Dr. Ben Swift is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Cybernetics, ANU, specializing in AI, computational art, and cybernetics. He leads the Cybernetic Studio, an interdisciplinary collective exploring cybernetic systems through hardware/software/people collaborations. As a livecoding artist, he performs globally and co-founded the ANU Laptop Ensemble. His research spans generative AI, open-source tools like Extempore, and UX design. Education: PhD in Computer Science (ANU) Projects: Australia's Digital Economy (2022), The Augmented Web (2019) Research focuses on AI creativity, biofeedback interfaces, and computational music. His work bridges technical innovation with artistic expression, evident in projects like TSPNet and adversarial camera systems. Key contributions include Extempore’s development and studies in live coding disruption. Awards unspecified but recognized internationally for interdisciplinary impact.
Mark R. Greenstreet is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He holds a BSc from Caltech (1981), MA (1988), and PhD (1993) in Computer Science from Princeton University. His primary research focuses on formal verification of analog and mixed-signal (AMS) circuits, VLSI design, and hybrid systems. Notable contributions include the STARI signaling technique, tools like Coho for reachability analysis, and PReach for parallel model checking. He has advised numerous graduate students and collaborators, including Brad Bingham, Chao Yan, and Yan Peng. His work has been recognized with a Best Paper Award at the ASYNC Symposium. Supported by NSERC, Intel, and Oracle, his research bridges theoretical foundations and practical challenges in circuit design and verification. He teaches courses on formal methods, computer architecture, and automata theory at UBC.
Hossein Valavi is a Lecturer and Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies at Princeton University, contributing to advancements in computer architecture and hardware acceleration. His research focuses on in-memory computing, neural networks, and energy-efficient systems, with notable work in reconfigurable architectures and mixed-signal processing. He has received multiple teaching awards, including recognition for innovative pandemic-era Car Lab courses and collaborative work honored by the Edison Patent Award. His academic contributions span academic positions since 2018, emphasizing both research and pedagogical excellence. Key technical areas include scalable in-memory computing systems, analog neural network accelerators, and low-power matrix factorization algorithms. His work addresses critical challenges in data movement reduction and hardware-software co-design for modern computing systems. Awards: Teaching Excellence Awards (2021, 2023), Edison Patent Award (2023) Grants & Projects: Leading developments in in-memory computing accelerators and embedded microprocessor designs Research teams under his guidance have produced impactful IP in semiconductor layouts, CNN accelerators, and programmable architectures, aiming to bridge theoretical computer science with practical hardware implementations.
Dr. Yiran Chen is the John Cocke Distinguished Professor at Duke University's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, leading the NSF AI Institute for Edge Computing (Athena) and the Duke Center for Computational Evolutionary Intelligence (DCEI). A global leader in neuromorphic computing, emerging memory systems, and edge AI, he holds prestigious roles including IEEE Fellow and Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for AI. His research spans machine learning accelerators, security-hardened hardware, and co-design of EDA tools with LLMs. With over 700 publications and 96 patents, he has been awarded 15 paper awards and 17 nominations, including rare Technical Achievement Awards from IEEE societies. He advises over 60 PhD students and 4 postdocs, many of whom hold academic positions worldwide. His work bridges academia and industry, contributing to startups and venture capital through his board roles. Education: B.S. (Tsinghua, 1998) → M.S. (Tsinghua, 2001) → Ph.D. (Purdue, 2005). Career path: Assistant/Associate Professor at University of Pittsburgh (2010–2014) → Duke since 2014. Awards include the ACM SIGDA Outstanding New Faculty Award (2014), NSF CAREER Award (2013), and the Stansell Family Distinguished Research Award (2022). Research focuses on innovations in: (1) Non-volatile memory architectures for AI acceleration, (2) Hardware-software co-design for edge computing, (3) Security in neuromorphic systems, and (4) Large-scale ML for EDA. His group pioneered ReRAM-based accelerators like ReBNN and MARC, and introduced novel edge AI frameworks like Ecco and Prosperity. These works address scalability, energy efficiency, and real-time performance challenges. Key initiatives include the NSF IUCRC for Alternative Sustainable & Intelligent Computing (ASIC), advancing sustainable computing through novel materials and architectures. His leadership in standard-setting bodies like the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society ensures cutting-edge research translates into industry practices. Grants: Lead PIs for multiple NSF AI Institutes and industry partnerships. Labs: Directs the Athena Institute and DCEI, fostering collaboration between academia and industry. Current projects include quantum computing placement algorithms (QPlacer), federated learning frameworks (FedGPT), and neuro-symbolic architectures.
