Andrea Vedaldi is a Professor of Computer Vision and Machine Learning at the University of Oxford's Department of Engineering Science, affiliated with the Visual Geometry Group (VGG). He specializes in unsupervised methods for understanding images and videos, focusing on 3D geometry and semantics. His research bridges foundational AI and practical applications, with contributions to generative models, neural fields, and self-supervised learning. Education: PhD in Computer Science (2008), University of California, Los Angeles MSc in Computer Science (2005), UCLA BSc in Information Engineering (2003), University of Padua Research Interests: Unsupervised learning, 3D perception, generative AI, neural rendering, and scalable vision systems. His work emphasizes ethical, responsible AI aligned with ERC-funded projects like UNION (ERC Consolidator Grant). Key Contributions: Co-developer of VLFeat and MatConvNet libraries Leader in 3D reconstruction and diffusion models (e.g., CatFree3D) Recipient of the PAMI Thomas S. Huang Prize and multiple best paper awards Grants & Service: Principal Investigator on £2.3M ERC Consolidator Grant (UNION) Co-organizer of major conferences (ECCV 2020 Program Chair, CVPR 2023 Area Chair) Reviewer for top journals/conferences (PAMI, CVPR, NeurIPS) Labs & Teams: VGG Group at Oxford, collaborating on projects like Meta 3D Gen and Common Objects in 3D (CO3D).
Justin Johnson is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan's College of Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and a Research Scientist at Facebook AI Research (FAIR). His work bridges computer vision, machine learning, and deep learning, focusing on visual reasoning, vision-language tasks, image generation, and 3D reasoning using neural networks. PhD, Stanford University (advised by Fei-Fei Li) His research interests span visual reasoning , vision and language , 3D vision , and image generation , with a focus on innovative applications of deep neural networks. Recent publications highlight work on 3D consistency, self-supervised learning, and multimodal integration of vision and text. Notable contributions include PyTorch3D for 3D data processing, and foundational work in visual question answering , neural style transfer , and scene graph-based image generation . Publications span top conferences like ICCV, CVPR, and NeurIPS. He teaches courses including EECS 498/598: Deep Learning for Computer Vision and EECS 442: Computer Vision at University of Michigan, with prior involvement in Stanford's CS 231N in co-teaching roles. Software projects include open-source frameworks like fast-neural-style for real-time artistic style transfer, and PyTorch3D for efficient 3D deep learning. These tools demonstrate his commitment to practical implementations and community-driven research.
Jessica Straley is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Utah, where she has served since 2005 (Visiting Assistant Professor 2005-2007, Assistant Professor 2007-2016, Associate Professor 2016-present). She holds a PhD in English from Stanford University, an MA in Literature, Culture, and Modernity from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, and a BA in English from Cornell University. Education: PhD, English - Stanford University MA, Literature, Culture, and Modernity - Queen Mary and Westfield College BA, English - Cornell University Her research focuses on intersections between Victorian literature, children's literature, animal studies, disability studies, and ecocriticism. She explores how literary imagination interacts with scientific and moral discourses, particularly in 19th-century contexts. Recent publications analyze feral child narratives, zoo representations, and evolutionary theory in children's texts. Her work bridges historical literary analysis with contemporary critical frameworks like disability rights and environmental ethics. Scientific Awards: Faculty Fellowship Award (University Research Council, 2017) Ramona W. Cannon Award for Teaching Excellence (2016) Tanner Humanities Center Fellowship (2016) University Research Committee Faculty Fellowship (2011) Newberry Library Short-Term Library Research Fellowship (2008) She teaches courses in 19th-Century British Literature, Intellectual Movements, and Honors Thesis/Project supervision. Her external grant (Animal Testing URC, 2017-2018) demonstrates institutional support for her interdisciplinary work.
