Fay Yarbrough is the Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Graduate Programs and William Gaines Twyman Professor of History at Rice University's School of Humanities. She specializes in 19th-century Native populations of the U.S. Southeast and Indian Territory, focusing on Indigenous-African diaspora interactions. Her research examines tribal sovereignty, race formation, and gender through legal frameworks and colonial dynamics. Education: PhD (Emory University), MA (Emory University), BA (Rice University). Teaches courses on Civil War history, Native history, African American history, and gender studies. Key works include Race and the Cherokee Nation (2008), Choctaw Confederates (2021), and co-edited Gender and Sexuality in the Indigenous Americas (2011). Explores topics like Cherokee marriage laws, Choctaw Civil War participation, and colonial gender manipulation. Affiliated with Rice's Center for the Study of Women, Gender & Sexuality and Center for African & African American Studies. Active in promoting interdisciplinary research on race, Indigenous sovereignty, and gender in historical contexts.
Rachel Brahinsky is an Associate Professor at the University of San Francisco, affiliated with the Politics Department and the Urban & Public Affairs program. Her work bridges urban geography, race studies, and social justice, focusing on urban inequality and spatial politics in the San Francisco Bay Area. She served as director of the Urban & Public Affairs program from 2013 to 2020. Education: PhD in Geography from UC Berkeley (focusing on human/social geography of cities), BA from Hampshire College Her research examines race, class, and space in rapidly changing cities, with emphasis on gentrification, displacement, and community resistance. Key themes include property theory, urban renewal impacts, and marginalized communities’ resilience in tech-driven urban environments. Recent work includes A People's Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area (2020), critiquing dominant narratives to center grassroots histories. Publications span urban sociology, geography, and policy, analyzing topics like postindustrial Detroit, pandemic-era community organizing, and San Francisco’s redevelopment history. Her writing blends academic rigor with accessible public scholarship, informed by her background in journalism. Grants and awards: None explicitly listed in provided texts. Advising focus includes mentoring students in Urban Studies and Politics programs.
Diego Calvanese is a Full Professor in Computer Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. He serves as Spokesperson of the Institute of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and Director of the Smart Data Factory technology transfer lab at NOI Techpark. As Coordinator of the Intelligent Integration and Access to Data (In2Data) research group, part of the Research Centre for Knowledge and Data (KRDB), he leads significant research initiatives in knowledge representation and data management. Calvanese's research focuses on virtual knowledge graphs for data access and integration, ontology-based data access, description logics, semantic web technologies, graph data management, and verification of data-aware processes. His work bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications through the Ontop framework, which enables SPARQL query answering over OWL 2 QL ontologies connected to external data sources. His research has substantial practical impact, powering the South Tyrol Open Data Hub Knowledge Graph and supporting numerous European and national research projects. With more than 400 refereed publications and over 39,000 citations (h-index 80), Calvanese's recent work demonstrates continued leadership in virtual knowledge graphs, ontology-based data federation, explainable AI through knowledge representation, and integration of complex data types including 3D city models and raster data. His publications show a clear trajectory from theoretical foundations toward increasingly practical and applied research addressing real-world data integration challenges across multiple domains. ACM Fellow (2019) EurAI Fellow (2015) AAIA Fellow Program Chair of PODS 2015 and KR 2020 General Chair of ESSLLI 2016 Calvanese has secured significant research funding through numerous competitive projects including EU H2020 INFRAEOS Project (INODE), Italian PRIN Project (HOPE), FESR Project (IDEE), and EU FP7 IP Project (Optique), totaling close to 6.4M Euro. As an originator and co-founder of Ontopic, the first spin-off of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, he has successfully translated research into commercial applications. He serves as Associate Editor of Artificial Intelligence (AIJ) and has participated in over 200 program committee roles for international conferences. As Director of the Smart Data Factory technology transfer lab and coordinator of the In2Data research group, Calvanese bridges academic research with industry applications, focusing on practical implementations of knowledge graph technologies. His work with the KRDB Research Center has established Bozen-Bolzano as a significant hub for knowledge representation and data management research in Europe.
