Michael Lucey is the Sidney and Margaret Ancker Chair and Distinguished Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. His work bridges French literature from the 19th to 21st centuries with social theory, sexuality studies, and linguistic anthropology. He has authored the critically acclaimed What Proust Heard: Novels and the Ethnography of Talk (2022) and Thinking about Sexuality with Novels (forthcoming). As founding director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture , he has shaped interdisciplinary research in queer theory and gender studies. Current research focuses on novels as ethnographic tools Specializes in Proust, Balzac, Woolf, and contemporary French fiction Translation work includes Didier Eribon and Édouard Louis His recent articles explore phonetics in narrative, readability frameworks, and sociological implications of literary form. He actively engages with comparative methodologies and critical theory, while his teaching spans British and American literature’s intersections with French modernism. Lucey’s academic leadership includes directing Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Sexual Culture, which supports global discourse through fellowships and conferences. His office hours are held in Dwinelle Hall and via Zoom. Contact: mlucey@berkeley.edu
Claire Bowern is Professor of Linguistics at Yale University specializing in historical linguistics, language documentation, and Australian Indigenous languages. Her research employs computational phylogenetics to study language evolution and supports language revitalization through digital archives and fieldwork methodologies. Recent publications address: Phylogenetic signal in lexical evolution across language families Digital infrastructure for endangered language documentation (FLEx software analysis) Decolonizing linguistics pedagogy and research practices Her work consistently integrates linguistic, anthropological, and computational approaches to analyze language diversity and change. She contributes to global databases including Grambank and D-PLACE, examining links between linguistic, cultural, and environmental patterns.
Jennifer Olsen, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of San Diego since 2020. She holds a PhD, MS, and BS in Human-Computer Interaction and Cognitive Science from Carnegie Mellon University, followed by postdoctoral research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland. Her research focuses on the intersection of human-computer interaction, cognition, and education, emphasizing collaborative learning and educational technology design from both learner and instructor perspectives. Education: PhD in Human-Computer Interaction, Carnegie Mellon University MS in Human-Computer Interaction, Carnegie Mellon University BS in Cognitive Science, Carnegie Mellon University Research Interests: Dr. Olsen explores how collaboration supports learning, designs technologies to enhance educational practices, and investigates gaze-based metrics for understanding collaborative problem-solving. Her work spans gamified robotics, AI-driven orchestration systems, and virtual reality applications in vocational training. She emphasizes learner-centered design and the integration of social robots and virtual agents in pedagogical settings. Grants/Advising: While no specific grants or advisees are listed, her prolific publication record indicates active involvement in educational technology research and development. Her work addresses challenges in classroom orchestration, multimodal data analysis, and accessibility in educational robotics. Labs/Teams: Collaborates with interdisciplinary teams focused on educational technology, human-robot interaction, and adaptive learning systems. Her research leverages tools like FROG orchestration graphs and eye-tracking technologies to develop practical classroom solutions.
Adrian Weller is a prominent researcher and academic at the University of Cambridge, serving as a Director of Research in Machine Learning within the Department of Engineering. He holds multiple significant leadership roles including Programme Director for Trust and Society at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI), and previously served as Programme Director for AI at The Alan Turing Institute, the UK national institute for data science and AI. His work bridges theoretical machine learning research with practical applications and societal implications of artificial intelligence. Weller's research interests span a broad spectrum of AI and machine learning topics with a particular focus on ensuring beneficial societal outcomes. His work encompasses explainability, fairness, robustness, scalability, privacy, safety, and ethics in AI systems. He has made significant contributions to trustworthy machine learning, including developing frameworks for AI governance, certification, and human-AI collaboration. His research group actively investigates neuro-symbolic approaches, privacy-preserving techniques, and methods for improving the reliability and interpretability of AI systems. His recent publications demonstrate a strong trend toward addressing the practical challenges of deploying AI systems in real-world contexts, particularly focusing on certification frameworks, governance mechanisms, and human-centered approaches. His work spans theoretical advances in machine learning architectures while maintaining a strong connection to societal impact, with publications appearing in top venues across AI, machine learning, and interdisciplinary applications. Scientific Awards: MBE for services to digital innovation (2022 Queen's Birthday Honours) Turing AI Fellowship for Trustworthy Machine Learning Weller actively supervises a large group of PhD students and postdocs, with current students including Juyeon Heo, Yanzhi Chen, Katie Collins, Isaac Reid, Yichao Liang, Herbie Bradley, and Shoaib Siddiqui. His former students have gone on to positions at leading institutions including Google DeepMind, ETH Zurich, NYU, and MPI-IS Tübingen. He has served on numerous advisory boards including the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, UNESCO's expert group on AI ethics, and the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on AI. His research has been supported through his Turing AI Fellowship and various collaborative projects focused on safe and ethical AI development. Weller leads a vibrant research group focused on trustworthy machine learning, which actively organizes workshops and conferences including ICML 2024 (where he served as Program Chair), multiple workshops on responsible AI, and events through the ELLIS network. His group collaborates extensively across disciplines, working with researchers in computer science, social sciences, law, and policy to address the multifaceted challenges of developing beneficial AI systems.