Huan Zhang serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), with affiliate appointments in the Department of Computer Science and the Coordinated Science Laboratory. His research focuses on building trustworthy AI systems with formal verification techniques to provide provable guarantees for safety-critical applications, particularly in machine learning and neural networks. Dr. Zhang received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA in 2020, advised by Professor Cho-Jui Hsieh. His academic journey includes an M.S. in Computer Engineering from UC Davis (2014) and a Bachelor of Engineering from Zhejiang University (2012). Prior to joining UIUC, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University (2021-2023) with Professor Zico Kolter. Huan Zhang's research program centers on formal verification of machine learning systems, with particular emphasis on neural network verification, AI safety, robustness, and reliability. He pioneered the linear bound propagation-based verification framework that enables formal verification for networks with millions of neurons. His work spans five major research categories: formal verification of machine learning, training trustworthy ML models, machine learning safety and adversarial attacks, reinforcement learning safety, and optimization for scalable machine learning. His CROWN framework (NeurIPS 2018) established a foundational approach for neural network verification through efficient linear bound propagation. His recent publications demonstrate a strategic expansion from foundational verification techniques toward increasingly complex systems including large language models, vision-language models, and robotic control systems. The research trajectory shows a clear progression from theoretical frameworks to practical implementations with real-world applications, particularly in safety-critical domains. His work increasingly bridges formal methods with practical AI deployment requirements. Winner of International Verification of Neural Networks Competition (VNN-COMP) as team leader (2021-2024) Schmidt Futures AI2050 Early Career Fellowship ($300,000 research grant) Adversarial Machine Learning (AdvML) Rising Star Award (2021) IBM PhD Fellowship (2018) Dr. Zhang leads the development of α,β-CROWN, a neural network verifier that has won VNN-COMP 2021-2023, and auto_LiRPA, a PyTorch-based library for perturbation analysis on general computational graphs. He has mentored numerous graduate students from CMU, UCLA, UIUC, and Columbia University. His research is supported by significant funding including the Schmidt Futures fellowship and industry collaborations. He teaches courses including ECE 120, ECE 484, ECE 584, and ECE 598 HZ on topics ranging from computing fundamentals to safe autonomy and machine learning. Dr. Zhang maintains active research collaborations across multiple institutions and is affiliated with UIUC's Coordinated Science Laboratory. His work has significant implications for safety-critical AI applications in autonomous systems, healthcare, and other mission-critical domains where reliability guarantees are essential. He regularly gives guest lectures at institutions including Yale, Stony Brook, and the University of Nebraska Lincoln on formal verification techniques.
Olga Sorkine-Hornung is a Professor of Computer Science at ETH Zurich and head of the Institute of Visual Computing. She leads the Interactive Geometry Lab, focusing on theoretical and practical advancements in digital content creation, geometry processing, and shape modeling. Current position: ETH Zurich, Department of Computer Science Previous roles: Courant Institute (NYU), Technical University of Berlin Education: BSc and PhD from Tel Aviv University, postdoc at TU Berlin Her research spans shape representation, digital fabrication, computer animation, and fundamental geometry processing. Key contributions include Laplacian surface editing, as-rigid-as-possible deformation, and generalized winding numbers. She works on applications in VR, AR, and autonomous systems. Awards include Test of Time Awards (2024), ACM Fellow (2020), ERC Consolidator Grant (2020), and EUROGRAPHICS Young Researcher Award (2008). She has supervised numerous students and co-developed software libraries like libigl and Instant Meshes . Co-chair roles for SIGGRAPH, Eurographics, and Pacific Graphics Editorial board member for ACM Transactions on Graphics and other journals Keynote speaker at VMV, CVPR, and SIAM conferences Her work bridges mathematical rigor with practical implementation, advancing computer graphics and geometry processing through intuitive algorithms that maintain surface detail while enabling efficient computation.
