Sanjay Purushotham is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), with a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California (USC) and a postdoctoral background in Computer Science at USC's Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC). His research focuses on machine learning, data mining, and their applications in biomedical informatics, social network analysis, and multimedia data mining. Key contributions include survival analysis models using pseudo values and federated learning frameworks for healthcare data. He has received awards including the Best Paper Award at SIGSPATIAL 2014 and a Best Poster Runnerup at SCMLS 2016. Education: PhD in Electrical Engineering (USC), Postdoc in Computer Science (USC) His work spans interdisciplinary areas such as domain adaptation for remote sensing, thermal face translation, and interpretable neural networks for medical applications. Recent projects include federated survival analysis models and climate-informatics frameworks for cloud property retrieval. He teaches courses in artificial intelligence, healthcare informatics, and statistical learning at UMBC. Research highlights include developing MedFuseNet for multimodal medical question answering and VDAM for multi-sensor cloud data analysis. His work on fair survival analysis models addresses algorithmic bias in healthcare predictions. Current grants include a NSF CAREER award for trustworthy federated learning in computational healthcare.
Zhiyong Huang is an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) School of Computing. He holds multiple leadership roles, including Deputy Director of the NUS Business Analytics Centre, Director of the Computing Translational Research & Development (C-TReND) Centre, and Assistant Dean (Industry Relations). He is also a Senior Principal Investigator at the NUS Chongqing Research Institute. Education: PhD in Computer Science from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), MEng and BEng in Computer Engineering from Tsinghua University. Leadership: Senior Member of ACM and IEEE, Pioneer Member of ACM SIGGRAPH, and Chair of the Singapore ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter. Research Interests: His work spans Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Human-Robot Interaction, and Computer Graphics. Key projects include the NUS Digital Twin initiative and secure data analytics pipelines. Article Trends: Recent publications focus on time series generation, cryptocurrency benchmarks, medical image registration, and phishing detection. These works integrate machine learning, computer vision, and multimodal systems. Scientific Awards: Finalist, World Technology Summit & Awards (Entertainment, 2010) Bronze, National Science and Technology Progress Award (1992) Tsinghua 12.9 Distinguished Young Teacher Award (1989) Grants & Service: Extensive involvement in Singapore's IT Standards Committee, review panels for EDB SIIRD projects, and editorial roles. He has served as PC co-chair, local chair, and reviewer for numerous conferences and journals.
Zakia Hammal is an Assistant Research Professor with dual appointments at Carnegie Mellon University, holding positions in the Robotics Institute within the School of Computer Science and the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the College of Engineering. Her work bridges computer science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and social/behavioral psychology to advance computational models for human behavior analysis. Dr. Hammal's educational background includes a PhD in Computer Science, a Master of Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic with specialization in Image Processing, and an Engineer's degree in Computer Science with specialization in Computer Systems. Her academic journey has positioned her at the intersection of technical expertise and healthcare applications. Her research focuses on multimodal human behavior modeling in social interaction, with particular emphasis on health informatics and affective computing (Emotion AI). Dr. Hammal's work has pioneered computational models for multimodal assessment of psychiatric disorders, including depression severity evaluation, automatic pain intensity measurement, assessment of expressiveness in children with facial abnormalities, analysis of non-verbal communication in mother-infant interaction, and identification of behavioral markers in autism spectrum disorder. Her approach integrates computer vision, machine learning, and behavioral psychology to create systems that can objectively measure human behaviors that are often subjective in clinical settings. Analysis of her recent publications reveals a consistent trajectory toward more sophisticated multimodal approaches to healthcare challenges, particularly in pain assessment and mental health diagnostics. Her work increasingly emphasizes interpretable AI models that can translate complex behavioral patterns into clinically meaningful insights, with growing attention to applications for vulnerable populations including infants, elderly patients, and those with craniofacial abnormalities or autism spectrum disorder. Women in AI Awards North America 2023 – AI Researcher of the Year Award Outstanding Reviewer Award at FG 2015 Best Paper award at ACII 2015 Outstanding Paper award at ICMI 2012 Dr. Hammal has secured significant research funding, primarily from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, including an R01 grant for developing a Multimodal Behavioral AI platform for pain assessment and management, and additional grants for automatic pain assessment in older adults with dementia. Her leadership extends to mentoring through her involvement in organizing workshops and conferences that train the next generation of researchers in affective computing and health informatics. As an active leader in her field, Dr. Hammal serves as ACM ICMI Steering Board Committee Member, Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing and IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, and has organized numerous influential workshops including the International Workshop on Automated Assessment of Pain and Face and Gesture Analysis for Health Informatics. She is set to serve as Program Chair for FG 2025, ACII 2025, and ICMI 2026, demonstrating her growing influence in shaping the future direction of research in multimodal interaction and affective computing.
