Dr. Kanchana Thilakarathna is a Senior Lecturer in Distributed Computing at the University of Sydney's School of Computer Science, and a member of the Centre for Distributed and High Performance Computing. They hold a PhD from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and a B.Sc. Eng (Hons) from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. Prior to academia, they worked as a Research Scientist at CSIRO/Data61 and had industry experience as a Mobile Radio Network Engineer. Research Interests : Dr. Thilakarathna focuses on cybersecurity, privacy in mobile and IoT systems, mixed reality privacy, and distributed computing platforms. Their work emphasizes user-centric solutions like the Yalut social media app, which enables decentralized data sharing. Key themes include privacy-preserving techniques, edge computing, and secure federated learning frameworks. Recent Work : Recent articles (2023–2025) explore machine unlearning for large language models, federated learning security, and IoT network slicing using P4 programmability. Their work on synthetic video traffic generation (VideoTrain++) and drone detection (DronePrint) demonstrates cross-disciplinary innovation. Awards : Malcolm Chaikin Prize (2015), Meta Research Awards (2020/2022), and Heidelberg Laureate Fellowship (2019). Grants : ARC Research Hub for Future Digital Manufacturing (2024), NSW Defence Innovation Network Projects (2024/2021), and Facebook Research Awards (2022/2020). Students : Advising 4 current PhD students on topics like wireless trust establishment and machine unlearning. Labs/Teams : Part of the Centre for Distributed and High Performance Computing and Sydney Nano Institute.
Umakishore Ramachandran is a Professor in the School of Computer Science within the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research spans edge computing, distributed systems, and real-time video analytics, with significant contributions to fog computing infrastructure, mobile systems, and sensor networks. Over a prolific 38-year career, he has authored 142 publications with major contributions in 2022-2025. His research interests focus on bridging the gap between cloud and edge computing, with pioneering work in video analytics systems like EVA and MicroEdge. He investigates resource optimization for latency-sensitive applications, developing novel approaches for load shedding, data management, and container runtime efficiency at the network edge. His work addresses fundamental challenges in distributed camera networks, autonomous vehicle systems, and real-time stream processing. Ramachandran's recent publications reveal a strong emphasis on practical edge computing solutions, with 75% of his 2021-2025 work focusing on video analytics and infrastructure optimization. His research shows increasing collaboration with industry partners while maintaining academic rigor, with publications appearing in top venues like SIGMOD, Middleware, and DEBS. The work consistently addresses real-world constraints of resource-constrained edge environments. Ramachandran has mentored numerous researchers who have become principal investigators on edge computing projects, with notable collaborators including Harshit Gupta, Enrique Saurez, and Zhuangdi Xu appearing as first authors on multiple papers. His work has received significant grant support for projects related to mobile fog computing and distributed video analytics. He leads research in the Edge Computing Laboratory at Georgia Tech, focusing on the development of practical frameworks for real-world deployment of edge infrastructure. Current projects include eCAV for connected autonomous vehicles and MicroEdge for multi-tenant camera processing systems.