Giuseppe Bruno Averta is a Fixed-term Researcher at the Department of Control and Computer Science (DAUIN), Polytechnic University of Turin, and a member of the Interdepartmental Center SmartData@PoliTO - Big Data and Data Science Laboratory. He is affiliated with the College of Computer, Film and Mechatronics Engineering and contributes to national and international research in artificial intelligence and robotics. Averta has held a Visiting Researcher position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from January to June 2019. His research interests include Computer Vision, Deep Learning, Robotics, Neural Architecture Search, Egocentric Vision, Embodied Intelligence (Edge/Tiny ML), and Human-Robot Collaboration . His work is aligned with ERC sectors in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Robotics, and contributes to UN SDGs such as Good Health and Well-being, Industry Innovation and Infrastructure, and Responsible Consumption and Production. The recent publication trends highlight his focus on vision-language models (e.g., CLIP), egocentric action recognition, efficient neural architectures (e.g., BiSeNet, MaskFormer), and robust deep learning. His research bridges theoretical advances with practical robotics applications, including grasping and manipulation. Scientific Awards and Recognitions: Georges Giralt PhD Award (euRobotics AISBL, 2021) Wiley Best Reviewer (Wiley, Italy, 2021) Best Paper Award, ICUMT 2015 (2017) Fellow, ELLIS Network of Excellence (2022–) Fellow, DAAD AInet (2022–) DAAD AInet Fellowship Advising and Grants : Averta supervises multiple PhD students in the Artificial Intelligence and Computer and Systems Engineering doctoral programs at Politecnico di Torino. He is involved in teaching at both the master’s and doctoral levels, including courses on Robot Learning and Machine Learning and Deep Learning. He is also a co-inventor on a national and international patent for a method and algorithm for the automatic design of neural networks through machine learning, indicating active research funding and innovation. Labs and Research Groups : He is a member of the SmartData@PoliTO center and contributes to research in the VANDAL PoliTO lab (as indicated by his student Davide Buoso). His work is deeply integrated with teams working on egocentric vision, embodied AI, and neural architecture search.
Onur Mutlu is a Professor of Computer Science at ETH Zurich, affiliated with the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. He also holds adjunct professorships at Carnegie Mellon University and Bilkent University. His research focuses on computer architecture, systems security, bioinformatics, and energy-efficient computing. He has pioneered work on memory-centric computing paradigms, RowHammer security vulnerabilities, and bio-inspired computing systems. He teaches courses such as Digital Design & Computer Architecture and supervises the SAFARI research group, which explores cutting-edge topics in memory systems, AI accelerators, and genomics. Recent activities include keynote talks at ISCA, HiPEAC, and IEEE conferences, emphasizing emerging hardware-software co-design principles. Key contributions include foundational work on memory reliability, cross-layer system design, and accelerating genomic data analysis. His research has been showcased in over 200 publications and industry collaborations with tech leaders like Intel, Huawei, and Micron.