Xiaoming Liu is the Anil K. and Nandita Jain Endowed Professor of Engineering and MSU Foundation Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University . Holding a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University (2004), he leads cutting-edge research in computer vision and machine learning. Research Interests : Computer Vision Pattern Recognition Image and Video Processing Machine Learning Medical Image Analysis Multimedia Retrieval Recent Research Trends : Focus on 3D object detection and depth estimation Development of robust biometric recognition systems Integration of radar-camera fusion for autonomous systems Advancements in self-supervised and multimodal learning Exploration of adversarial AI security Creation of interpretable forgery detection frameworks Teaching : Spring 2013: CSE891-006 Computer Vision Seminar Fall 2012-2015: CSE803 Computer Vision Spring 2014-2017: CSE 471 Media Processing and Multimedia Contact Information : Email: liuxm@cse.msu.edu Office: EB 3137, Michigan State University Phone: +1 (517) 355-2359
Julian McAuley is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering. His research spans recommender systems, machine learning, natural language processing, music information retrieval, and multimodal learning. He maintains an active research group with numerous PhD students and postdocs working on cutting-edge AI problems. His research interests focus on developing advanced algorithms for personalized recommendation systems, with particular emphasis on sequential recommendation, multimodal learning, and integrating large language models with traditional recommendation approaches. His work bridges the gap between theoretical machine learning and practical applications across multiple domains including e-commerce, music, and healthcare. McAuley has published extensively in top-tier conferences including NeurIPS, ICML, KDD, SIGIR, and ACL, with his most recent work exploring the intersection of large language models and recommendation systems. His publications reveal a strong trend toward multimodal approaches that combine text, vision, and audio for more comprehensive understanding and recommendation. He has received significant research funding from major technology companies including Google, Amazon, Facebook, Adobe, and Samsung, as well as government agencies like the National Science Foundation and Department of Defense. His work has practical applications across multiple industries, with a focus on improving user experience through better personalization. McAuley advises numerous PhD students who have gone on to successful careers at leading technology companies and academic institutions. His former students include Wang-Cheng Kang and Jianmo Ni at Google DeepMind, Chris Donahue and Zachary Lipton as assistant professors at CMU, and Ruining He at Google Deepmind.
