Yunxiang Yan is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His work focuses on China and Cultural Anthropology , with specific expertise in Economic Anthropology , Family and Kinship , and Individualization . Education: Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University (1993). Yan’s research explores the intersection of social change , moral theory , and family dynamics in modern China. His ethnographic studies in rural villages provide foundational insights into exchange theory and cultural globalization . Recent publications analyze food safety , medical ethics , and moral crises in China, reflecting his interdisciplinary approach combining anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. Articles span themes like intergenerational intimacy , political oppression , and networked social structures . Scientific Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship Levenson Prize-winning Research Yan’s work bridges local Chinese studies with global anthropological discourse. He has held positions at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Johns Hopkins University, and UCLA since 1996. His career reflects a commitment to documenting the lives of ordinary people, rooted in his early experiences as an expelled villager during Maoist China. Contact: yan@anthro.ucla.edu
Jacob Eyferth is an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago, jointly appointed in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, the Department of History, and the College. His research focuses on the social and cultural history of twentieth-century China, particularly rural communities, gender dynamics, and the intersection of technology and everyday life. Key research themes include the impact of industrialization, collectivization, and revolution on non-elite populations, with an emphasis on rural women's labor and cultural resistance. His current project explores cotton production, clothing, and gender during China's socialist era. Eating Rice from Bamboo Roots (2009) How China Works (2006) Rural Development in Transitional China (2004) He received the 2011 Joseph Levenson Prize for his first book. Eyferth has taught courses on topics such as class inequality, everyday life under socialism, and revolutionary China, and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Oxford, Harvard, and Rutgers.
Jonathan Rosa is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and, by courtesy, Departments of Anthropology, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He serves as Director of Stanford's Program in Chicanx-Latinx Studies and has held leadership positions including President of the Association of Latina/o and Latinx Anthropologists of the American Anthropological Association. Dr. Rosa's educational background includes: Ph.D. in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology from the University of Chicago (2010) M.A. in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology from the University of Chicago (2006) B.A. in Linguistics and Educational Studies from Swarthmore College (2003) Dr. Rosa's research examines the co-naturalization of language and race as a key feature of modern governance, tracking colonially structured interrelations among racial marginalization, linguistic stigmatization, and institutional inequity. His scholarship centers on raciolinguistic ideologies, Latinx studies, and educational justice, with a community-based approach that develops tools for challenging systemic vulnerability. He investigates how race and language are jointly defined across historical, geopolitical, and institutional contexts, with particular focus on Latinx communities and educational settings. His recent publications demonstrate a consistent thematic focus on decolonizing linguistic and educational frameworks, challenging standard language ideologies, and examining the intersections of race, language, and power. The work spans multiple disciplines including sociolinguistics, anthropology, education, and critical race studies, increasingly emphasizing undoing raciolinguistics and addressing coloniality in language education and assessment practices. Dr. Rosa has received numerous prestigious awards for his scholarship: Distinguished Summer Scholar, Banks Center for Educational Justice, University of Washington College of Education (2024) Outstanding Book of the Year Award for "Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race," American Association of Teaching and Curriculum (2022) First Book Award for "Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race," American Association for Applied Linguistics (2021) Prose Award for Excellence in Language & Linguistics for "Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race," Association of American Publishers (2020) Charles A. Ferguson Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Center for Applied Linguistics (2018) Dr. Rosa actively mentors doctoral students across multiple programs, serving as primary advisor for students researching race, ethnicity, language, and education. His research has been supported by major grants from the National Science Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and Ford Foundation. He collaborates extensively with community organizations, particularly in Chicago, to develop educational approaches grounded in decolonial praxis, focusing on how scholarship can serve as a platform for social transformation. Dr. Rosa co-directed Stanford's Center for Global Ethnography (2021-2023) and directed Stanford's Program in Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies (2020-2023). He serves on multiple editorial boards including Current Anthropology and Equity & Excellence in Education, and has held leadership positions in professional organizations including President of the Association of Latina/o and Latinx Anthropologists (2020-2022).
