities involve: Young Members’ Representative of the Media Psychology Division (DGPs, since 2023) Co-organiser of the DGPuK 2022 conference Member of the editorial board of Media Psychology (since 2022) Lecturer for the Media Entrepreneurship program (since 2013) Membership in ICA, ECREA, DGPuK, and DGPs
Martin Zeilinger is a Senior Lecturer in Computational Arts & Technology within the Games & Art Division at Abertay University's School of Design and Informatics. He has also been affiliated with the University of Toronto's Comparative Literature department. With a background in film and comparative literature, Zeilinger functions as a researcher, practitioner, and curator in digital culture. His research focuses on appropriation and cultural ownership in digital art and contemporary media practices. He critically examines intellectual property regimes, blockchain technologies in digital art markets, AI art and creative agency, remix culture, and the political economy of digital creative practices. His work often bridges theoretical critique with artistic practice, engaging with concepts like authorship, creative agency, and cultural ownership from multiple perspectives. Zeilinger's publications reveal a consistent focus on how digital creative practices challenge traditional notions of authorship and ownership. His recent work explores AI art, blockchain technologies, and the financialization of digital art, while earlier publications examine live coding, chipmusic, and found footage film. A recurring theme is how these practices expose tensions between digital creativity and restrictive intellectual property frameworks. As a curator, Zeilinger has co-organized exhibitions including Impedance: Games + Resistance and Networks 2.0: Emergence + Experimentation as part of the Vector Game + Art Convergence Festival. He has also organized panels on topics such as The Politics of Appropriation in Game Art and Dynamic Fair Dealing: Countering the Cultural Impact of Intellectual Property Law . His curatorial work reflects his interest in the intersection of games, art, and resistance against restrictive cultural frameworks. Zeilinger's approach consistently bridges artistic practice with critical research, arguing for the critical role artistic practice can play in or as research. His scholarship demonstrates deep engagement with philosophical frameworks including Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, and Debord, which he applies to contemporary digital culture and creative practices.
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Pfeffer is Full Professor of Computational Social Science at the School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University of Munich . Previously, he served as Assistant Research Professor of Societal Computing at Carnegie Mellon University (2012–2016). He studied computer science at Vienne University of Technology and received his Ph.D. in Business Informatics from a non-university institution in 2010. His research focuses on analyzing large-scale social, political, and economic systems through computational methods, bridging social and computer sciences. Key themes include social media network dynamics, algorithmic challenges in social data analysis, and ethical implications of digital platforms. Recent work examines Twitter API reliability , hate speech in TikTok , and LLM applications in education . He also investigates trauma modeling in genocide tribunals, decentralized platform dynamics (Mastodon), and political communication structures across countries. Current projects include tools for social network analysis, educational simulations, and ethical frameworks for AI in digital ecosystems. His methodology combines network science, machine learning, and mixed-method approaches to complex social systems.