Takeshi Ikenaga is a Professor at Waseda University’s School of Fundamental Science and Engineering and Graduate School of Information, Production and Systems . He earned his Ph.D. in Information & Computer Science from Waseda University in 2001, following B.E. and M.E. degrees in Electrical Engineering (1988–1990). His career spans roles at NTT LSI Laboratories (1990–2002), Kitakyushu Foundation for Advancement of Industry, Science and Technology (FAIS) (1999–2002), and visiting researcher at the University of Massachusetts (1999–2000). Research Interests : Application-specific SoCs for video/image processing, including compression (H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC), filters (super-resolution, noise reduction), recognition systems (feature detection, object tracking), and communication (UWB, LDPC). He also works on many-core processor design, ultra-low-delay vision systems, and sports analytics (volleyball, figure skating) with real-time 3D pose estimation and ball tracking. Awards : Recipient of the Furukawa Sansui Award (Waseda University, 1988) IEICE Research Encouragement Award (1992) Multiple Best Paper/Presentation Awards (2006–2022) at conferences including DAC/ISSCC, LSI IP Design, ISOCC, ISPACS, and CVIT APSIPA Distinguished Lecturer Certificate (2015) Waseda University Presidential Teaching Award (2020)
Dr. Euijin (Alley) Choo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Alberta, specializing in data-driven cybersecurity and big data analytics. Her research focuses on AI-based cybersecurity solutions, anomaly detection in network traffic, and adversarial attacks on federated learning systems. She holds a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University and has held roles at Qatar Computing Research Institute, Korea University, and the University of Missouri-Rolla. Education: Ph.D., Computer Science, North Carolina State University (2015) M.S., Computer Science & Engineering, Korea University (2008) B.S. Dual Degree in Computer Science & Mathematics, Korea University (2006) Research Interests: Security and big data analysis intersections Federated learning security and privacy Anomaly detection in network logs and enterprise systems Malware/phishing detection using graph inference AI-driven threat intelligence aggregation Recent Grants: Mitacs Accelerate Program Grant: Fraud Detection in Financial Graphs ($60,000, 2025) National CyberSecurity Consortium Grant: IntruderInsight ($2M, 2025-2027) NSERC Discovery Grant: Threat Detection Framework ($180,000, 2025-2031) Awards: Best Paper Award at DBSEC 2015 NSERC Early Career Researcher Award (2025) Provost Fellowship (NC State, 2009-2010) Labs/Teams: Leads the Data-driven Network and Cyber Security (DANS) Lab, focusing on federated learning defenses, compromised entity detection, and malicious domain analysis.
Dr. Aditya Joshi is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). He specializes in Natural Language Processing (NLP), with a focus on sarcasm detection, dialectal NLP, and ethical AI applications in public health and cybersecurity. He joined UNSW in 2023 following industry roles at SEEK, Notiv, and Fractal Analytics, where he developed NLP systems for recommendation engines and meeting analytics. His research has garnered over 3,000 citations (h-index 26) and secured $3.1M in grants, including Defence Trailblazer and Google exploreCSR awards. Education: Joint PhD (2018) from IIT Bombay (India) and Monash University (Australia); MTech in CSE (2011) from IIT Bombay. Research Interests: Making NLP models robust for non-native English speakers and the LGBTI+ community, algorithmic enhancements to transformers, and applications in public health, cybersecurity, and societal issues. His work spans epidemic intelligence (collaborations with EPIWATCH and IFCYBER), cybersecurity tools like AuditNet, and inclusive AI initiatives such as queer-inclusive workshops funded by Google. He designed UNSW's new NLP course (COMP6713) and co-authored a Wiley textbook on NLP. Notable grants include the A$1.4M 'Comprehensive Defence Data Platform' (Lead CI) and A$92K Google exploreCSR grant for benchmarking dialectal sentiment. His awards include the Best PhD Thesis from IITB-Monash and Best Paper accolades at FAccT 2023 and MoMM 2020. He supervises projects on kernel-based attention reformulation, prompt-based sarcasm detection, and multilingual small-scale LLMs. His service roles include Executive Committee Member at ALTA and arXiv moderator for computational linguistics.
Bryan A. Plummer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Boston University, affiliated with the IVC Group and the Artificial Intelligence Research (AIR) initiative at the Rafik B. Hariri Institute. He holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, specializing in computer vision. His research focuses on multimodal machine learning, efficient neural architectures, explainable AI, and robust ML systems. Plummer's work bridges vision and language, addressing challenges in domain generalization, synthetic data utilization, and model efficiency. Notable contributions include the Flickr30K Entities dataset and advancements in vision-language model robustness against web artifacts. He has advised over 20 students, with several securing roles at top institutions like NVIDIA and Google. His recent awards include the 3M Foundation Fellowship and NSF GRFP honorable mention. Plummer actively serves on conference committees (NeurIPS, CVPR, ICCV) and leads initiatives like the 1st Findings Workshop at ICCV'25.