Chris Bryan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence (SCAI) at Arizona State University (ASU), part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. He leads the Sonoran Visualization Laboratory (SVL @ ASU), focusing on data visualization, human-computer interaction, and advanced interfaces for data science. His research includes explainable AI, augmented/virtual reality, and privacy-preserving visualization techniques. Educations: Ph.D. Computer Science, University of California, Davis (2018) B.S. Computer Science, University of Arkansas (2008) Research Interests: Bryan’s work spans data visualization, human-computer interaction, explainable AI, and immersive visualization. He develops tools for collaborative analysis, privacy-aware systems, and visual analytics for complex data. Current projects involve VR/AR interfaces, bias reduction in NLP tasks, and educational visualization tools. Recent Achievements: Recipient of the 2024 and 2023 Top Five Percent Faculty Award at ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. NSF grants for privacy-preserving visualization (SaTC #2224066) and visualization education (IUSE #2216452). Multiple publications in top venues like IEEE VIS, CHI, and EuroVis, including work on differential privacy, mind wandering in visualization, and LLM prompt exploration. Advising & Grants: Advises Ph.D., MS, and undergraduate students on visualization and HCI research. Collaborates with institutions like Los Alamos National Laboratory, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and Nankai University. Lab focuses on mentoring and preparing students for academic and industry roles in visualization and AI. Labs & Teams: Leads the SVL @ ASU, which uses advanced hardware (HTC Vive, HoloLens 2) and tools like D3.js, React, and LaTeX. The lab emphasizes interdisciplinary projects with domain experts in medicine, engineering, and security.
Martin Wainwright is a Professor at the University of California at Berkeley with joint appointments in the Department of Statistics and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS). His research spans high-dimensional statistics , information theory , statistical machine learning , and optimization theory . He has made significant contributions to understanding computational and statistical trade-offs in high-dimensional settings, as well as developing advanced message-passing algorithms for graphical models. His educational background includes a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from the University of Waterloo and a Ph.D. in EECS from MIT . His work has been recognized with prestigious awards such as the COPSS Presidents' Award (2014) , IEEE Joint Paper Award (2012) , and Sloan Research Fellowship (2005) . He has advised numerous prominent researchers, including Nihar Shah , John Duchi , and Yuchen Zhang . Publications by Wainwright reflect trends in machine learning , high-dimensional data analysis , and graphical model inference . Notable works include advancements in Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms , pairwise comparison models , and distributed computation methods . He has also contributed extensively to signal processing and LDPC codes . COPSS Presidents' Award (2014) IEEE Joint Paper Award (2012) Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellow (2011) NSF CAREER Award (2006) Okawa Research Grant (2005) Sloan Research Fellow (2005)
Dr. Joshua M. Pearce is a Professor at Western University, holding appointments in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Ivey Business School. He is the John M. Thompson Chair in Information Technology and Innovation at the Thompson Centre for Engineering Leadership & Innovation and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. His research focuses on open-source appropriate technology for sustainability and poverty reduction, spanning solar photovoltaics, 3D printing, distributed recycling, and policy analysis. Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from Pennsylvania State University Former Richard Witte Professor at Michigan Tech Editor-in-Chief of HardwareX Author of multiple open-source sustainability books His work integrates engineering, economics, and policy to solve global sustainability challenges. Recent projects include agrivoltaic systems, open-source medical devices, and climate-resilient food production frameworks. He leads the Free Appropriate Sustainability Technology (FAST) research group, which has produced over 200 open-access publications cited in top-tier journals like Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (IF=16.3) and HardwareX (IF=2). Dr. Pearce's scientific contributions include: Fulbright-Aalto University Distinguished Chair Top 0.06% most cited scientist (Elsevier metrics) Leading open-source hardware certification frameworks Developing low-cost scientific instruments His research team includes cross-disciplinary collaborators from Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Science, and Policy Studies. The FAST group emphasizes practical open-source solutions for energy, water, and food security in both developed and low-resource contexts.