Lerrel Pinto is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University (NYU), where he leads the General-purpose Robotics and AI Lab (GRAIL) as part of the CILVR research group. His work bridges the gap between theoretical machine learning and practical robotics applications, with a focus on enabling robots to generalize and adapt in real-world environments. Dr. Pinto received his undergraduate degree from IIT Guwahati, followed by a PhD from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley before joining NYU as faculty. His research program centers on robot learning and decision making, with several key thrusts that demonstrate his innovative approach to robotics. Pinto's work emphasizes large-scale learning techniques that leverage both extensive data and sophisticated model architectures. A significant portion of his research focuses on representation learning for sensory data, particularly developing methods that enable robots to make sense of visual, tactile, and auditory inputs. His lab has made notable contributions to reinforcement learning algorithms that allow robots to adapt to new scenarios with minimal retraining. Pinto also champions open-source robotics , developing affordable robot platforms that democratize access to robotics research. Analysis of Pinto's recent publications reveals a strong trend toward multimodal perception in robotics, integrating visual, tactile, and auditory information to create more robust robot systems. His work increasingly focuses on zero-shot and few-shot learning capabilities, enabling robots to handle novel situations without extensive retraining. There's also a clear progression toward general-purpose robotics , moving away from task-specific solutions toward more flexible systems that can handle diverse real-world challenges. Dr. Pinto's scientific contributions have been recognized with several prestigious awards: Sloan Research Fellowship (2025) NSF CAREER Award (2024) RAL Early Career Award (2024) Best Student Paper Award at ICRA (2016) Outstanding Paper Award at MFM-EAI workshop at ICML (2024) Best Paper Award at NGSM workshop at ICML (2024) Best Student Paper Award at RSS (2023) As an advisor, Pinto has mentored numerous students who have gone on to impactful careers in both academia and industry. His former PhD student Denis Yarats co-founded Perplexity.AI, while Mahi Shafiullah became a postdoc at UC Berkeley and Meta AI. Many of his Masters students have pursued PhDs at top institutions like CMU, MIT, and Stanford, or joined leading robotics companies including 1X, Fauna Robotics, and NVIDIA. Pinto's lab has secured significant research funding, including the NSF CAREER award and likely other grants supporting his robotics research program. The General-purpose Robotics and AI Lab (GRAIL) that Pinto leads brings together a diverse team of researchers working on cutting-edge robotics challenges. The lab maintains strong collaborations with industry partners and other academic institutions, facilitating technology transfer and real-world impact. GRAIL's research spans multiple robotics platforms and focuses on developing algorithms that enable robots to learn from diverse experiences and generalize across environments.