Rita Cucchiara is a Full Professor at the Department of Engineering 'Enzo Ferrari' of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She leads the AImageLab research laboratory, part of the Artificial Intelligence Research and Innovation Center (AIRI) in Modena. Her research focuses on Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning, and Multimedia, with applications in video surveillance, medical imaging, human-centered AI, and generative models. She is actively involved in interdisciplinary projects like ELIAS (European Lighthouse for AI Sustainability) and ELSA (European Lighthouse on Secure AI). Her recent roles include being elected Rector of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in 2025. She has organized and participated in major AI events, including workshops at NeurIPS, CVPR, and ECCV, and has contributed to advancements in multimodal models, deepfake detection, and trustworthy AI. Education details are not explicitly provided, but her extensive academic and research experience at the University of Modena underscores her expertise. She collaborates with institutions like NVIDIA, CINECA, and industry partners such as Digital Design and NVIDIA's AI Technology Center. AImageLab's projects include developing systems for medical imaging, ethical AI, and generative adversarial networks (GANs) for design surfaces. She co-organizes initiatives like the ELLIS Summer School on Large-Scale AI and contributes to policy discussions on AI ethics and societal impact. Her work spans from foundational research (e.g., vision transformers, continual learning) to applied projects (e.g., DDGan system for surface printing). Key grants and collaborations include the FAIR project and PNRR-M4C2 initiatives. She advises students and researchers in AI, with 7 PhD positions funded under national programs. Her leadership roles in AIRI and AImageLab highlight her commitment to bridging academia and industry, fostering innovation in AI-driven solutions for sustainability and healthcare.
Andrea Cavallaro is a Full Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Director of the Idiap Research Institute. He holds dual appointments in the School of Engineering (STI) within the Institute of Electrical Engineering and Measurements (IEM) and the School of Engineering's Education Unit (SEL-ENS). His research focuses on machine learning for multimodal perception, privacy-preserving AI, and autonomous systems. Cavallaro earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering from EPFL in 2002 and has held leadership roles including Director of Research at Queen Mary University of London and Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute. Education: PhD in Electrical Engineering (EPFL, 2002) Leadership: Idiap Director, Affiliate at ELLIS Society Editorial Roles: Editor-in-Chief of Signal Processing: Image Communication (2020–2023), Senior Area Editor for IEEE Transactions on Image Processing Research Interests: Machine learning for audio-visual sensing, privacy in AI, autonomous systems perception, and ethical AI frameworks. Key projects include AlignAI (trustworthy AI alignment) and CORSMAL (multimodal object manipulation). Recent articles explore privacy-aware AI models, adversarial attacks, and multimodal perception systems. His work bridges theoretical advancements with practical applications in robotics, healthcare, and education. Awards include the Royal Academy of Engineering Teaching Prize and IAPR Fellowship. Teaching: Leads courses on deep learning ethics and multimodal AI at EPFL. Advising: Supervises 11 PhD students in areas like privacy-preserving algorithms and autonomous systems. Labs/Teams: Coordinates Idiap’s Audiovisual Intelligence and Learning Lab (LIDIAP) and collaborates on projects like GraphNEx (explainable AI via graph neural networks).
Shih-Fu Chang is the Dean of Columbia Engineering and holds the Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professorship at Columbia University. His research focuses on computer vision, machine learning, and multimedia information retrieval. He is recognized as a foundational figure in the field of content-based visual search and has pioneered innovations in image/video search engines, crime prevention systems, and brain-machine interfaces. His leadership roles include Chair of Columbia's Electrical Engineering Department (2007-2010), Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (2006-2008), and Senior Executive Vice Dean at Columbia Engineering, where he drives strategic planning and international collaboration. Dr. Chang has received prestigious awards including the ACM Multimedia Technical Achievement Award, IEEE Signal Processing Technical Achievement Award, and IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award. He is a Fellow of AAAS, ACM, and IEEE, and an Academician of Academia Sinica. His recent work emphasizes multimodal reasoning, few-shot learning, and vision-language systems, with applications in healthcare diagnostics and multimedia benchmarking. His research spans cross-modal understanding, event extraction, and adaptive AI systems. Key contributions include systems like Ferret-v2 for multimodal grounding and RESIN for schema-guided event tracking. He has advised multiple startups and actively contributes to curriculum development in AI and engineering education.