Professor Emil Lupu is a Professor of Computer Systems at the Department of Computing , Imperial College London. He leads the Resilient Information Systems Security Group and serves as Co-Director of the National Research Institute in Trustworthy Inter-Connected Cyber-Physical Systems (RITICS) . As a Security Science Fellow at Imperial’s Institute for Security Science and Technology, his work bridges academic research with real-world security challenges. Education: PhD in Computing, Imperial College London (1994–1998) His research focuses on security and resilience of cyber-physical systems (CPS) , with emphasis on defending against data spoofing attacks , adversarial machine learning , and IoT vulnerabilities . He pioneered the Ponder policy systems for access control and the Self-Managed Cell framework for autonomic computing, and developed Bayesian Attack Graphs for scalable risk assessment in CPS. Recent publications highlight trends in adversarial robustness (2025–2022), including LIDAR spoofing defense for autonomous vehicles, LLM security , and attack graph analysis for IoT. His work explores the intersection of safety and security , applying model-checking to identify adversarial threats in train control, microgrids, and aviation systems. Scientific Awards: Security Science Fellowship, Imperial College London (2011–present) As co-founder of the PETRAS National Centre of Excellence in IoT Cybersecurity (2016–2021), he advanced security methodologies for interconnected systems. His collaborations with institutions like the Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBoK) demonstrate his leadership in shaping cybersecurity research standards. Current projects include the RITICS Institute , focusing on trustworthy cyber-physical systems, and exploring generative AI for security poisoning with practical defenses against adversarial ML.
Nakul Gopalan serves as an Assistant Professor at Arizona State University's School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence (SCAI) in Tempe, where he founded and leads the Logos Robotics Lab since joining in August 2022. His academic foundation was established through a PhD in Computer Science from Brown University completed in 2019. Education: PhD in Computer Science, Brown University (2019) Research Focus: Dr. Gopalan pioneers work at the critical intersection of language grounding and robot learning, developing algorithms that enable robots to interpret natural language instructions and learn from human demonstrations. His research directly addresses real-world usability challenges by focusing on hierarchical reinforcement learning, task planning, and human-robot collaboration frameworks that empower non-expert users to train robots for home and office environments. Key innovations include plannable representations for natural language instruction following and transfer learning techniques for robotic task execution. Publication Evolution: Recent publications (2023-2025) demonstrate accelerating specialization in language-conditioned robot learning, with 80% of his latest work exploring compositional instruction following, novice-user teaching interfaces, and explainable AI for robotics. His research trajectory shows a deliberate shift from foundational language grounding (2017-2020) toward practical human-robot collaboration systems, evidenced by increased focus on hardware-software co-design, cross-embodiment transfer, and clinical applications of explainable AI in neurology support systems. Scientific Recognition: Best Paper Award at RoboNLP workshop (Association for Computational Linguistics) 2017 RSS 2023 Best Student Paper Finalist Mentorship & Service: As lab director, Dr. Gopalan actively mentors graduate researchers while teaching core courses including Data Structures and Algorithms (CSE 310) and specialized seminars on robot learning. His significant service contributions include organizing the RSS 2021 "Robotics for People" workshop, serving as Action Editor for ICRA 2023/2024, and extensive reviewing for top-tier robotics conferences (RSS, ICRA, CORL) and AI venues (NeurIPS, AAAI). Research Infrastructure: The Logos Robotics Lab operates as his primary research vehicle, focusing on natural language interfaces for robot training, hierarchical task decomposition, and real-world deployment of language-grounded learning systems. Current projects integrate large language models with robotic control frameworks to enable zero-shot task generalization across different robot embodiments.
Ziming Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) , with additional affiliations in Data Science and Robotics Engineering. He previously held research roles at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) and Boston University. PhD in Computing (2013) from Oxford Brookes University , UK MS in Computing Science (2010) from Simon Fraser University , CA BS in Computer Science and Technology (2005) from Northeastern University , China Research interests span computer vision , machine learning , and their applications in point cloud processing , medical imaging , autonomous driving , and IoT . He leads the Vision, Intelligence, and System Laboratory (VISLab) at WPI. Recent publications focus on 3D reconstruction , hyperbolic learning , and robust classifiers . Awards include the R&D100 Award 2018 and NSF funding for data-efficient deep learning. PhD Students: Yecheng Lyu (co-supervised), Guojun Wu (co-supervised), Hangrui Zhang, Xuechu Yu Master's Students: Yun Yue, Yuping Shao Visiting Scholars: Fangzhou Lin His lab partners with industry and academic institutions, focusing on autonomous systems , robotics , and scientific imaging projects.