Germain Gauthier is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University. His work bridges economics and political science with a focus on political economy, public economics, and machine learning methods. He develops AI tools for social scientists, particularly for analyzing unstructured data like texts and images. Ph.D. in Economics, Ecole Polytechnique (2018–2023) Postdoctoral Researcher, ETH Zürich (2023) M.Sc. in Analysis and Policy in Economics, Paris School of Economics (2017–2018) M.Sc. in Quantitative Economics, HEC Paris (2013–2017) His research spans two main areas: applied studies on digital technologies' societal consequences (e.g., X's algorithms, #MeToo's impact) and methodological innovations in machine learning for social science data. Recent publications include work on protest dynamics, inequality, and narrative extraction from texts. Key trends in his publications include: Machine learning applications to political and economic analysis Text mining for social science narratives Empirical studies on protest movements and digital governance Algorithmic bias in labor markets Economic policy evaluation using big data He has received significant funding: Swiss National Sciences Foundation Grant (300K CHF, 2023–2026) Swiss National Sciences Foundation Grant (100K CHF, 2020) Laboratoire d’Excellence Ph.D. Grant (2018–2023) He teaches courses on Public Finance (Bocconi) and Text as Data for Social Sciences (LMU München), and has developed open-source software packages like relatio and DeepLatent for text analysis and latent variable modeling.
Devin G. Pope is the Steven G. Rothmeier Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. His research examines psychological biases in economic decision-making using observational data across diverse markets including healthcare, voting, transportation, and consumer behavior. Pope has published extensively in top economics journals (American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics), general science publications (Science, Nature), and interdisciplinary outlets (Management Science, Psychological Science). His research interests bridge behavioral economics and psychology, focusing on vaccination incentives , racial bias measurement , consumer decision heuristics , and observational data analysis . Recent work leverages smartphone data to study religious attendance patterns, voting wait times, and geographic mobility. Pope's research methodology emphasizes real-world field experiments and large-scale observational datasets to identify psychological biases affecting economic outcomes. Notable scientific contributions include: Co-editing the American Economic Review Amazon Scholar appointment (2019-2021) Robert King Steel Faculty Fellowship Steven G. Rothmeier Professorship Pope advises PhD students and teaches graduate courses including Behavioral Economics and Workshop in Behavioral Science. His research has received significant external funding for pandemic response studies and behavioral interventions. Pope maintains active research collaborations across economics, psychology, and public health disciplines through the Booth School's research centers and workshops.
Michel Mandjes is a Professor at the University of Amsterdam's Faculty of Science and holds a Visiting Professor position at the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB). His research focuses on stochastic processes, queueing theory, and probability theory, with applications in risk modeling, network analysis, and operations research. Recent publications highlight his contributions to multivariate Hawkes processes , Lévy-driven systems , and dynamic random graphs , emphasizing large deviations, rare event simulation, and statistical inference. His work bridges theoretical probability with practical challenges in traffic flow, financial risk, and social network modeling. The trends in his research include the development of stochastic models for network stability, appointment scheduling optimization, and inference techniques for non-stationary processes. His methodological innovations often leverage advanced probability theory and queueing frameworks to address real-world problems in transportation, healthcare, and finance.
Mario Nascimento is Professor of the Practice and inaugural Director of Pacific Northwest Research at Northeastern University’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences , based at the Vancouver campus in Canada. Previously he served as Professor (and six-year Department Chair) in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta, held research roles with the Brazilian Agency for Agricultural Research, and was adjunct faculty at the Institute of Computing of the University of Campinas. He has also been a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore, Aalborg University (Denmark), LMU (Germany), and the Federal University of Ceará (Brazil). Research Interests: Mario’s core expertise lies in spatiotemporal data management , a field that intersects database systems, geographic information science, and data science. His work addresses challenges in indexing, querying, and mining large-scale spatiotemporal datasets, with applications ranging from urban mobility to environmental monitoring. Over the years his research has contributed to advancing both theoretical foundations and practical systems for handling dynamic spatial data. Editorial & Service Leadership: General Co-Chair, ACM SIGSPATIAL 2024 Program Committee Co-Chair, ACM SIGSPATIAL 2022–2023 Editor-in-Chief, ACM SIGMOD Record (2005–2007) Information Director, ACM SIGMOD (2002–2005) Editorial Board Member, VLDB Journal (2011–2017) Current Editorial Board Member, GeoInformatica Chair, SSTD Endowment Board of Directors
