Alane Suhr is an Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley's Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) department and a member of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab (BAIR). Her research focuses on natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and computer vision, emphasizing systems that interact with humans through language. She designs models and datasets for language grounding (e.g., NLVR) and develops algorithms for learning through interaction. Education: PhD in Computer Science, Cornell University (2022), advised by Yoav Artzi Bachelor's in Computer Science and Engineering, Ohio State University (2016), with a Linguistics minor Research Interests: Interactive systems for collaborative language use (e.g., CerealBar) Language grounding in multimodal contexts Embodied agents and reinforcement learning Generalization in NLP and the role of language in learning Key Contributions: Developed the NLVR dataset for visual reasoning with natural language Pioneered work on SWE-Gym for training software engineering agents Contributed to research on language models' sensitivity and commonsense reasoning Awards: ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award (2022) Outstanding Paper Awards at ACL 2023 and EMNLP 2021 Professional Activities: Organized workshops at ICML, NeurIPS, and ACL on topics like agents, generalization, and theory of mind Active in academic outreach and conference speaking (e.g., ICML, NeurIPS, CVPR) Labs/Teams: Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab SWE-Gym research group
Raquel Fernández is Full Professor of Computational Linguistics and Dialogue Systems at the University of Amsterdam, where she leads the Dialogue Modelling Group at the Institute for Logic, Language & Computation (ILLC). As Vice-Director for Research at ILLC and a Fellow of the ELLIS Society, she bridges computational linguistics, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence through her research on language use in multimodal and conversational contexts. PhD in Computational Linguistics from King's College London Prior research positions at University of Potsdam and Stanford University's CSLI Her work explores how cognitive constraints, social interaction, and perception shape language use, with a focus on: Visually-grounded language processing Multimodal dialogue modeling Model uncertainty and calibration Language grounding in multimodal data Language learning and semantic change Dialogue reference resolution Recent publications analyze multimodal reasoning limitations, cross-lingual knowledge consistency, and uncertainty modeling in dialogue systems. She has received multiple accolades including an ERC Consolidator Grant , NWO VENI/VIDI/Aspasia fellowships , and EMNLP/GenBench awards . Outstanding Paper Award (EMNLP 2023) Best Data Award (GenBench Workshop 2023) ELLIS Society Fellow ERC Consolidator Grant #819455 recipient NWO VENI/VIDI/Aspasia awardee As a leader in academic service, she serves on the SIGDAT Executive Committee and chairs multiple conference committees. Her lab develops models for multimodal dialogue, visual storytelling, and grounded language understanding.
Professor Heather Ferguson is a distinguished cognitive psychologist at the University of Kent's School of Psychology, where she has built an impressive academic career since her appointment as Lecturer in 2009. Promoted to Professor in 2018, she leads groundbreaking research examining the cognitive basis of social communication across the lifespan. Her work bridges cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and social cognition, with particular expertise in perspective-taking, theory of mind, and the interface between cognitive processes and social interaction. Her research primarily investigates how we access and represent other people's perspectives during communication, using methodologies including eye-tracking, EEG, and reaction time measurements. Key questions driving her work include: How do people understand and predict events based on others' mental states? What happens when these conflict with our own knowledge? How do social abilities relate to cognitive skills like memory and inhibitory control? How does aging affect social cognition? Her work has significant implications for understanding autism spectrum disorder, social development, and cognitive aging. Professor Ferguson's recent publications reveal a strong focus on perspective-taking across the lifespan, social cognition in autism, the cognitive effects of fiction reading, and the neural mechanisms underlying empathy. Her research demonstrates consistent methodological rigor through pre-registered studies and meta-analyses, with particular attention to developmental trajectories from adolescence through older adulthood. Psychonomic Society Early Career Award (2019) Open Science Framework Pre-registration Challenge award (2018) Cognitive Neuroscience Society Postdoctoral Fellow Award (2018) University of Kent Prize for Research (2016) Kent Union Teaching Award for 'Best Teacher' (2012) Professor Ferguson actively supervises multiple PhD students and has secured substantial research funding, including a €1.5 million ERC Starting Grant and multiple Leverhulme Trust grants. Her work with the Cognitive basis of Social Communication and Ageing (COGSOCOAGE) research group has produced influential findings on social cognition across the lifespan. She serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition and on the editorial board of Cognition, while also mentoring early-career researchers through the Eastern Arc Mentoring Scheme.