Bruce Jacob is a Keystone Professor and Full Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland College Park's College of Engineering. His research primarily focuses on memory systems design and exascale computing architectures, with significant contributions to DRAM simulation and high-performance computing systems. Dr. Jacob received his A.B. in Mathematics from Harvard University (1988), followed by his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Michigan (1995 and 1997 respectively). His research interests include memory systems design, exascale computing architectures, embedded systems, circuit integrity, and algorithmic composition. His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on next-generation memory technologies, particularly ReRAM and advanced DRAM architectures. His work bridges the gap between theoretical modeling and practical implementation, with significant contributions to memory system simulation through projects like DRAMsim. His research shows a consistent trajectory toward solving the memory bottleneck problem in high-performance computing systems. Named Fellow, IEEE (2021) Multiple University of Maryland Research Leader awards (2006, 2010, 2012, 2016, 2017) Clark School of Engineering Keystone Professor (2006) National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2000) University of Maryland Award for Teaching Excellence (2004) Dr. Jacob has led significant research initiatives including the University of Maryland Exascale Systems Research and Memory-Systems Research groups. He has developed important computational artifacts such as DRAMsim (a public-domain DRAM-system simulator) and BioBench (a set of bioinformatics workloads). His work has influenced both academic research and industry practices in memory system design.
Nikos Hardavellas is a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northwestern University, affiliated with the McCormick School of Engineering. He leads the Parallel Architecture Group at Northwestern (PARAG@N), focusing on energy-efficient parallel computing and quantum systems. His research spans quantum computing systems, fault-tolerant quantum error management, memory-centric architectures, and photonics-based interconnects. Education: Ph.D. Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University (2009) M.S. Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University (2006) M.S. Computer Science, University of Rochester (1997) B.S. Computer Science, University of Crete (1995) Research Interests: Quantum system software stack and error mitigation Memory-centric computing and programmable memory systems Energy-efficient architectures and dark silicon Photonics and optical interconnects Parallel systems and compiler-hardware co-design Key Contributions: Developed SupermarQ, a scalable quantum benchmark suite Pioneered optical cache hierarchies (Pho$) and energy-proportional photonic networks Advanced compiler-driven virtual memory systems (CARAT) and MPI autotuning (ACCLAiM) Awards & Honors: NSF CAREER Award (2015) Future CRA Leader (2024) Best Paper Awards at HPCA (2022) and ISLPED (2021 nomination) Test-of-Time Award at EDBT (2019) Grants & Service: Secured $4.8M in research funding from NSF, industry partners, and university initiatives Executive Committee member of Northwestern’s INQUIRE Institute for Quantum Research General Co-chair of IEEE/ACM MICRO 2022 Extensive service on departmental committees and thesis advisory boards Labs & Teams: Directs PARAG@N, collaborating on quantum computing, photonics, and energy-efficient architectures. Engages with industry partners like AMD, Intel, and Synopsys.
Prof. Andrew Zhang is a Professor at the School of Electrical and Data Engineering, University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He leads the UTS Radio Sensing and Pattern Analysis (RaSPA) Lab and serves as Technical Director of the UTS-TPG Network Sensing Lab. His research focuses on integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), wireless signal processing, and autonomous vehicular networks. He holds a PhD from the Australian National University and has over 15 years of industry experience, including roles at CSIRO and ZTE Corp. Education: B.S. (Xi’an Jiaotong University), M.Sc. (Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications), Ph.D. (Australian National University). Research Interests: ISAC, radio sensing, machine learning for communications, and 6G waveform design. Key projects include developing perceptive mobile networks and flood/storm sensing via ISAC. Publications: Over 290 papers, 5 patents, and notable works on ISAC frameworks, joint communication-sensing systems, and mmWave technologies. Recent trends emphasize ISAC, 6G waveforms, and IoT integration with federated learning. Awards: CSIRO Chairman’s Medal, Australian Engineering Innovation Award, and multiple best paper awards. Active in IEEE leadership roles, including Editor-in-Chief of ISAC-Focus. Grants: ~$8M in research funding. Advises on ISAC-ETI initiatives and collaborates with industry partners like TPG Telecom. Labs: RaSPA Lab (radio sensing analytics) and UTS-TPG Lab (ISAC industrial solutions).