Christopher G. Atkeson is a Professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where he has been since 2000 after previously holding positions at MIT and Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on fulfilling the science fiction vision of machines achieving human levels of competence in perception, cognition, and action, with particular emphasis on understanding how to get machines to generate and perceive human behavior. Atkeson's work spans two complementary approaches: humanoid robotics and human aware environments. His research interests include nonparametric learning, memory-based learning, reinforcement learning, learning from demonstration, and modeling human behavior. He is particularly known for his work on robot learning of challenging dynamic tasks such as juggling, trajectory-based optimization, and soft robotics (including his contributions to the Baymax character in Disney's Big Hero 6). His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on tactile sensing (FingerVision), human-in-the-loop optimization for exoskeletons, deep learning for locomotion control, and trajectory-based optimization methods. His work consistently bridges theoretical foundations in machine learning with practical implementations on physical robots. Among his scientific recognitions are an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, a Sloan Research Fellowship, and a Teaching Award from the MIT Graduate Student Council. Atkeson has advised numerous students who have gone on to successful careers in academia and industry, including notable researchers like Andrew Moore and Stefan Schaal. His teaching includes courses on dynamic optimization, humanoids, kinematics, dynamics, and control.
Dr. Amber West is a Lecturer in the Writing Programs at UCLA, part of the Humanities Division within UCLA College. She holds a B.A. in Literature & Creative Writing from UC Santa Cruz, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from NYU, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Connecticut. Her research interests span poetry and poetics, puppet theater, race and gender studies, performance studies, intersectionality, and service learning. West's scholarly work appears in journals like Journal of Research on Women & Gender and Puppetry International , alongside contributions to edited volumes such as Episodes from a History of Undoing and The Routledge Companion to Puppetry & Material Performance . Her creative works include poetry collections published by Finishing Line Press and The Word Works. She co-founded Alphabet Arts, a bi-coastal artist collective, and created/directed the Puppets & Poets festival in NYC (2011-2015). With nearly two decades of experience, she has taught writing, trained educators, and fundraised for programs in underserved communities, including roles with AmeriCorps VISTA, Brooklyn Public Library, and Girls Write Now.
Celestine Mendler-Dünner is a Principal Investigator at the ELLIS Institute in Tübingen, co-affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the Tübingen AI Center. She leads the Algorithms and Society research group, focusing on machine learning in social contexts and the role of prediction in digital economies. Her work bridges theoretical machine learning with practical societal impact, developing tools for safe, reliable, and equitable AI ecosystems. Her educational background includes a PhD from ETH Zurich in collaboration with IBM Research, followed by an SNSF postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley hosted by Moritz Hardt. She was previously a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems before joining the ELLIS Institute. Mendler-Dünner's research spans several interconnected themes including performative prediction (where predictions change the behavior they aim to predict), algorithmic collective action (how participants can steer AI systems toward common goals), and the role of LLMs in social science research. Her work combines theoretical foundations with practical implementations, addressing challenges in interactive machine learning, optimization in dynamic environments, and context-specific evaluation of AI systems. She particularly examines how algorithmic predictions mediate services and platforms at societal scale, exploring concepts of economic power in digital markets. Her publication record shows a clear evolution from system-aware machine learning algorithms (including foundational work on IBM Snap ML) toward increasingly sociotechnical questions at the intersection of machine learning, economics, and policy. Recent work focuses on measuring performative power in digital economies, evaluating LLMs as risk scores, and developing frameworks for algorithmic collective action in recommender systems and labor markets. Among her notable recognitions are the ETH Medal for her dissertation, the IBM Research Division Award, the Fritz Kutter Award, and the IBM Eminence and Excellence Award. She is an ELLIS Scholar, a fellow of the Elisabeth-Schiemann-Kolleg, and affiliated with several prestigious research programs including the International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems and the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems. ETH Medal (dissertation award) IBM Research Division Award Fritz Kutter Award IBM Eminence and Excellence Award SNSF Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship Mendler-Dünner actively mentors the next generation of researchers, advising PhD student Patrik Wolf and supervising research interns including Joachim Baumann, Haiqing Zhu, and Anna Badalyan, as well as Master's student Dorothee Sigg. She serves as core faculty for the International Max Planck Research School and associated faculty for the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems. Her group has secured significant research funding through fellowships and institutional support, enabling work on projects like Powermeter (measuring search engine influence) and Snap ML (resource-efficient machine learning library with over 1 million PyPI downloads). She leads the Algorithms and Society research group, which examines machine learning as part of broader sociotechnical ecosystems. The group explores human-population interactions with algorithmic systems and incorporates these insights into learning system fundamentals. Current projects include investigating economic incentives in digital platforms, developing tools for systematic LLM evaluation in social science contexts, and creating frameworks for collective action in algorithmic systems. Mendler-Dünner also co-organizes the Algorithmic Collective Action workshop at NeurIPS 2025, demonstrating her leadership in emerging research directions at the AI-society interface.