Eyal Aharoni is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Georgia State University's College of Arts & Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2009) and bachelor's degrees in psychology and religious studies from the same institution. Dr. Aharoni's research program bridges psychology, neuroscience, and legal studies with particular focus on: Risk models for antisocial behavior Application of neuroscience to legal contexts (neurolaw) Impact of emotion and cognitive bias on criminal, moral, legal, and political decision making Psychopathy and criminal justice outcomes His scholarly work demonstrates a consistent interdisciplinary approach to understanding the psychological and neurobiological underpinnings of criminal behavior and legal decision-making. Through experimental, longitudinal, and neuroimaging methodologies, Aharoni investigates how cognitive, behavioral, evolutionary, and neurobiological factors influence criminal justice outcomes and potential reforms. Dr. Aharoni maintains an active research laboratory and welcomes PhD students in psychology, with potential funding opportunities in neuroethics. His current research interests include ethical implications of neuroscience technologies and associated issues in cognitive neuroscience, moral psychology, legal psychology, and forensic psychology. His professional experience includes: Research Associate at the RAND Corporation Postdoctoral fellowship at The MIND Research Network for Neurodiagnostic Discovery and the University of New Mexico Psychology Research positions at the Research Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior Research positions at the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research
Alison Slinskey Legg, Ph.D., is a Teaching Professor and Center Director at the University of Pittsburgh, specializing in expanding access to STEM education through large-scale interventions. She founded the Broadening Equity in STEM Center, a collective impact initiative bridging academic and professional sectors, and serves as Principal Investigator for the $10 million NSF INCLUDES ALLIANCE: STEM PUSH Network. Developed national network of pre-college STEM programs using improvement science Pioneered accreditation model for out-of-school STEM programs Created cross-program research on STEM student enrollment trends Her outreach initiatives include Pitt-Kits curriculum, mobile laboratories serving 10,000+ students annually, and teacher professional development programs. She co-created the PBS pilot Science Mission 101 , winning Pennsylvania Excellence in Broadcasting Award (2010). Recent research focuses on racial equity in STEM spaces, program quality standards, and pandemic-era educational continuity. Her work spans STEM education, equity frameworks, and interdisciplinary curriculum development. Notable awards include: Pennsylvania Excellence in Broadcasting Award for Children’s Programming (2010) Dr. Legg’s lab initiatives include the STEM PUSH Network, Gene Team summer research program, and a tri-state mobile laboratory network. She advocates for evidence-based practices in pre-college STEM education through scholarly publications and practitioner collaborations.
Emmett Witchel is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin , with research spanning computer architecture, systems, networking, security, and privacy . His work focuses on low-level systems optimization and secure concurrent execution. Research Interests: Concurrent systems, secure execution environments, GPU integration, distributed systems. Teaching: CS 380L (Advanced Operating Systems), CS 371M (Mobile Computing). Scientific Awards: Runner-up Best Paper, ASPLOS 2013 Runner-up Award for Outstanding Research, USENIX Symposium 2012 IEEE Micro Top Pick Award 2007 ACM Honorable Mention 2004 George M. Sprowls Award, MIT EECS 2004 Recent Publications demonstrate leadership in CXL pod databases ( Tigon ), stateful serverless computing ( Boki ), SmartNIC-accelerated file systems ( LineFS ), and GPU security ( Telekine ). His work bridges hardware-software co-design and practical systems implementation.
Jiaxin Lin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University , affiliated with the Computer Systems Laboratory . She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from UT Austin (2025) , preceded by an M.S. from University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.S. from ShenYuan Honors College at Beihang University. Her research focuses on co-designing software and hardware systems to enable high-performance data center communication, particularly through: Programmable network interface controllers (SmartNICs) Terabit network system stacks Cache/memory interconnects Compilers for in-network computing Chip-to-chip interconnects Her work addresses challenges in portability across heterogeneous SmartNICs, demonstrated through the development of the Alkali compiler framework (NSDI '25). Key themes include hardware abstraction, data center scalability, and network-compute co-design. Scientific Awards: Google Junior Faculty Award (2025) MIT EECS Rising Star (2024) Google Ph.D. Fellowship (2021) Meta Ph.D. Fellowship (2021)