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.
Patrick Sturt is a Reader in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh's School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. His research focuses on syntactic processing in language comprehension, computational models of incremental parsing, anaphor resolution, and eye movements in reading. With over 100 publications and more than 3,300 citations, he is a recognized expert in psycholinguistics and language processing. Dr. Sturt's research interests span multiple areas of language processing. He investigates how humans comprehend sentences in real-time, with particular focus on syntactic structures, agreement phenomena, and anaphoric reference. His work often employs eye-tracking methodologies to examine the moment-by-moment processing of linguistic information. He has made significant contributions to understanding how readers handle syntactic ambiguities, garden-path sentences, and the role of prediction in language comprehension. His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on cross-linguistic studies, particularly examining language processing in Mandarin Chinese and Korean. Many of his studies investigate how syntactic and semantic information interact during comprehension, and how linguistic structures like honorifics, classifiers, and non-canonical word orders are processed. His work bridges theoretical linguistics with experimental psycholinguistics, providing empirical evidence for models of sentence processing. Dr. Sturt actively supervises PhD students including Carine Abraham, Wenjia Cai, Chiuchou Hao, Ruomeng Zhu, and Christy Gu. He teaches Psychology of Language 1 and 2 at the MSc level, as well as Data Analysis for Psychology in R for first-year undergraduates. His teaching reflects his research expertise, providing students with both theoretical knowledge and practical analytical skills. Based in Room G29 of the Psychology Building at 7 George Square, Edinburgh, Dr. Sturt maintains regular office hours on Tuesdays from 3-4pm, providing accessibility to students and colleagues. His email address is patrick.sturt@ed.ac.uk.
Dr. Bo Liu is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where he serves as a core member and director of the AI Security and Privacy (AISP) Research Lab at the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute (AAII). With expertise spanning cybersecurity, privacy protection, AI and machine learning, and wireless communications, Dr. Liu has established himself as a leading researcher in the field of AI security and privacy. Dr. Liu earned his PhD from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2010. His academic journey at UTS has progressed from Senior Lecturer (November 2019-December 2022) to his current position as Associate Professor (January 2023-present). Dr. Liu's research focuses on the critical intersection of artificial intelligence and security, particularly addressing emerging threats in the age of advanced AI systems. His work spans multiple dimensions of security and privacy, including deepfake detection, privacy-preserving data synthesis, AI model security, and fair machine learning. He has pioneered approaches to detect AI-generated content, protect visual privacy through de-identification techniques, and address the complex relationship between algorithmic fairness and privacy preservation. His publication record demonstrates significant contributions across multiple cutting-edge research areas, with particular emphasis on detecting and mitigating threats from generative AI systems. His recent work reveals a strong focus on deepfake detection across multiple modalities (images, video, and audio), privacy-preserving techniques for sensitive data, and the security implications of emerging AI architectures like Retrieval-Augmented Generation systems. Dr. Liu has secured substantial research funding, including as Lead Chief Investigator on multiple ARC Discovery and Linkage Projects, totaling over $3.5 million AUD. His industry collaborations include partnerships with the NSW Department of Planning and the Reserve Bank of Australia, demonstrating the practical applicability of his research. As an academic leader, Dr. Liu serves as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting and actively contributes to the academic community through conference organization, peer review for top-tier venues, and assessment for ARC grant schemes. He also teaches courses including Penetration Testing, Ethical Hacking and Offensive Security, and supervises Masters and PhD students in cybersecurity and privacy research.