Dr. Chang Xu is an Associate Professor in Machine Learning and Computer Vision at the University of Sydney's School of Computer Science. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Tianjin University and a PhD from Peking University. His research focuses on machine learning, data mining, and their applications in AI and computer vision, including multi-view learning, visual search, and face recognition. He is an ARC Future Fellow and a member of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre and The Net Zero Institute. Education: B.E. in Engineering (Tianjin University), Ph.D. in Computer Science (Peking University). His research interests emphasize handling heterogeneous data, exploring data variety, and developing algorithms for robust AI systems. His work includes adversarial robustness, neural architecture search, and efficient deep learning models. Research trends in his articles include adversarial robustness in neural architectures, efficient vision transformers, multimodal 3D style transfer, and underwater image restoration. Key contributions span image restoration, video super-resolution, and lightweight network design. He has advised multiple PhD and master's students on topics like diffusion models, radar image synthesis, and graph similarity. Awards: ARC Future Fellow. Collaborations focus on cross-domain data integration and AI applications. His labs and teams explore generative models, robust learning, and scalable robotics policies. Recent work includes diffusion models for action segmentation and robust vision-language systems.
Boris Hanin is an Associate Professor at Princeton University's Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering (ORFE) and Associated Faculty at the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics (PACM). Prior to Princeton, he held academic positions at Texas A&M University (Assistant Professor of Mathematics), MIT (NSF Postdoctoral Fellow), and Northwestern University (PhD in Mathematics under Steve Zelditch). He works part-time at Foundry, an AI/computing startup, leading the Foundry Institute. PhD in Mathematics, Northwestern University NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship, MIT Mathematics Associate Professor, Princeton ORFE Part-Time Leader, Foundry Institute His research spans machine learning, probability theory, and mathematical physics, focusing on neural network theory (approximation power, optimization guarantees), random matrix theory, and spectral asymptotics. He has made foundational contributions to understanding gradient behavior, initialization, and infinite-width limits in deep learning. Boris has supervised numerous PhD students and postdocs, with former members securing prestigious positions at Harvard, MIT, and Huawei. He serves as Associate Editor for journals like Pure and Applied Analysis and Mathematics of Operations Research , and has taught short courses at Oxford, Luxembourg, and Tor Vergata on statistical physics of neural networks and deep learning theory. 2024 Sloan Fellowship in Mathematics NSF CAREER grant DMS-2143754 NSF grant DMS-2133806 His research group collaborates on topics including hyperparameter transfer, architecture-aware scaling, and spectral analysis of random waves and neural networks. He actively contributes to theoretical machine learning through foundational publications in venues like Probability Theory and Related Fields , Journal of Machine Learning Research , and Communications in Mathematical Physics .
Kevin Jamieson is an Associate Professor at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Washington . His academic journey includes a B.S. (2009) , M.S. (2010) , and Ph.D. (2015) in electrical engineering from the University of Washington, Columbia University, and University of Wisconsin–Madison respectively. He completed a postdoc at UC Berkeley's AMP Lab before joining UW in 2017. Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, University of Wisconsin–Madison (2015) M.S., Electrical Engineering, Columbia University (2010) B.S., Electrical Engineering, University of Washington (2009) Jamieson's research lies at the intersection of interactive machine learning , active learning , and sequential decision making . His work focuses on: Adaptive sampling strategies in multi-armed bandits and reinforcement learning (RL) Developing instance-dependent optimal algorithms that adapt to problem difficulty Applications in robotics , human perception studies , and hyperparameter optimization Representation learning for large models and experimental design frameworks His 15 most recent publications (2025-2022) demonstrate expertise in bandit theory , contextual RL , and game-theoretic learning . Notable trends include sample-efficient optimization , adaptive A/B testing , and sim-to-real transfer in robotics. Jamieson has received: NSF CAREER award for foundational contributions Amazon Faculty Research award for innovation in learning systems He actively recruits graduate students and postdocs , emphasizing collaboration in areas like: Multi-agent RL and strategic actor learning Empirical process suprema and adaptive sampling theory Applications in robotics , large language model finetuning , and biomedical data analysis Jamieson leads the Washington AI Lab (WAIL) and develops open-source learning systems like the NEXT framework for real-world adaptive data collection. He serves as co-PI for the Institute for the Foundations of Data Science (IFDS) and co-organizes the Distinguished Seminar in Optimization & Data .
