Jiaxuan You is an Assistant Professor at the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, leading the U Lab focused on achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in digital environments. His research spans graph neural networks (GNNs), relational data, foundation models, and machine learning systems. PhD and MS in Computer Science from Stanford University (2021) Developed GraphGym and PyTorch Geometric (PyG) for graph learning Core member at Kumo AI (2021-2023) His research explores: Graph-enhanced LLMs: Integrating relational structures into foundation models AGI Development: Self-optimizing AI agents and tool utilization ML Systems: Scalable architectures and redundancy-free computation Interdisciplinary Applications: Financial networks, crop yield prediction, and metro systems Recent publications focus on temporal reasoning, multi-agent dynamics, and hybrid architectures for LLMs. He actively develops open-source tools like DBGYM and GraphRouter. Scientific recognition includes: JPMC PhD Fellowship Baidu Scholarship Best Student Paper at AAAI 2017 World Bank Big Data Innovation Challenge winner He mentors PhD and intern students, emphasizing machine learning systems expertise. His lab collaborates on AGI workshops (e.g., ICLR 2024) and industry projects.
Philip S. Yu is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and holds the Wexler Chair in Information Technology. Previously, he led the Software Tools and Techniques department at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Education: B.S. in Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Stanford University M.B.A., New York University His research spans data mining , big data , social networks , privacy-preserving data publishing , graph/network mining , recommender systems , and deep learning . He has authored over 970 papers with 74,500+ citations and an H-index of 127. Recent work focuses on heterogeneous graph representation, quantum walks in network analysis, and federated unlearning. Scientific Honors: ACM SIGKDD 2016 Innovation Award IEEE Computer Society 2013 Technical Achievement Award IEEE ICDM 2003 Research Contributions Award IEEE Region 1 Award (1999) UIC Research of the Year (2013) IBM Master Inventor with 300+ patents AI 2000 Most Influential Scholar Honorable Mentions (2024-2025) He served as Editor-in-Chief for ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data and IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering , and on steering committees for ACM KDD and IEEE Data Mining. His work bridges theoretical advances in graph neural networks , deep learning , and privacy-preserving systems with applications in healthcare, social media, and enterprise analytics.
Andreas Vlachos is a Professor of Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning at the Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge, and holds the Dinesh Dhamija Fellowship at Fitzwilliam College. His research spans dialogue modeling, automated fact-checking, imitation learning, semantic parsing, biomedical text mining, and trustworthiness in AI systems. PhD in Computer Science, University of Cambridge (supervised by Ted Briscoe and Zoubin Ghahramani) Lecturer at University of Sheffield Postdoctoral roles at UCL, University of Cambridge (NLIP group, Stephen Clark), and University of Wisconsin-Madison (Mark Craven) Current research focuses on evaluating and mitigating biases in language models, advancing fact-checking methodologies, and improving model robustness through interpolation, reinforcement learning, and causal reasoning. His work integrates natural logic, knowledge graphs, and multimodal evidence for verification tasks. Recent publications address uncertainty quantification, temporal planning benchmarks, and ethical framing of NLP artifacts. Grants from ERC, EPSRC, Facebook, Google, and the Alan Turing Institute fund his research team. Collaborations include Sebastian Riedel, Stephen Clark, and Mark Craven. Key projects explore disinformation detection, long-form generation, and confidence calibration in AI systems.
Almut Sophia Koepke is a junior research group leader at the Technical University of Munich and University of Tübingen, focusing on multimodal learning problems integrating sound, vision, and text. Her work bridges foundational research in audio-visual understanding with practical applications in few-shot learning, zero-shot translation, and cross-modal attention mechanisms.