Brandon M. Lucia is the Kavčić-Moura Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and CEO/co-founder of Efficient Computer Company. He leads the Abstract research group and focuses his work on the intersection of computer architecture, systems, and programming languages. Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington (2013) — advised by Luis Ceze Research Focus: Brandon's research is broadly centered on intermittent computing , edge computing , and energy-efficient architectures . Two major thrusts define his current work: Intermittent Computing: Making battery-free, energy-harvesting devices programmable and reliable despite frequent power failures. Applications include medical implants, space systems, and large-scale sensing. Orbital Edge Computing: Designing nanosatellite constellations that perform on-orbit data processing, enabling low-latency, high-resolution sensing in space-constrained environments. Scientific Awards: NSF CAREER Award (2017) IEEE TCCA Young Computer Architect Award (2019) Sloan Foundation Fellowship (2021) ASPLOS 2020 Best Paper Award OOPSLA 2015 Distinguished Paper & Artifact Awards IEEE Micro Top Picks (2016, 2018 Honorable Mention) Advising & Grants: Brandon actively advises a strong cohort of Ph.D. students including Zhuo Cheng, Bradley Denby, Souradip Ghosh, Harsh Desai, Kiwan Maeng, Emily Ruppel, and others. His group is funded by the NSF (CAREER and SHF grants), the Sloan Foundation, and industry partnerships. Labs & Teams: He directs the Abstract research group at CMU ECE, which hosts interdisciplinary projects spanning hardware design, compiler construction, and system software for ultra-low-power and space-borne computing platforms.
Robert Rohling is a Professor at the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Applied Science, affiliated with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and holding a joint appointment with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. As Director of the Institute of Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems (ICICS), his research focuses on biomedical engineering, medical imaging, robotics, and computational methods. B.A.Sc. (UBC) M.Eng. (McGill) Ph.D. (Cambridge) Rohling's work spans three primary research areas: medical imaging (3D ultrasound, spatial compounding, elasticity reconstruction), medical information systems (radiologist navigation tools for large image datasets), and robotic calibration for surgical applications. His multidisciplinary approach integrates mechanical and electrical engineering principles with clinical needs. Rohling's publications (2020-2022) reveal trends in advanced ultrasound techniques (e.g., shear wave vibro-elastography), AI-driven image processing (cycleGAN translation), and computational optimization for diagnostic accuracy. Keywords across his work include Medical Imaging, Biomedical Engineering, Robotics, and Computational Modeling. As director of the Robotics and Control Laboratory , Rohling leads interdisciplinary collaborations with industry and clinical partners to address practical challenges in medical diagnostics and surgical robotics. His research emphasizes translating engineering innovations into clinical practice.
Maja J Matarić is the Chan Soon-Shiong Chaired and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering, with courtesy appointments in Neuroscience and Pediatrics. She serves as founding director of the USC Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center, co-director of the USC Robotics Research Lab, and Principal Scientist at Google DeepMind. Previously, she held leadership roles as USC's interim Vice President of Research (2020-2021) and Vice Dean for Research (2006-2019). Her educational background includes: PhD in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from MIT (1994) MS in Computer Science from MIT (1990) BS in Computer Science from University of Kansas (1987) Matarić pioneers Socially Assistive Robotics (SAR) , a field her lab named, focusing on human-robot interaction that provides assistance through social rather than physical support. Her research targets critical health and wellness challenges including post-stroke rehabilitation, autism spectrum disorder therapy, cognitive exercises for Alzheimer's patients, ADHD academic support, and mental health interventions. She develops systems modeling user engagement, personality, and motivation, with extensive real-world deployments in schools, rehabilitation centers, and homes. Analysis of her recent publications reveals dominant themes in cognitive health robotics (2025 CHI paper on LLM-powered elder care), pediatric assistive technology (2025 IDC speech therapy review), and adaptive preference modeling (2025 HRI contrastive learning work). Her research consistently bridges machine learning with human-centered design for vulnerable populations. Major scientific recognition includes: ACM Athena Lecturer Award (2024) ACM Eugene L. Lawler Humanitarian Award (2024) ACM Fellow (2020) Presidential Mentoring Award (2011) Multiple society fellowships (AAAS, IEEE, AAAI) As a dedicated mentor, Matarić has championed underrepresented groups through CRA-W, placing numerous women in faculty positions. She leads USC Viterbi's K-12 STEM Outreach Program serving low-income Los Angeles schools and authored The Robotics Prime for student education. Her research has secured significant funding enabling real-world technology transfer, with documented impact in rehabilitation centers and homes through deployable SAR systems. Her Robotics Research Lab at USC drives innovation in embodied AI, with current projects spanning LLM-integrated elder care robots, ADHD academic companions, and autism therapy systems. The lab emphasizes co-design with end-users and rigorous real-world validation across diverse populations.