April Yi Wang is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zürich, where she directs the Programming, Education, and Computer-Human Interaction Lab (PEACH Lab). She is a core faculty member at the Institute for Intelligent Interactive Systems and associated with the ETH AI Center. Wang is also an active member of ETH HCI and Swiss CHI communities, contributing significantly to human-computer interaction and educational technology research. Dr. Wang's educational background includes: Ph.D. in Information Science from University of Michigan (2023), advised by Steve Oney and Christopher Brooks M.Sc. in Computer Science from Simon Fraser University (2018), advised by Parmit Chilana B.Eng in Computer Science from Zhejiang University (2016) Dr. Wang's research focuses on human-centered approaches to programming and data science. Her work reimagines programming as a form of literature that communicates with both machines and people, exploring creative representations like text, shapes, animations, and everyday objects. She investigates how to make programming more natural and intuitive through literate programming environments, with applications in professional and educational contexts. Her research spans human-computer interaction, educational technology, and AI-assisted programming tools. Analysis of Dr. Wang's recent publications reveals a strong focus on AI-enhanced educational tools, particularly for programming and data literacy. Her work increasingly integrates large language models to scaffold learning while maintaining user agency. There's a clear trajectory toward developing situated learning approaches that connect abstract concepts to real-world contexts through augmented reality and tangible interfaces. Her research bridges HCI, education, and AI to create more accessible and engaging technical learning experiences. Dr. Wang has received numerous prestigious awards including: 2023 Gary M. Olson Award and Honourable Mention Award at ACM CHI 2022 Rising Stars in EECS and Heidelberg Laureate Forum Young Researcher 2020 Best Short Paper Award at IEEE VL/HCC and Honourable Mention at ACM CHI 2019 Best Paper Award at ACM CSCW Dr. Wang actively mentors students through thesis projects at ETH Zürich, supervising numerous bachelor's and master's students on topics ranging from AI-assisted programming to data literacy tools. Her lab, PEACH Lab, has secured funding including the recent innovedum funding for the Coducate project. She serves on program committees for major conferences including CHI and UIST, and regularly reviews for top HCI and education journals. The PEACH Lab, directed by Dr. Wang, focuses on creating expressive, intelligent, and human-centered systems that make technical topics more accessible. The lab explores textual, visual, and embodied representations for programming, with emphasis on enhancing communication, collaboration, and learning. Current research directions include balancing automation with user agency, supporting diverse learning needs, and developing tools for interdisciplinary technical communication.