Professor Peter F. Driessen is a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Victoria, with a cross-appointment in the School of Music. He holds a BSc and PhD from the University of Victoria and is a Professional Engineer (PEng). His research focuses on communication systems, signal processing, control, and interdisciplinary projects in computer music and wireless technologies. Key areas include audio/video signal processing, radio propagation, sound recording, and multimedia systems. He leads the University of Victoria Propagation Laboratory, which explores radio wave propagation and Amateur radio integration with engineering education. His work spans theoretical research and applied projects like ECOSat satellite systems, software-defined radio (SDR), and innovative musical instruments such as the Radio Drum. He supervises undergraduate and graduate projects in these domains through ELEC 499 courses. Notable contributions include the APEGBC Editorial Board Award for Best Paper (2002) and patents in wireless networking and signal processing. His teaching includes courses in signal analysis and electromagnetics, and he collaborates on interdisciplinary programs like the Music/Computer Science degree. Education: BSc in Electrical Engineering, University of Victoria PhD in Electrical Engineering, University of Victoria Research Interests: Audio and video signal processing for music and media Software-defined radio and Amateur radio technologies Satellite communication and ground station development Gesture-based interfaces and musical instrument design Error mitigation in streaming audio/video Optical and microwave-photonic systems Labs & Collaborations: Propagation Laboratory (radio wave research) UVic Experimental Radio Group (Amateur radio club) UVic Satellite Design Team (ECOSat projects) UVic Centre for Aerospace Research Grants & Awards: APEGBC Editorial Board Award (2002) Multiple US patents in wireless systems and signal processing
Yuchen Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (by courtesy) at North Carolina State University. He earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. His research spans networking, machine learning, and cybersecurity, focusing on wireless systems, digital twins, and networked agentic systems. Research areas: Networking (3D UAV networks, mmWave/THz communication, cybersecurity), Machine Learning (generative AI, LLMs, reinforcement learning), Digital Twins (synchronization optimization, edge caching), Software Development (differentiable simulators, open-source testbeds) His recent publications emphasize neurosymbolic AI, diffusion models for wireless systems, and multi-agent approaches to spectrum sensing. Articles highlight applications in UAV networks, vehicular security, satellite localization, and federated learning defenses. Honors include NSF CAREER (2025), NVIDIA Academic Grant (2025), NCSU Carla Savage Award (2025), and multiple IEEE/ACM Best Paper Awards. Current projects are supported by NSF CNS (#2312138), NSF SaTC (#2350075), and NSF NAIRR Pilot Demonstration (#2506757) grants.
Shang-Tse Chen is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering and Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia , National Taiwan University . He leads the NTU AI Security Lab , focusing on applied and theoretical machine learning with emphasis on cybersecurity, adversarial ML, and ML privacy/fairness. Education: PhD in Computer Science (Georgia Tech, 2019), BSc in CSIE (NTU, 2010) Awards: K. T. Li Young Researcher Award (2025), IBM PhD Fellowship (2018), KDD Best Student Paper Runner-Up (2016), NSF SaTC Grant (2017-2021) His research spans adversarial ML, certified defenses, model inversion attacks, and intersection with differential privacy/fairness. Recent work includes physical adversarial attacks on object detectors and practical defenses using JPEG compression. He teaches courses like Security and Privacy of Machine Learning and Introduction to Medical Informatics . Key publication trends show focus on adversarial robustness (ICML/NeurIPS/ICLR), cybersecurity applications (ACSAC), and ML fairness (ACL/EMNLP). Collaborations include industry partnerships with Intel Labs and Symantec. Scientific Awards: K. T. Li Young Researcher Award (2025) ACM TiiS Best Paper Honorable Mention (2020) IBM PhD Fellowship (2018) KDD Audience Appreciation Award Runner-Up (2018) Symantec Fellowship Runner-Up (2016) KDD Best Student Paper Runner-Up (2016) NSF Grant (2017) He advises 13 current students (PhD/MS/Undergrad) and has mentored alumni now at CMU/UC Berkeley. The lab actively recruits postdocs and students across levels.