Sham Kakade is the Rampell Family Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Statistics at Harvard University, co-director of the Kempner Institute. His research focuses on advancing artificial general intelligence through foundational work in reinforcement learning, large-scale learning systems, and autonomous agent architectures. He earned his PhD in 2003 from the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at University College London. His work emphasizes scalable optimization algorithms, distributed systems for foundation models, and understanding emergent capabilities in neural architectures. Research interests include full-stack training pipelines for foundation models, mathematical principles of large-scale learning systems, and bridging language models with embodied intelligence. He advises prospective students with backgrounds in applied deep learning or theoretical computer science, offering access to the Kempner Institute's computational resources. He serves on committees for the ACM Prize in Computing and Sloan Research Fellowships, co-organizes the Simons Symposium on Theoretical Machine Learning, and chaired COLT 2011. His lab works at the intersection of theory and practice, addressing challenges in AI's societal impact and technical scalability. Labs/Teams: Co-directs the Kempner Institute, fostering collaborations between AI researchers and social scientists. Active in Harvard's SEAS community.
David Glovsky serves as Assistant Professor of History and African and African American Studies within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, focusing on 19th-20th century West Africa with regional expertise in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea. His research examines borderlands through lenses of mobility, citizenship, and alternative geographies, challenging state-imposed borders with community-driven spatial narratives. His educational foundation includes a B.A. in History and Human Geography from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in African History from Michigan State University. Prior academic appointments include the Department of Africana Studies at University at Albany and the Department of History at Boston University, following Peace Corps service in southern Senegal that redirected his career from sports media into academia. Glovsky's research program centers on social justice-oriented historical narratives of marginalized West African communities, particularly Fulbe populations. His work synthesizes oral histories and archival research across six nations to analyze how borderland residents construct fluid geographies that transcend colonial/postcolonial boundaries. Key themes include migration as resistance , gendered border experiences , and Islam's role in transnational community formation , with methodological innovation in spatial history and decolonial approaches. Analysis of his nine recent publications (2019-2023) reveals consistent engagement with West African borderland resilience , demonstrating how communities maintain cross-border networks despite state fragmentation. His work bridges historical scholarship and contemporary migration debates , employing interdisciplinary frameworks from anthropology, geography, and postcolonial theory to document alternative spatial organizations that challenge Western cartographic traditions. ACLS Fellowship supporting book project Borderlanders: Popular Geographies, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa Glovsky actively mentors graduate students interested in African history, emphasizing pathways for underrepresented scholars into U.S. academia. His research has received competitive external funding including the ACLS Fellowship, while his collaborative work on the NEH ‘Ajamī Project advanced accessibility of Pulaar manuscripts through digitization and multilingual translation. He maintains strong community ties with West African scholars and institutions, particularly in Senegambia. Though not leading a formal laboratory, Glovsky collaborates with international research teams across West Africa on borderland studies and manuscript preservation, working closely with scholars in Kolda (Senegal), Dakar, and Guinea-Bissau to document community histories through participatory methodologies.
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in LausanneSwitzerland
Lior Wolf is a Professor at the School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University. Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at MIT's Center for Biological and Computational Learning (CBCL) under Prof. Tomaso Poggio and earned his PhD from Hebrew University of Jerusalem with Prof. Amnon Shashua. His educational background includes: PhD in Computer Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Postdoctoral Research, MIT CBCL Prof. Wolf's research centers on artificial intelligence with seminal contributions to deep learning, computer vision, and natural language processing. His work bridges theoretical foundations (e.g., attention mechanisms, transformer analysis) with practical applications in medical imaging, speech processing, and sign language technology. He pioneered methods for neural network interpretability, efficient sequence modeling, and multimodal fusion. Analysis of his 2023-2025 publications reveals dominant trends in large language model optimization (neuron pruning, attention analysis), efficient video generation, and cross-modal learning. His work increasingly integrates medical applications (fMRI/EEG analysis) while maintaining theoretical rigor in model architecture design. His scientific achievements include: Best paper award at EMNLP 2024 for 'Backward Lens: Projecting Language Model Gradients into the Vocabulary Space' Best paper award at SCIA 2023 for 'Gradient Adjusting Networks for Domain Inversion' Best paper award at FG 2021 for 'Generating Master Faces for Dictionary Attacks' Prof. Wolf mentors graduate students in the School of Computer Science and leads research at the ICRC building laboratory. His team collaborates with 'the friends of TAU' on projects spanning biometric security, medical imaging, and generative AI. Current work focuses on efficient transformers, neural network interpretability, and multimodal medical diagnostics.