Yu Meng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia (UVA), part of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He joined UVA in 2024 as a tenure-track faculty member. His research focuses on machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and data mining, with recent emphasis on large language models (LLMs), alignment, reliability, and ethical AI development. Educated at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Meng earned his Ph.D. in 2023 under advisor Jiawei Han. His doctoral thesis, Efficient and Effective Learning of Text Representations , received the ACM SIGKDD 2024 Dissertation Award. He also held a visiting researcher position at Princeton University under Danqi Chen and was a Google PhD Fellow. His work has been recognized with awards including the Superalignment Fast Grant from OpenAI and notable publications at venues like NeurIPS, ICLR, and ACL. Meng’s research explores topics such as preference optimization (SimPO), retrieval-augmented generation (InstructRAG), and zero-shot learning. He actively serves on program committees for top conferences (ICLR, ICML, NeurIPS) and as an action editor for Transactions of Machine Learning Research (TMLR) . He teaches graduate-level courses on NLP, emphasizing cutting-edge LLM topics like architecture design, instruction tuning, and ethical considerations. Key achievements include contributions to LLM alignment via retrieval optimization, efficient pretraining techniques, and foundational work on weakly supervised learning. His research bridges theory and practice, addressing both technical challenges and societal impacts of AI systems.
Yoshiko Matsumoto is the Yamato Ichihashi Professor in Japanese History and Civilization and Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University, with a courtesy appointment in Linguistics. She has been a faculty member at Stanford since 1992, progressing from Assistant Professor to her current distinguished position. Matsumoto also serves as coordinator of the Japanese Language Program and has held significant administrative roles including Chair of the Department of Asian Languages (2003-2005) and Interim Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (2016). Matsumoto earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley (1989), following M.A. degrees in Linguistics from UC Berkeley and General and Applied Linguistics from the University of Tsukuba, an M.I.A. in American Studies from the University of Tsukuba, and a B.A. in English Language & Literature from Japan Women's University. Professor Matsumoto's research focuses on linguistic pragmatics from cross-linguistic perspectives, with particular expertise in Japanese language. Her work spans structural and sociocultural aspects of language in use, including noun-modifying clause constructions, honorifics, discourse markers, and the intersection of language with gender and aging. She has pioneered research on conversational narratives of older adults, examining how ordinary framing strategies help individuals navigate difficult experiences. Her current projects explore intergenerational communication through haiku, communicative abilities of people with dementia, and noun-modifying constructions across Eurasian languages. Matsumoto's scholarship consistently bridges theoretical linguistics with practical applications for understanding human communication in diverse social contexts. Matsumoto's recent publications reveal a growing focus on practical applications of linguistic research for social benefit, particularly in intergenerational communication and dementia care. Her work increasingly integrates arts-based approaches, especially haiku poetry, to bridge generational divides and enhance communication with elderly populations. The research shows a consistent trajectory from theoretical linguistic frameworks toward applied, human-centered language studies that address real-world challenges in aging societies, with particular attention to how ordinary language practices help individuals navigate life transitions and difficult experiences. Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University (2000) Richard E. Guggenhime Faculty Scholar, Stanford University (2000-2003) Violet Andrews Whittier Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center (2019-2020) Faculty Research Fellow, Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research (2014-2015) Research Fellow, Japan Foundation (2002) Internal Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center (2005-2006) Presidential Fund for Innovation in the Humanities, Stanford University (2009-2011) Professor Matsumoto has mentored numerous students through her teaching in Japanese language and linguistics courses, including specialized offerings on language and aging, points in Japanese grammar, and haiku-based communication. Her research has been supported by prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Japan Foundation, and Stanford's Presidential Fund for Innovation in the Humanities. She has served on multiple editorial boards including the Journal of Pragmatics since 1992, demonstrating long-standing leadership in her field. Matsumoto has also advised students through individual studies and thesis projects in East Asian Languages and Cultures. Matsumoto leads several collaborative research initiatives including the 'Sharing Conversations' project which examines intergenerational communication through haiku, and research on communicative abilities of people with dementia. Her work often involves interdisciplinary teams spanning linguistics, gerontology, and creative arts, with fieldwork conducted in both Japan and the United States. The 'Noun-Modifying Constructions in Languages of Eurasia' project represents a major international collaboration examining linguistic structures across cultural boundaries. She also directs the 'Language, Old Age and Gender in Japan' project supported by the Stanford University/Japan Foundation, and the 'Difficult Conversations Continue: Memories of the 3.11 Disaster and Bereavement Narratives' project focused on post-disaster communication.