Dr. Diyi Yang is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. She leads the Social and Language Technologies (SALT) Lab, affiliated with the Stanford NLP Group, Stanford HCI Group, Stanford AI Lab (SAIL), and Stanford Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). Her research focuses on socially aware natural language processing, large language models (LLMs), and human-AI interaction, aiming to improve human-human and human-computer communication through socially grounded AI systems. Education: Ph.D. in Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (2013–2019) B.S. in ACM Honored Class, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2009–2013) Research Interests: Dr. Yang’s work bridges computational social science and NLP. She explores how AI can understand social contexts in language use and develop systems that respect cultural norms, ethical standards, and human values. Her lab’s projects include AI companions for skill training (e.g., Rehearsal Dialects), norm-aware LLMs (NormBank), and frameworks for human-AI collaboration (Co-Gym). Recent efforts address bias in AI, societal impacts of LLMs, and ethical evaluation of human-AI systems. Awards & Honors: 2024: Sloan Research Fellowship, ONR Young Investigator Award 2023: Adamic-Glance Young Distinguished Award (ICWSM), Kavli Fellow (NAS) 2022: NSF CAREER Award, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow 2020: IEEE AI’s 10 to Watch Advising & Grants: Dr. Yang advises over 10 PhD students and postdocs, co-leading projects on LLM evaluation (SWE-bench/SWE-smith), human-AI ethics, and culturally aware NLP. Her research is supported by NSF, Amazon, DARPA, Google, and Stanford’s HAI initiative. Labs & Teams: The SALT Lab collaborates across disciplines, with projects spanning computer science, linguistics, and social sciences. Current initiatives include developing AI tools for mental health support (AI Partner & Mentor) and auditing societal impacts of LLMs.
Sophie Volpp is a Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on Chinese literature from the 16th to 19th centuries, with particular emphasis on theatricality, material culture, and literary objects. She is the author of *Worldly Stage: Theatricality in Seventeenth-Century China* (2011) and *The Substance of Fiction: Literary Objects in China, 1550-1775* (2022). Her current projects include a book on the National Peiping Library’s preservation efforts during the Sino-Japanese War and an analysis of referents in *The Story of the Stone*. Her scholarly work bridges literary analysis and cultural history, examining themes such as gender, power, and spectacle in late-imperial China. She has translated works by pre-modern women poets and dramatists, contributing to gender-centric scholarship in East Asian studies. Her publications span journal articles and edited volumes, addressing topics like Qing-era theatrical design, material circulation in classical novels, and cross-cultural influences in literary production. Her research has been published in venues such as *Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies* and *Journal of Asian Studies*.