Sarah Billington is the UPS Foundation Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment. Her research program focuses on sustainable building design, human wellbeing, and ethical supply chain practices. Education: PhD, University of Texas at Austin, Structural Engineering (1997) MSE, University of Texas at Austin, Structural Engineering (1994) BSE, Princeton University, Civil Engineering & Operations Research (1990) Her lab employs interdisciplinary methods to study how built environments impact human physical, psychological, and social wellbeing. Current projects include developing tools to quantify nature exposure in buildings, exploring affordable housing's role in wellbeing, and using AI to assess forced labor risks in material supply chains. While no longer active in this area, her group previously pioneered research on sustainable construction materials like bio-based composites and ductile cement-based composites. Her recent publications address topics such as nature integration in architecture, workplace design optimization, and health impacts of building materials. The Billington Lab at Stanford fosters collaborative team science, welcoming partnerships to advance occupant-centric engineering solutions.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Brinkhoff is Chair of the Institute Board and Chair of Geoinformatics at Oldenburg University of Applied Sciences. He leads the Institute for Applied Photogrammetry and Geoinformatics (IAPG) and contributes to institutions like the Association for the Promotion of Geoinformatics in Northern Germany (GiN e.V.) and the Oldenburg Research and Development Institute for Computer Science (OFFIS e.V.). Education: Diploma in Computer Science (Informatik), Universität Bremen (1990) Doctorate in Computer Science (Dr. rer. nat.), Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (1994) Brinkhoff's research spans geodatabase systems, spatiotemporal data processing, geosensor analytics, and location-based services. His work addresses Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), web-based geospatial visualization, and mobile data integration, with applications in traffic management and forensic science. Recent projects include ProSaDi (Digital Provenance and Collection Research) and contributions to the Laboratory for optical 3D metrology . He has served on program committees for ACM SIGSPATIAL (2002-2019), AGILE conferences (2010-2025), and editorial boards of journals like GeoInformatica and TGIS. Notable Lectures: 2024: Forensic applications of tachograph data 2023: Geoinformatics in homicide investigations 2022: Spatiotemporal analysis for sustainability projects 2015: Open geodata standards at FOSSGIS 2014: Mobile sensor data processing
Swantje Falcke is an Assistant Professor in Economic and Social History at Utrecht University's Department of History and Art History. As part of the College of Humanities, her research focuses on migrant integration, naturalization, and the interplay between environmental change and migration patterns. Areas of Expertise: Migration and Societal Change, Pathways to Sustainability, In-Equality Studies Academic Background: PhD in Economics (2017) at Utrecht University, Post-Doc in Political Science at Maastricht University Her interdisciplinary work examines: Education-labor market mismatches among Dutch migrants Impact of German citizenship law reforms on naturalization Long-term effectiveness of refugee integration policies Environmental change effects on migration dynamics Scientific recognition includes: Duncan Black Award (2014) for political economy research NWO XS grant (2024) for environmental migration studies Her publications demonstrate methodological rigor, combining longitudinal analysis, policy evaluation, and empirical economic testing.
Professor Stephen Graham at Newcastle University is a leading scholar in critical urban studies, focusing on the intersections of militarism, surveillance, and urban infrastructure. His work explores how cities are shaped by and become sites of geopolitical conflict, technological control, and social inequality. Research spans urban verticality , military urbanism , and digital surveillance . Key themes include infrastructure disruption , elite spatial practices , and post-conflict urbanism . Recent publications analyze the militarization of urban space , robotic imperialism , and surveillance societies . His "Splintering Urbanism" framework remains foundational for understanding fragmented urban networks. Current work investigates vertical geopolitics , elite bunkering , and smart city security , with a focus on planetary-scale urban systems and their vulnerabilities.