Dorothy Kim serves as Assistant Professor of English at Brandeis University with cross-appointments in the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Women's Studies Research Center. Her innovative scholarship bridges medieval literary studies, digital humanities, and critical race theory, examining how medieval history is weaponized by contemporary white supremacist movements and advocating for antiracist frameworks in academia. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles and her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. Her educational trajectory reflects deep engagement with interdisciplinary approaches to literature and cultural studies. Kim's research centers on exposing the racialized foundations of medieval studies, particularly through projects analyzing digital white supremacy and medievalism's role in alt-right ideology. She pioneers methodologies connecting medieval women's literary cultures with contemporary trans feminism while interrogating Jewish/Christian difference in manuscript studies. Her work consistently challenges the field's historical whiteness and develops decolonial digital humanities practices. Her publication trends reveal a decisive shift toward critical race interventions in premodern studies, with increasing focus on database methodologies, sonic histories, and the material politics of medieval manuscript transmission. Recent works demonstrate how digital tools can either reinforce or dismantle racial hierarchies in academic knowledge production. Her distinguished honors include: 2023 Medieval Academy of America Article Prize in Critical Race Studies American Studies Association Digital Humanities Book Prize (2021) Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship's Best Feminist Article Award (2021) AAUW Postdoctoral Fellowship (2018-2019) Folger Shakespeare Library Long-Term Fellowship (2025-2026) SSHRC, Ford Foundation, Fulbright, and Mellon fellowships Kim directs major collaborative projects including the NEH-funded An Archive of Early Middle English (161-manuscript database) and co-leads the Global Middle Ages Project. As co-director of RaceB4Race and the Reckonings Institute, she creates platforms for community archiving and social justice praxis. Her mentorship focuses on training students in critical digital methodologies through Brandeis' DH Lab while developing antifascist frameworks for humanities education. She currently leads the Brandeis University DH Lab housing her NEH project, co-edits Literature Compass's pre-1800 section, and develops two major book projects: Race, the Crusades, and the Katherine Group (based on her AAUW fellowship) and Music, Multimodal Manuscripts, and Remediating the Medieval Lyric for ArcPress.
Angjoo Kanazawa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at the University of California, Berkeley. She leads the Kanazawa AI Research (KAIR) lab under the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) umbrella and serves on the advisory board of Wonder Dynamics. Her research focuses on the intersection of computer vision, computer graphics, and machine learning, with a particular emphasis on 4D reconstruction of dynamic scenes, neural radiance fields (NeRF), and systems that model human-environment interactions from 2D visual data. Education : Ph.D., Computer Science (2017), University of Maryland, College Park BA, Mathematics and Computer Science (2012), New York University (NYU) Her work aims to build systems that can capture, perceive, and understand complex 3D/4D worlds from photographs and videos, enabling applications in scene reconstruction, motion analysis, and generative modeling. She has pioneered techniques for scaling NeRFs across GPUs (NeRF-XL), developing open-source tools like nerfstudio and gsplat. Her recent publications focus on topics like self-occluded avatar recovery (SOAR), decentralized diffusion models, and 4D reconstruction of articulated objects for robotics. Kanazawa's research has been recognized with prestigious awards including the IEEE CS TCPAMI Young Researcher Award (2024) , Sloan Research Fellowship (2023) , and Google Faculty Research Award (2021) . Her lab has trained numerous students who now hold positions at leading institutions and companies like Anthropic, Meta Reality Labs, and Luma AI. Key Scientific Awards : IEEE CS TCPAMI Young Researcher Award (2024) Sloan Research Fellow (2023) Hellman Fellow (2022) Bakar Fellows Spark Award (2022) Google Faculty Research Award (2021) Her KAIR lab collaborates extensively with industry partners and academic institutions, including the Max Planck Institute and Google Research. She has served as an advisor for PhD students and postdocs who now lead teams at UC Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, and Luma AI, while her teaching includes graduate courses like CS 280A (Computer Vision) and CS 294-173 (Learning for 3D Vision).