Paul L. Harris is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. He holds a D.Phil. from Oxford University (1971) and specializes in cognitive, emotional, and imaginative development in children. His research examines how children evaluate testimony about domains like history, science, and religion, focusing on their trust in others' claims versus firsthand observation. Key publications include *Trusting What You're Told: How Children Learn from Others* (2012, Harvard UP), exploring children's reliance on testimony. His work spans developmental psychology, epistemology, and cultural learning. He has served on editorial boards for journals like *Child Development* and is a Fellow of the British Academy. Notable awards include the 2017 APS Mentor Award and the 2009 William Thierry Preyer Award. He is affiliated with the British Academy, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie. Currently retired from advising doctoral students, he remains active in research and publishing. Education: D.Phil. in Psychology, Oxford University (1971) Research Themes: Testimonial learning, imagination's role in cognition, moral development, cross-cultural emotional understanding Recent Work: Investigating children's skepticism of adult claims, the impact of religion on belief systems, and the development of empirical reasoning Grants & Fellowships: Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship (2005) and Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1992). Collaborates with institutions like the Living Laboratory® for museum-based research.
Dr. Francesca Delogu is a Scientific Associate at Saarland University's Department of Linguistics and Language Technology. Her research focuses on the cognitive and neural bases of online language understanding, particularly expectation-based mechanisms, event/script knowledge, pragmatic inferences, and reference processes. Specializes in ERP (Event-Related Potentials) and eye tracking methodologies Collaborates extensively with Prof. Matthew W. Crocker and Dr. Herbert Brouwer Her work examines how extra-linguistic knowledge influences semantic integration and lexical retrieval, with applications in computational linguistics and language technology. She has taught courses on experimental methods in psycholinguistic research since 2012. Key research trends include the functional dissociation of ERP components (N400/P600) in language comprehension, rational redundancy in referential expressions, and the role of discourse context in expectation generation. Her publications span journals like Language, Cognition and Neuroscience , Cognitive Science , and Brain Research .
Alina Roitberg is a Junior Professor (Assistant Professor) at the University of Stuttgart , affiliated with the Faculty of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Information Technology . Her research focuses on advancing computer vision, machine learning, and robotics applications, particularly in human activity recognition, domain adaptation, and synthetic data generation. She explores challenges in action understanding, cross-domain generalization, and real-world deployment of AI systems in fields like healthcare, autonomous vehicles, and industrial automation. Her work emphasizes robust learning under noisy conditions, multimodal data fusion, and ethical AI applications. Recent projects include foundational studies on large language models in construction (AEC), video-based muscle group estimation, and improving driver activity recognition for autonomous vehicles. She also investigates circular factory design through uncertainty-aware process optimization and human-robot interaction. Dr. Roitberg's contributions span academic publications and industrial collaborations, addressing both theoretical advancements and practical implementations. Her research bridges computer vision techniques with real-world problems, emphasizing scalability and ethical considerations in AI deployment.
Susan E. Brennan is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at Stony Brook University, with joint appointments in Computer Science and an affiliation in Linguistics. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University (1990) and has been a faculty member since 1990. Her research focuses on the cognitive science of language use, particularly interactive spoken dialogue, eye-tracking as a communication tool, and human-AI interaction. She is also involved in projects exploring how technology interfaces with communication, including speech and language systems. Her academic roles include serving as Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Chair in Psychology. Brennan’s work has been continuously supported by the NSF, totaling over $3.5M in grants. Notable awards include the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship (2003) and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Service (2012). Research interests span the psychology of language, multimodal communication, and the neural basis of dialogue. She has published extensively on topics like common ground in conversation, coordination signals, and the role of gaze in collaborative tasks. Her lab integrates behavioral experiments, eye-tracking, and computational models to study real-world communication dynamics.