Lexing Xie is a Professor in Computer Science at the Australian National University. He leads the ANU Computational Media Lab ( http://cm.cecs.anu.edu.au ) and the ANU Integrated AI Network. His work focuses on the intersection of machine learning, social media analysis, and multimedia understanding. Dr. Xie's research broadly focuses on innovative design and use of machine learning algorithms, especially on large-scale graph data and collective behaviour. His recent work spans several key areas: Popularity in social media -- understanding, predicting, and optimization Multimedia knowledge graphs, vision and language integration Humanising machine intelligence through better understanding of social dynamics His publications reveal a strong trend toward understanding information diffusion patterns in social media, particularly through visual content. He has made significant contributions to the study of visual memes, popularity prediction using point processes, and multimodal learning that connects vision with language. His work often bridges theoretical machine learning with practical applications in social media analysis. Dr. Xie has received recognition for his research, including an Honourable Mention at CSCW 2019 for his work on attention flow in online video networks. His research has been supported by collaborations with major institutions including IBM Research and Columbia University. As an advisor, Dr. Xie has mentored numerous students who have gone on to contribute significantly to publications in top-tier conferences. His lab, the ANU Computational Media Lab, serves as a hub for interdisciplinary research connecting computer science with social sciences.
Eytan Adar is a Professor of Information and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, holding dual appointments in the School of Information and the College of Engineering's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department. His work sits at the intersection of human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence, focusing on large-scale systems analysis and novel interface design. Adar's research spans multiple domains including social media analysis (Twitter, Reddit), academic citation networks, meme propagation, information extraction, and political networks. His methodological expertise includes data mining, data visualization, and graph-based network analysis. His work often operates at internet scale, examining language, creativity, social network dynamics, and text production. His recent publications reveal a strong focus on AI-human collaboration, with particular attention to generative AI interfaces, visualization techniques for complex data, and ethical considerations in AI systems. His work shows a consistent pattern of bridging theoretical insights with practical system implementations. Best Paper Award at ProtoAI: Model-Informed Prototyping for AI-Powered Interfaces, IUI'21 Honorable Mention Award at CHI'24 for feminist interaction techniques research Best Paper Award at ICWSM'18 for Wikipedia language edition analysis Best Paper Award at ICML 2016 Workshop for neural language model visualization Best Student Paper at WSDM'09 for web dynamics research Best of CHI at CHI 2008 for web revisitation patterns analysis Adar has advised numerous PhD students who have gone on to prominent positions at organizations including Google, Apple, RAND, Northwestern University, and Stanford. His research is generously supported by the NSF, IARPA, NIH, the Education Department, and major technology companies including Adobe, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo. He is also a founder of the International Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM) and has served as Co-General Chair for WSDM and Co-Program Chair for UIST.
Yu-Ru Lin is an Associate Professor at the School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh, and serves as Research & Academic Director at the Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security (Pitt Cyber). She leads the Pitt Computational Social Dynamics Lab (PICSO Lab) and holds secondary appointments in Political Science, Computer Science, and the Intelligent Systems Program. PhD in Computer Science from Arizona State University Postdoctoral research at Harvard University and Northeastern University Her research focuses on computational approaches for: Networked social dynamics High-dimensional social information summarization Trust and distrust propagation Misinformation detection Policy diffusion analysis Recent publications span 2014-2020, covering: Social media crisis response Graph visualization techniques Policy diffusion patterns Misinformation mitigation Temporal topic modeling Scientific support includes: National Science Foundation (NSF) awards Minerva/ONR funding AFOSR grant for distrust modeling DARPA Understanding Group Biases program As director of PICSO Lab, she leads interdisciplinary research teams on: Digital accountability Urban mobility patterns Health informatics via crowdsourcing Trust-influence dynamics
LEONG Tze Yun is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the School of Computing, National University of Singapore (NUS). She holds S.B., S.M., and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her academic career spans both research and industry experience, with significant contributions to the fields of artificial intelligence and health informatics. Dr. Leong's educational background includes: Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology S.M. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology S.B. in Computer Science & Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Her primary research interests focus on responsible AI, dynamic decision-making, neurocognitive modeling, reinforcement learning, artificial general intelligence, and biomedical and health informatics. Her work bridges the gap between theoretical AI development and practical healthcare applications, with an emphasis on ethical considerations and human-centered design. She directs the Medical Computing Laboratory at NUS, a multidisciplinary research program exploring human-aware decision modeling in complex environments. Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong trend toward responsible AI development, with significant contributions to reinforcement learning techniques, causal inference methods, and applications of AI in healthcare. Her work increasingly integrates ethical considerations with technical AI development, particularly evident in her 2024 publications on medical AI and human values. Her scientific recognition includes: Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) Founding Fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI) Member of Eta Kappa Nu (Honor Society for Electrical Engineers) Dr. Leong has supervised numerous doctoral and master's students throughout her career, many of whom have gone on to prominent positions at institutions like Google, Netflix, Mayo Clinic, and academic institutions worldwide. Her advisory work extends to significant policy development, including contributions to WHO guidance on ethics and governance of AI for health. She currently serves on the World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Group on Ethics and Governance of AI for Health, the World Economic Forum (WEF) AI Governance Alliance, and the Advisory Council on AI in Uzbekistan. Her laboratory work focuses on developing adaptive systems that evolve with changing technical functionalities, system infrastructures, usage patterns, and operational contexts, with applications spanning prediction and decision analytics, human-aware robotics, game artificial intelligence, personalized education, and assistive care for elderly with neurocognitive disorders.
Pierre Vandergheynst is a Full Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in the Department of Electrical Engineering, with a courtesy appointment in Computer and Communication Sciences. He serves as EPFL’s Vice-Provost for Education since 2015 and leads the Signal Processing Laboratory 2 (LTS2). His research spans harmonic analysis, sparse approximations, mathematical data processing, and applications in signal/image processing, computer vision, machine learning, and graph-based data analysis. PhD in Mathematical Physics (1998), Université catholique de Louvain Postdoctoral Researcher at EPFL (1998-2001) Assistant Professor at EPFL (2002-2007) His research explores geometry/symmetry in high-dimensional data, redundant dictionaries for dimensionality reduction, and computational harmonic analysis on manifolds. Recent work focuses on protein structure modeling, geometric deep learning, and graph-based signal processing. Key article trends include graph neural networks for protein analysis, geometric deep learning in neuroscience, and structured knowledge priors in neural models. His 2023-2025 publications emphasize interpretable AI, long-range dependencies in graphs, and molecular representation learning. Scientific Awards: IEEE Signal Processing Magazine Best Paper Award (2023) Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award (2022) Apple ARTS Award (2007) De Boelpaepe Prize, Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium (2009-2010) He has supervised over 30 PhD theses and contributed to foundational work in graph signal processing, compressive sensing, and geometric deep learning. His lab develops tools for data science on non-Euclidean structures, with applications in medicine, astronomy, and wireless systems.
Qianwen Wang is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Computer Science department at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her research combines interactive visualization with interpretable machine learning to foster intuitive, efficient, and reliable Human-AI collaboration. She actively seeks motivated students, research assistants, and interns to join her dynamic research team at UMN CS. Dr. Wang's research focuses on three primary themes: Human-AI Collaboration, where she designs tools to facilitate Human-AI interaction; Automatic & Intelligent Visualization, where she develops techniques to make visualizations accurately interpreted and easily used; and VIS+(X)AI in Biomed/Healthcare, where she studies how visualization and explainable AI can promote scientific discoveries in biomedicine and healthcare. Her work has made significant contributions to visualization, human-computer interaction, and bioinformatics, with particular applications in biomedical knowledge graphs and single-cell omics analysis. Her recent publications demonstrate a strong trend toward integrating visualization with large language models and graph neural networks for biomedical applications. She has published extensively at top venues including IEEE VIS, ACM CHI, and Nature Medicine, with a focus on making AI systems more interpretable and useful for domain experts, particularly in healthcare contexts. Her work often bridges theoretical advances in visualization with practical applications in genomics and healthcare. Two IEEE VIS Honorable Mention Awards (2022, 2024) Best Paper Award from IMLH@ICML 2021 Two Best Abstract Awards from BioVis ISMB (2021, 2022) HDSI Postdoctoral Research Fund Award Research covered by MIT News and Nature Technology Features Dr. Wang actively contributes to the academic community through service roles including General Chair for ISMB BioVis, VisNotes and Poster Chair for IEEE PacificVis, and Program Committee member for IEEE VIS, ACM CHI, and ACM IUI. Her research has been supported by various grants that enable her team to develop innovative visualization techniques and explore their practical applications in biomedical domains. Her research group maintains an active presence in the visualization and HCI communities, with members participating in major conferences and workshops. The lab focuses on creating tools that bridge the gap between complex AI models and human understanding, with particular emphasis on making these technologies accessible and useful for domain experts in biomedical research.