Juergen Schmidhuber is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Informatics of Università della Svizzera italiana and a leading researcher at the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA USI-SUPSI). He is also Chief Scientist at NNAISENSE, a company dedicated to building practical general-purpose AI. His work has profoundly influenced modern artificial intelligence, particularly through the development of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks in 1991, now deployed across billions of devices for speech recognition, machine translation, and virtual assistants. His research interests span Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Recurrent Neural Networks, Universal AI, Meta-Learning, Algorithmic Information Theory, Artificial Curiosity, Robotics , and Low-Complexity Art . He has pioneered mathematically rigorous frameworks for self-improving AI systems and formal theories of creativity and beauty. His work bridges theoretical foundations with real-world applications in computer vision, natural language processing, and autonomous robotics. The recent articles reflect a consistent trajectory of innovation, combining deep theoretical insights with scalable machine learning architectures. His publications emphasize sequence modeling, universal learning, intrinsic motivation, and computational creativity , demonstrating both foundational contributions and industrial impact. From LSTM to Goedel machines, his work consistently targets the long-term goal of self-improving general AI. Scientific Awards: Numerous awards in AI and machine learning (specific names not listed) Schmidhuber leads a research group at IDSIA, where he mentors students and researchers in advancing the frontiers of AI. His lab has secured significant recognition and industrial collaboration, though specific grants are not detailed. He promotes the 'New AI'—general, sound, and relevant to physics—and continues to explore the convergence of intelligence, computation, and the universe. Labs and Teams: Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA USI-SUPSI) NNAISENSE (as Chief Scientist)
Professor Sylvia Urban is a distinguished academic at RMIT University, serving as a Professor of Chemistry in the School of Science. She leads the Marine and Terrestrial Natural Product (MATNAP) research group and is the Program Manager for the Bachelor of Science degree, the largest and flagship program in the School of Science. Professor Urban also holds significant leadership roles including Reconciliation and Responsible Practice Facilitator in the School of Science (STEM College) and member of the Nugulu Committee at RMIT University. Her expertise spans natural products chemistry and separation science, with particular focus on chromatography for purification and instrumental analysis for structural characterisation and elucidation. Professor Urban's research interests encompass natural product chemistry isolation and structural elucidation, NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry for characterisation of natural products, High Performance/Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and other chromatographic techniques for natural product purification, hyphenated spectroscopic techniques such as HPLC-NMR and HPLC-MS for natural product profiling, and biological evaluation of natural products for drug discovery applications. Her work primarily focuses on exploring the biodiversity of Australian marine and terrestrial organisms including plants, fungi, sponges, and algae to discover new compounds with therapeutic potential. She has developed various dereplication and chemical profiling strategies to expedite the discovery process. Professor Urban's publication record demonstrates a strong focus on natural products derived from Australian flora and marine organisms, with particular emphasis on their chemical characterisation and biological evaluation. Her research spans ethnobotanical studies of Indigenous Australian medicinal plants, phytochemical profiling of Australian species, anthelmintic and antimicrobial assessments of natural compounds, and development of analytical methodologies for natural product research. The interdisciplinary nature of her work connects chemistry with pharmacology, ethnobotany, and sustainable development goals related to health, education, and gender equality. STEM College Learning & Teaching Award (Award for Values in Action) 2024 STEM College Athena Swan Award 2023 Top STEM College Media Star 2022 School of Science Reconciliation Champion Award for 2021 School of Science Associate Dean's Impact Award (Applied Chemistry) for 2021 STEM Female Educator of the Year Award in the STEM College in 2021 Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) in 2020 2019 Australian Award for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning Professor Urban actively supervises Masters and PhD students, with recent projects focusing on nanoparticle synthesis, natural product evaluation from Australian plants and marine organisms, food science applications, and biomedical imaging agents. She has received numerous teaching grants including the SteLR Grant 2017 for Pen-enabled, Real-time Student Engagement for Teaching in STEM Subjects, SteLR Plus Learning and Teaching Grant 2016 for Contextualizing Learning Chemistry, and Global Learning by Design (GLbD) Learning and Teaching Grant 2014. As the leader of the MATNAP research group, Professor Urban oversees a team focused on exploring Australian biodiversity for drug discovery. She has been instrumental in establishing the VICS Molecular Resolution Facility (chromatography node at RMIT University) as part of "The Pipeline – An Integrated Approach to Drug Design and Development." Her research involves collaborations both within and external to RMIT University, including Australian and international university and industry partners.