GÜÇLÜ ŞEKERCİOĞLU is an Associate Professor at Akdeniz University, Faculty of Education, Department of Educational Sciences. Currently serving as Director of the Center for Measurement, Evaluation, Certification Research and Application and Director of the Institute of Educational Sciences since 2022, they also hold the position of Vice Dean of the Faculty of Education (2022-2025). Their academic career spans over 15 years at Akdeniz University, progressing from Research Assistant (2010-2011) to Assistant Professor (2011-2019) and currently Associate Professor (2019-present). Academic background includes: Doctorate (2003-2009): Ankara University, Institute of Educational Sciences, Measurement and Evaluation Postgraduate (1998-2001): Ankara University, Institute of Educational Sciences, Measurement and Evaluation Undergraduate (1993-1997): Ankara University, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Psychological Services in Education Dr. Şekercioğlu's research focuses on the intersection of psychometrics, educational measurement, and statistical analysis in educational contexts. Their work demonstrates deep expertise in measurement invariance, differential item functioning, scale development and validation, and advanced statistical methods in education. They have developed specialized knowledge in analyzing international assessments like PISA and TIMSS, with particular attention to cross-cultural measurement equivalence. Their research methodology combines rigorous quantitative approaches with practical applications in educational settings, contributing significantly to the understanding of how psychological constructs can be reliably measured across diverse populations. Analysis of their publication record reveals a strong emphasis on measurement theory and its practical applications in educational contexts. Their work consistently addresses critical issues in cross-cultural assessment, scale adaptation, and the psychometric properties of educational instruments. A notable trend is the application of advanced statistical techniques to solve practical measurement problems in education, particularly focusing on how tests function across different language groups and cultural contexts. They have made significant contributions to understanding measurement invariance in international assessments like PISA, with implications for fair and valid cross-national comparisons. Dr. Şekercioğlu has supervised 8 theses at various levels and serves on numerous doctoral and master's thesis committees. Their research is supported by multiple grants, including several TÜBİTAK projects addressing critical educational issues such as child sexual abuse prevention, nursing education assessment, and language acquisition among immigrant children. They actively contribute to the academic community through peer review activities for journals like Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice and Hacettepe Education Faculty Journal.
Maria Mercedes Eurrutia Cavero is a Professor of French Philology at the University of Murcia's Faculty of Arts and Humanities, within the Department of French, Romanesque, Italian, and Arabic Philology. She holds a Doctorate from the University of Murcia (1997), focusing on specialized French linguistics in legal and medical contexts. Her research primarily revolves around lexicology, sociolinguistics, and translation studies, with notable contributions to the study of slang, color terminology, and digital discourse in tourism. Research Interests: Her work examines lexical semantic change, sociocultural implications of language, and practical applications of specialized French. She explores how language reflects social identity (e.g., slang, color symbolism) and bridges cultural gaps through translation, particularly in festivals and gastronomy. Her recent studies address digital communication's impact on tourism lexicons. Publications: Over 15 articles since 1996, including key works on technical discourse contrast, circus lexicology, and online tourism communication. Her 2007 study on color terminology highlights language as a sociocultural artifact, while 2013's work on Internet-based tourism discourse underscores digital lexical evolution. Affiliations: Leader of the 'General and Applied French Linguistics' research group and part of the 'Translation, Lexicology, and Writing' team. She has supervised doctoral research and contributed to UNED's distance-learning French pedagogy programs.
Valerie San Juan is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Bradley University's College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. With a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology and Education from the University of Toronto, she completed postdoctoral research at both the University of Toronto (under Dr. Patricia Ganea) and the University of Calgary (with Drs. Susan Graham and Suzanne Curtin), supported by the Eyes High Fellowship and SSHRC grants. Education: Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology and Education, University of Toronto Her research focuses on children's social cognitive development and language acquisition, particularly how children understand others' mental states and integrate this knowledge into social interactions. Using innovative methods like computer-based games and eye-tracking technology, she investigates perspective taking, desire reasoning, and false-belief understanding in children aged 2-6 years. Recent publications demonstrate her expertise in referential communication, epistemic verb development, and social category inference. Her work appears in top journals including Journal of Experimental Child Psychology , Cognitive Development , and Journal of Child Language . These studies consistently examine how children's cognitive control, language development, and social understanding interact. Scientific Awards: Eyes High Fellowship program (University of Calgary) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grant As director of the Social Minds and Language Lab (S.M.A.L.L.), she mentors undergraduate researchers and collaborates with local families to conduct community-based developmental studies. Her teaching portfolio includes Principles of Psychology, Experimental Psychology, and Developmental Psychology courses.