Roberto Navigli is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome, where he leads the Sapienza NLP Group. He has held academic positions at Sapienza since 2007, progressing from Researcher to Associate Professor, and now Full Professor. Navigli is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in multilingual natural language processing and computational semantics. His research spans multiple areas within Natural Language Processing, with a particular focus on multilinguality , lexical semantics (Word Sense Disambiguation and induction), sentence-level semantics (Semantic Role Labeling and Semantic Parsing), and Large Language Models . As the leader of the Minerva LLM project, he pioneered the development of the first pretrained LLM in Italian. His creation of BabelNet, the largest multilingual encyclopedic computational dictionary covering 271 languages and about 14 million concepts, represents a landmark achievement in computational linguistics. Professor Navigli's recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on advancing multilingual capabilities of language models, addressing challenges in semantic understanding across languages, and developing robust evaluation frameworks. His work on Italian LLM optimization, lexical ambiguity in machine translation, and cross-lingual safety gaps reflects his commitment to building more accurate and reliable language technologies that work effectively across diverse linguistic contexts. AAAI Fellow (2025) EurAI Fellow (2024) ELLIS Fellow (2024) ACL Fellow (2023) Outstanding Paper Awards at ACL 2024, ACL 2023, and NAACL 2021 Best Resource Paper Award at ACL 2022 Prominent Paper Awards from the Artificial Intelligence Journal (2023, 2017) META Prize 2015 for BabelNet Professor Navigli has successfully secured substantial research funding, including two prestigious ERC Grants (MultiJEDI ERC Starting Grant 2010-2016 and MOUSSE ERC Consolidator Grant 2017-2023, totaling around 3 million euros), PI of PRIN 2017 and PRIN 2020 projects (overall 1.4 million euros), and a Google Focused Research Award (around 300k$). He has mentored over 30 PhD students, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in academia and industry. His leadership extends to major international conferences, serving as General Chair of ACL 2025 and Program Co-Chair of ACL-IJCNLP 2021. As the director of the Sapienza NLP Group and co-leader of the Transversal Project on Large Language/Multimodal Models in the FAIR (Future Artificial Intelligence Research) project, Professor Navigli oversees a vibrant research ecosystem focused on advancing the state-of-the-art in natural language understanding across languages. His spinoff company, Babelscape, translates academic research into practical applications for industry.
Xiaowei Jia is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota (supervised by Prof. Vipin Kumar) and B.S./M.S. degrees from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and SUNY Buffalo. His research focuses on integrating scientific theory with machine learning to address societal and environmental challenges, such as climate modeling, hydrology, and fairness in AI. Education: Ph.D., University of Minnesota (2020) M.S., State University of New York at Buffalo B.S., University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) Research Interests: Knowledge-Guided Machine Learning Spatiotemporal Data Mining Fairness in AI for Social Good Applications in Environmental Science and Healthcare Publications showcase his work on physics-integrated neural networks, spatiotemporal modeling (e.g., water temperature prediction), and fairness-aware algorithms. His work has been recognized with Best Paper awards at SIAM SDM (2022, 2023). Awards include the Best Applied Data Science Paper Award at SIAM SDM in 2022 and 2023. He teaches advanced machine learning courses, emphasizing theory integration with real-world applications.