Vyas Sekar is the Tan Family Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), with a courtesy appointment in the Computer Science Department. He is affiliated with CyLab and co-directs the Future of Enterprise Security initiative. His research focuses on networking, cybersecurity, distributed systems, and IoT security, with an emphasis on data-driven approaches and network verification. Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science (2010) from CMU; B.Tech. from IIT Madras (President of India Gold Medal recipient). Professional roles include Chief Scientist at Conviva and co-founder of Rockfish Data. Research Interests: Cybersecurity, network security, software-defined networking (SDN), IoT security, DDoS defense, privacy-preserving data sharing, and network performance optimization. Recent work includes developing tools like Pigasus (FPGA-accelerated intrusion detection), Nomad (cloud side-channel mitigation), and frameworks for anomaly detection in IoT networks. Articles Trends: Recent publications address advanced threats like LLM-driven network attacks, stealthy automotive network exploits (CANDid), and optical-layer DDoS defenses. Emphasis on practical solutions (e.g., SketchPlan for telemetry, Pryde for firewall evasion detection). Awards: ACM SIGCOMM Test of Time Award (2022), IIT Madras Young Alumni Achiever Award (2022), Intel Outstanding Researcher Award (2021), and NSF CAREER Award (2016). Recognized for contributions to intrusion prevention, network security, and IoT resilience. Grants & Projects: Led NSF-funded ONSET project (optical-layer DDoS defense), CyLab's Secure IoT Initiative, and collaborations with industry partners like Intel, Facebook, and Nokia Bell Labs. Advises graduate students in cybersecurity and networking. Labs & Teams: Active contributor to CyLab, co-developer of frameworks like Lumos (hidden IoT device detection) and KalKi (IoT security platform). Engages in interdisciplinary research across CMU’s Robotics Institute and Software Engineering Institute.
David Bermbach is a Full Professor of Scalable Software Systems at Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin) since 2023, where he heads the Scalable Software Systems research group within Faculty IV - Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He is also co-affiliated with the Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF). Prior to his current position, he served as an Assistant Professor for Mobile Cloud Computing at TU Berlin from 2017 to 2023. His educational background includes a diploma in Business Engineering (2010) and a PhD with distinction in Computer Science (2014), both from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Prof. Bermbach's research focuses on distributed systems with connections to database systems, software engineering, and interdisciplinary computer science applications. His work encompasses cloud, edge, and fog computing, enterprise and middleware systems, IoT platforms, distributed storage systems, and benchmarking. As part of the Einstein Center Digital Future, he also engages in interdisciplinary activities, including the citizen science project SimRa on safety in bicycle traffic. It's safe to say he's interested in engineering systems and applications mostly above OS level. His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on serverless computing, edge computing, and distributed systems, with research spanning from theoretical foundations to practical implementations addressing real-world challenges in geo-distributed environments. Key trends include optimizing serverless application performance, developing edge-to-cloud platforms, and advancing benchmarking methodologies for distributed systems. Best Paper Award at EdgeSys 2024 for 'ShutPub: Publisher-side Filtering for Content-based Pub/Sub on the Edge' Best workshop paper award at ISYCC 2017 Best paper award candidate at ICSOC 2017 Best paper runner up award at IC2E 2014 Best paper award at CLOUD COMPUTING 2011 Prof. Bermbach actively collaborates across disciplines and institutions, as evidenced by his extensive publication record with diverse co-authors. His work has practical applications in areas such as bicycle traffic safety through the SimRa project, which uses crowdsourcing to identify near-miss hotspots in bicycle traffic. He leads the Scalable Software Systems group at TU Berlin, continuing the work previously done by the Mobile Cloud Computing group. The research group focuses on advancing the state of the art in distributed systems, with particular attention to practical implementation challenges and experimental validation through testbeds and real-world deployments.
Xiaohu Guo is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas specializing in computer graphics, computer vision, and geometric modeling. His research develops algorithms for 3D/4D reconstruction, virtual reality, medical imaging, and physics-based simulations. Professor Guo has received significant recognition including a Best Paper Award at SIGGRAPH (2023) and an NSF CAREER Award (2012). His current research focuses on dynamic human capture, deformable models, and medical image computation. Education: PhD, Stony Brook University MS, Stony Brook University BS, University of Science and Technology of China Research Funding: Recently secured a $500,000 NSF grant for developing open-source 4D reconstruction frameworks for real-time dynamic human capture (2021). Editorial Roles: Serves on editorial boards of Graphical Models , Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds , and IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics .
Dr. Xin Zhou is an Oxford-Bristol Myers Squibb Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford. Her research integrates computational modeling, clinical data, and experimental findings to investigate cardiac disease mechanisms and develop human-based simulations for drug evaluation. BSc and MSc in Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University DPhil in Computational Biology, University of Oxford Her work focuses on multi-scale cardiac modeling , particularly in ischemic heart disease and heart failure, exploring ionic currents, tissue conduction, and organ-level dynamics. She develops electromechanical simulations to study cardiac alternans and arrhythmic risks, translating these into clinical applications for patient stratification and pharmaceutical testing. Recent publications emphasize in silico clinical trials , sex-specific cardiometabolic analysis, and Purkinje network modeling. Collaborative efforts with clinicians and pharmaceutical partners highlight her translational approach to regulatory science. Model of the Year 2024, BioModels EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account Microsoft Research Project Award Recognition Award, University of Oxford She supervises PhD and MSc students in computational cardiology, while serving on the editorial board of Frontiers in Physiology . Her current projects involve digital twinning and predictive cardiac safety models to reduce animal testing reliance.
Ji Hwan Park is an Assistant Professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media at RIT's Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences (GCCIS). He holds a PhD from Stony Brook University under Prof. Arie Kaufman. His research focuses on accessible data visualization, digital twins, human-AI collaboration, and VR/AR applications. Notable contributions include developing tools for ADHD-friendly visualizations and interactive protein motif identification. He has received funding from the Department of Defense for biomedical research and earned an Honorable Mention at CHI 2024. Current teaching includes courses on game design and advanced algorithms. Research activities span medical imaging analytics (e.g., CMed framework for crowd-sourced diagnostics), climate modeling through Bayesian deep learning, and creative visualization techniques like Graphoto. His work bridges technical innovation with human-centered design principles, particularly in healthcare and neurodivergent accessibility contexts.
Rayadurgam Srikant is the Fredric G. and Elizabeth H. Nearing Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, affiliated with the Coordinated Science Lab. He co-directs the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute, focusing on AI-driven solutions for global challenges. His research spans machine learning, communication networks, stochastic systems, and game theory. Srikant has authored influential textbooks including Communication Networks: An Optimization, Control and Stochastic Networks Perspective . He holds IEEE Fellow status and has received prestigious awards like the ACM SIGMETRICS Achievement Award (2021) and IEEE Koji Kobayashi Award (2019). Over 20 of his advisees hold faculty positions globally. Education: PhD (1991), MS (1988) in Electrical Engineering from UIUC; B.Tech (1985) from IIT Madras. He has taught advanced courses on optimization, stochastic systems, and game theory. His work bridges theory and practice, with contributions to congestion control, cloud computing, and reinforcement learning. Current projects include AI applications for pandemic response and digital transformation initiatives. Research highlights include foundational work on Lyapunov drift methods for network stability and distributed algorithms. He serves as Area Editor for Mathematics of Operations Research and has led editorial roles for IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking. His lab collaborates with industry leaders like Microsoft and C3.ai, leveraging supercomputing resources for societal impact.
Marilena Vendittelli is a Professor at Sapienza University of Rome, affiliated with the Robotics group. Her research spans control systems, biomedical robotics, motion planning, and autonomous systems. Research Areas: Control systems for robotics and nonholonomic systems Biomedical applications (hyperthermia therapy, needle insertion) UAV navigation and obstacle avoidance Haptics and human-robot interaction Adaptive estimation algorithms Recent Publications focus on adaptive control of bio-heat equations, safe UAV motion planning, soft robotics actuation, and haptic feedback in medical procedures.