Takuya Ooura is an Assistant Professor at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS) at Kyoto University, specializing in numerical analysis and mathematical software development. His work bridges theoretical mathematics with practical applications in scientific computing and software development. Dr. Ooura earned his educational credentials through a rigorous academic path: he graduated from Hokuriku High School in 1987; completed his undergraduate studies at Nagoya University's School of Science in 1992; earned his Master of Engineering from the Department of Applied Physics at the University of Tokyo in 1994; and completed his PhD (Engineering) from the same department in 1997. His academic journey continued with a Research Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (1997) followed by a position as Research Associate at RIMS, Kyoto University (2000). Dr. Ooura's research focuses on numerical integration algorithms, particularly his groundbreaking double exponential formula for Fourier-type integrals, which has been incorporated into Mathematica's NIntegrate function. He has also developed a high-speed FFT library that's utilized in Google Chrome browser (visible in chrome://credits). His work on continuous Euler transformation for accelerating convergence of slowly decaying integrals represents significant innovation in numerical analysis. His research spans both theoretical development and practical implementation of mathematical algorithms with real-world applications. His publication record demonstrates consistent contributions to numerical analysis, with particular emphasis on quadrature methods, integral transforms, and high-precision computation. His work shows a clear progression from theoretical foundations to practical implementations, with several algorithms achieving widespread adoption in commercial and open-source software. Paper prize awarded by JSIAM (2000) for 'A continuous Euler transformation and its application to Fourier transforms of slowly decaying functions' Paper prize awarded by JSIAM (2001) for 'Improvement of the PI Calculation Algorithm and Implementation of Fast Multiple-Precision Computation' Paper prize awarded by JSIAM (2005) for 'An Improved Convergence Test for the Double Exponential Formula' Japan Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics 4th Achievement Award (2014) for 'Pioneering and practical development of the double exponential numerical integration method' Dr. Ooura has developed several widely used mathematical software packages including the double exponential integral formula, Clenshaw-Curtis numerical integration rule, and a general-purpose FFT library. His FFT package is particularly notable for its speed and accuracy, with benchmark tests showing superior performance compared to other implementations. His software has been incorporated into major projects including Google Chrome and SETI@home, demonstrating the practical impact of his theoretical work. His future research directions include further development of numerical computation libraries and applying his methods to various computational problems.
Christoph Koch is a Full Professor in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne) , Switzerland. He has held academic positions at Cornell University (2007-2010, 2006), Saarland University (2005-2007), and TU Vienna (2001-2005). His research focuses on database systems, logic, programming languages, and data management.
Min Yen Kan is an Associate Professor and Vice Dean of Undergraduate Studies at the National University of Singapore's School of Computing, Department of Computer Science. With a PhD from Columbia University (2002), he leads the Web Information Retrieval / Natural Language Processing Group (WING.NUS) and serves as ACL Ethics Committee co-chair. His research spans Natural Language Processing , Large Language Models , Digital Libraries , and Information Retrieval , with specific focus on scientific discourse analysis, fact verification, and multimodal systems. Current projects include Scholarly Document Information Extraction (TRL 6), Task-Oriented Dialogue Systems (TRL 4), and Recommendation Systems (TRL 5). Recent publications reveal strong trends in LLM limitations (bias, hallucination, evaluation), conversational recommendation systems , and misinformation detection . His work consistently bridges theoretical NLP with real-world applications in digital libraries and scientific communication. Award highlights include: CIKM 2019 Best Paper Award ACL Distinguished Service Awards Vannevar Bush Best Paper Award (JCDL 2012) ACM Distinguished Speaker designation Kan mentors PhD students with placements at Google and USTC, and serves as associate editor for Information Retrieval and survey editor for Journal of AI Research . His lab WING.NUS develops practical tools like SciWING for scientific document processing and FANG for fake news detection. Media engagements include commentary on AI regulations in Southeast Asia and workforce implications in the AI era.
Professor Kathy Bowrey is a leading academic in Intellectual Property Law at UNSW Sydney's Faculty of Law. Her work explores laws shaping knowledge creation, technology, and culture, with expertise in IP, Indigenous rights, and open research advocacy. She holds a Doctor of Juridical Studies from the University of Sydney and a BA LLB from Macquarie University. Her research focuses on historical and contemporary IP frameworks, including their impact on creators, Indigenous communities, and global innovation systems. Notable projects include the ARC-funded 'Producing, Managing and Owning Knowledge in the 21st Century University' (2019–2022), which shaped Australia's open research policies. Awards include the 2022 ANZLHS Book Prize for *Copyright, Creativity, Big Media & Cultural Value* and fellowships at the State Library of NSW and Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. She co-authored *Adventures in Childhood* (2023), examining IP in toy and media industries, and *David Unaipon* (2023), exploring Indigenous innovation. Professor Bowrey co-leads the International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property (ISHTIP) and advises on national research policies. Her grants include ARC Discovery Projects on Australian copyright history and IP commercialization.