Alan Ritter is an Associate Professor at the School of Interactive Computing , Georgia Institute of Technology, with additional affiliation to the Machine Learning Center . His research focuses on Natural Language Processing , particularly robust models across domains/languages with fewer labels and efficient resource use, plus data-driven dialogue agents for open-topic conversations. Research Interests : Robust NLP models, cross-lingual transfer, resource-efficient learning, dialogue systems, cultural bias measurement, and privacy-aware language models Students : Mentors Ph.D. students in Georgia Tech's ML and CS programs, including Junmo Kang, Yang Chen, and Duong Minh Le. Alumni include Fan Bai (Ph.D. 2023), Yang Chen (Ph.D. 2024), and Andrew Li (M.S. 2024). Awards : NSF CAREER Award, Amazon Research Award, ACL 2024 Best Social Impact Paper, IUI 2009 Best Student Paper. Recent Work : Studies training budget allocation between supervised and preference-based finetuning, cross-lingual information extraction, cultural bias in LLMs, and privacy risk mitigation in social media disclosures. Service : Served as Program Chair for NAACL 2025, Area Chair for multiple top-tier conferences (COLM, EMNLP, ACL, EACL, AAAI). Email : alan.ritter@cc.gatech.edu
Mark Riedl is a Professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing and Associate Director of the Georgia Tech Machine Learning Center (ML@GT). His research focuses on human-centered artificial intelligence, emphasizing the development of AI technologies that naturally interact with humans. Key areas include story understanding/generation, computational creativity, explainable AI, and ensuring AI safety. He holds affiliations with the GVU Center, Institute for People and Technology (IPaT), and Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM). His work is supported by NSF, DARPA, ONR, and industry partners like Google and Meta. Notable awards include the DARPA Young Faculty Award and NSF CAREER Award, plus three Pulitzer Prizes (collaborative with Roko M. Bask). Riedl's recent projects include STORY2GAME (AI-driven game design) and ethical AI frameworks addressing transparency and accountability. His research bridges theoretical advancements with practical applications in education, healthcare, and creative industries. Research interests span AI ethics, narrative systems, and AI's societal impact. He explores how AI can be made more transparent through explainable mechanisms while maintaining creativity and safety. Collaborations with Roko Bask on futuristic culinary trends have produced influential works. His labs and teams focus on interdisciplinary approaches, combining computer science with social sciences to shape responsible AI development. Key grants and projects include NSF-funded initiatives on AI in education and DARPA-supported work on AI safety. His contributions to explainable AI challenge traditional XAI paradigms, advocating for human-centered approaches that prioritize user understanding and ethical implications. Current efforts emphasize adapting LLMs for world modeling and enhancing RL agents with causal reasoning capabilities.
Gilah Kletenik is a Research Fellow in Jewish Studies at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, University of Washington, holding the Hazel D. Cole Fellowship (2024-2026). She specializes in Jewish philosophy from medieval through modern periods with concentrated expertise in Spinoza's thought and its intellectual lineage. Her educational background includes: Ph.D. in Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University (2020) M.A. in Hebrew and Judaic Studies M.A. in Bible and Talmud Kletenik's research interrogates how power structures shape Western conceptions of reality, reason, and humanity, excavating alternatives in Jewish naturalism and immanence. She critically engages Spinoza's philosophy through medieval precursors (Maimonides, Gersonides), early modern contemporaries (Descartes, Anne Conway), and modern heirs (Marx, Deleuze), while situating this work within critical theory, new materialism, object-oriented ontology, affect theory, and queer theory frameworks. Her scholarship consistently bridges historical philosophical analysis with contemporary sociopolitical critique. Her public scholarship demonstrates thematic continuity across publications, examining institutional power dynamics in Jewish Studies through lenses of gender, antisemitism, and decolonization. These works reveal persistent patterns connecting medieval philosophical concepts to modern systemic issues in academia and society. Her distinguished fellowships include: Hazel D. Cole Fellow in Jewish Studies, University of Washington (2024-2026) Postdoctoral Associate, Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, Boston University Alan M. Stroock Fellow, Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University Currently completing her monograph "Sovereignty Disrupted: Spinoza and the Disparity of Reality," Kletenik maintains active public engagement through lectures and critical commentary, advancing interdisciplinary dialogue between Jewish philosophy and contemporary theoretical movements while challenging institutional norms in academic Jewish Studies.