Dr. Stan Ahalt serves as the inaugural Dean of the UNC School of Data Science and Society (SDSS) and holds a professorship in the Department of Computer Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. He previously directed the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) and currently acts as its executive advisor. Additionally, he is the associate director of informatics and data science at NC TraCS, the translational research institute at UNC. His academic journey includes a 22-year tenure as professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State University and leadership roles at the Ohio Supercomputer Center. Ahalt’s research focuses on applying data science to societal challenges such as healthcare, climate, and judicial reform. Key initiatives include the National Consortium for Data Science and the iRODS project, which advanced enterprise data management systems. Ahalt has secured over $34.5M in grants to lead high-impact projects like the NHLBI BioData Catalyst (unifying biomedical data), the NCATS Translator (accelerating clinical discovery), and the NIH HEAL Initiative (ensuring FAIR data standards). He mentors students across doctoral and master’s programs, teaching data science fundamentals in courses like COMP 116: Introduction to Scientific Programming. His work emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration, evidenced by roles in RENCI, NC TraCS, and the SDSS. Ahalt’s contributions span cyberinfrastructure development, educational innovation, and translational research, positioning UNC as a national leader in data science.
Prof. Dr. Gülşen Eryiğit is a Professor at Istanbul Technical University within the Faculty of Computer and Informatics , Department of Artificial Intelligence and Data Engineering . She founded and directs the ITU Natural Language Processing Group , Turkey's leading team in Turkish-language NLP, and serves as Senior Action Editor for ACL RR , Director of ITU TÖMER (Turkish Language Teaching Center), and Co-Chair of the EU UniDive Cost Action WG3. Education: PhD in Computer Engineering from ITU (2007), MSc and BSc from ITU and Marmara University Research: Focuses on Natural Language Processing for Turkish, including dependency parsing , coreference resolution , multiword expressions , and language education technology Her recent work involves multilingual transfer learning , LLM applications for Turkish text simplification, and gamification for morphology education. She has received prestigious awards like the Siemens Excellence Award and TÜBİTAK's Above Threshold Award . Her research has produced 65+ publications and 29+ projects funded by EU, TÜBİTAK, and industry partners. Scientific Awards: Siemens Excellence Award (2007) Above Threshold Award (TÜBİTAK, 2015) Certificate of Appreciation (EU 7th Framework, 2012) Thank You Plaque (ITU, 2017) The ITU NLP Group under her leadership has developed Turkey's first licensed NLP software exported internationally. She collaborates with European institutions through COST actions and participates in ACL, CoNLL, and LREC conferences. Her lab focuses on language technology for Turkish , including sign language processing and social media normalization.
Prof. Michael Moor is a tenure-track Assistant Professor for Medical AI at ETH Zurich's Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering in Basel. Previously, he conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University under Prof. Jure Leskovec, focusing on medical foundation models. His work spans causal learning, multimodal AI, and sepsis prediction. Moor holds an MD from the University of Basel and a PhD from ETH Zurich's Machine Learning and Computational Biology Lab under Prof. Karsten Borgwardt. Research Interests: Generalist medical AI models Multimodal medical reasoning Zero-shot and few-shot learning Clinical causal inference Retrieval-augmented language models Sepsis prediction systems Key Achievements: Published foundational work in Nature (2023) on generalist medical AI Developed Med-Flamingo multimodal model (2023) Zero-shot causal learning framework accepted to NeurIPS 2023 (Spotlight) International sepsis prediction study with 156k ICU patients (2023) Lab Activities: Leads ETH's Medical Foundation Models group, collaborating with Stanford HAI and NASA Ames. Active in creating medical AI benchmarks like AgentClinic and developing retrieval-augmented systems like Almanac.