Professor Dan Meagher is a Chair in Law at Deakin University's Faculty of Business and Law, where he leads research in constitutional law and statutory interpretation. He serves as Director of Research at Deakin Law School and actively contributes to legal scholarship through publications, editorial work, and supervision of doctoral candidates. Doctor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales Master of Laws, Monash University Bachelor of Economics, Monash University Bachelor of Laws (LLB), Monash University His research focuses on constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and human rights protections. He explores the principle of legality, responsible government norms, and the interplay between common law and statutory frameworks, often advocating for enhanced rights protections through judicial interpretation. Professor Meagher's scholarly output highlights trends in Australian constitutionalism, including proportionality in secondary legislation, non-discrimination principles, and the evolution of common law rights. His work bridges doctrinal analysis with practical implications for legislative drafting and judicial review. Elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law Comments Editor for the Public Law Review Director of Research at Deakin Law School He supervises doctoral research on topics like human rights protection and legislative drafting models. His professional activities include co-editing major legal texts and contributing to debates on constitutional evolution and judicial interpretation.
Mulki Al-Sharmani is a Professor at the University of Helsinki, affiliated with the Faculty of Arts and the Department of Cultures (specializing in Middle Eastern Studies). Her research focuses on Islamic feminism, Muslim family law, gender studies, and transnational migrant communities. She examines how religious texts and practices intersect with legal frameworks and social dynamics in contexts like Egypt, Finland, and the Somali diaspora. Her work includes analyzing Islamic legal reform, gender equality in marriage, and the lived experiences of Muslim women. Key publications explore Qur'anic hermeneutics, the role of feminist activism in legal change, and the wellbeing of transnational families. She has contributed to projects like 'Reclaiming Adl and Ihsan in Muslim Marriage' and co-edited volumes on Islamic ethics and family law reform. Research interests: Islamic feminist theory, Middle Eastern legal traditions, transnational family dynamics, and religious praxis. Recent articles highlight themes like Qur'anic ethics of marriage, legal pluralism in Finland, and the political dimensions of Egyptian family law reform. Active in international conferences, including presentations at SOAS University of London, American University in Cairo, and panels on Islamic law and gender at venues like MESA and EASR. Involved in interdisciplinary initiatives such as the Africa Research Forum and Musawah's global network for equality in Muslim family laws.
Shigehiro Oishi is the Marshall Field IV Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2023). He holds a B.A. from International Christian University (Tokyo), Ed.M. from Columbia University, and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to UChicago, he taught at the University of Minnesota (2000–2004), Columbia University (2018–2020), and the University of Virginia (2004–2018; 2020–2022). His research explores culture, social ecology, and well-being, focusing on questions like “What is a good life?” and how socio-ecological factors like income inequality and residential mobility impact well-being across cultures. His lab uses diverse data sources, including surveys, GIS, and experimental methods. Key awards include the 2017 Society of Experimental Social Psychology Career Trajectory Award, the 2018 Carol and Ed Diener Award, and the 2021 Outstanding Achievement Award for Advancing Cultural Psychology. His work bridges psychology, sociology, and cultural studies, with a global focus on understanding human thriving. The Oishi Lab at UChicago continues this mission, welcoming new Ph.D. students and hosting prominent social psychology talks.
Prof. Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky holds the Chair of Sociology/Gender Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), Faculty of Social Sciences. She is on sabbatical during Summer Semester 2025 but continues research supervision and colloquia. Her research focuses on intersections of racism, sexism, and neoliberalism, with notable works like The Future of Difference and Top Girls . She co-edits the journal Gender Salon and leads projects on gender studies, queer theory, and postfeminism. Her academic contributions span monographs, anthologies, and journal articles addressing global social movements, anti-genderism, and body politics. Key themes include critical analysis of contemporary gender regimes, decolonial theory, and the sociocultural implications of neoliberalism. Her work frequently bridges theory and activism, emphasizing intersectional approaches to systemic oppression. Publications include edited volumes on #MeToo, fat studies, and the sociological analysis of bodies, reflecting her commitment to interdisciplinary research. She maintains an active academic presence through her website LMU Gender Studies and Academia.edu .