Evita Papazikou serves as a Lecturer in Transport Engineering at the School of Engineering, University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), where she contributes to the Centre for Transport and Society and collaborates with the Bristol Robotics Laboratory's Connected & Autonomous Vehicles Centre. Her academic qualifications include: Civil Engineering (BEng and MEng) from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki MSc in Planning, Organisation, and Management of Transport Systems, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki PhD in Automated Systems and Driver Behaviour (Road Safety) from Loughborough University, sponsored by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety with access to SHRP2 NDS data Dr. Papazikou's research focuses on road safety, connected and automated vehicles, driver behaviour analysis, and smart infrastructure. She investigates accident causation through statistical modeling, develops driver monitoring systems, and explores human factors in transportation. Her work integrates traffic simulation with mobility data fusion from vehicles, sensors, and infrastructure to enhance safety in future mobility systems, particularly in cooperative, connected, and automated environments. Her recent publications (2023-2025) reveal a concentrated research trajectory examining safety impacts of dedicated lanes for autonomous vehicles, parking policy implications in automated eras, and driver fatigue management. She consistently employs naturalistic driving data and traffic microsimulation to analyze driver-vehicle-environment interactions, with increasing emphasis on real-world intervention effectiveness and environmental sustainability in mobility systems. Scientific Awards: No specific awards were mentioned in the provided information. Dr. Papazikou has secured significant research funding through competitive programs including Horizon 2020, Innovate UK, and the Department for Transport. Her project portfolio demonstrates substantial industry collaboration, particularly with Ford, and includes: LEVITATE: Assessing societal impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles SafetyCube: Developing an innovative road safety decision support tool i-DREAMS: Creating a smart driver and road environment assessment system DDRST: Building a data-driven road safety tool for hotspot identification TRIP: Developing a driver culpability assignment tool for road injury prevention She actively contributes to interdisciplinary research through her affiliations with the Centre for Transport and Society and the Bristol Robotics Laboratory's Connected & Autonomous Vehicles Centre, where she bridges engineering, human factors, and policy development for next-generation transportation systems.
George Vasilakopoulos is a Professor in the Department of Digital Systems at the University of Piraeus , where he also serves as Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Personnel. By law, he is President of the Quality Assurance Unit (MODIP) and the Employment and Career Structure (DASTA) of the university, overseeing the development of modern information systems. He earned his PhD from the University of London and has held leadership roles including Department President, Director of Postgraduate Programs, and Scientific Director of the Digital Health Services Laboratory. PhD: University of London Current Roles: Vice-Chancellor, Department of Digital Systems Professor Labs: Digital Health Services Laboratory His research focuses on Health Informatics , Cloud Computing , and Medical Data Security , with key contributions to: Emergency healthcare process automation Privacy-preserving personal health record systems Context-aware authorization models Cloud-based medical service frameworks Machine learning in clinical data analysis Interoperable health information systems The trends in his 15 most recent articles (2010-2015) reveal a consistent emphasis on integrating cloud infrastructure , semantic technologies , and mobile platforms to enhance emergency care, chronic disease management, and patient data security. His work bridges biomedical engineering , software architecture , and public health policy . He has held advisory roles for the Minister of Health on IT issues, served on hospital boards, and contributed to national committees for healthcare technology standards. His professional activities include project evaluation for Greek and European research programs and authoring three books on health informatics.
Maria Rumyantseva is a Senior Lecturer and Academic Fellow in Innovation Studies at the University of Sydney Business School . She serves as Deputy Director of the Sydney Nano Institute and is affiliated with the Sydney Environment Institute. With a PhD from the University of St. Gallen, Maria employs longitudinal process-based methodologies to advance innovation management theory and practice. Interdisciplinary research intersecting strategy, international business, and ecosystem analysis Industry collaborations with startups (Genesis, Incubate programs) and scientists Multiple teaching awards and media recognition for pedagogical innovation Research Focus : Commercialisation of nano-scale inventions (Sydney Nano Institute), mapping innovation ecosystems (CSIRO spinoffs), assessing Australian international competitiveness, and developing process-based qualitative methodologies. Selected Awards : Best Paper Award (R&D Management Journal Workshop, 2024) Top Citations (Strategic Management Journal, 2023; Journal of International Business Studies, 2023) Dean's Citations and USS Teaching Awards (2020-2024) Supervision & Grants : Supervises research students on topics like government roles in ecosystem emergence and innovation in state-owned enterprises. Leads grants including the 2024 Innovation and Commercialisation Policy Node and 2021 Nano Technology-Economy-Society project.
Trond Waage is a Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at UiT The Arctic University of Norway , specializing in Visual Anthropology . His research focuses on migration patterns in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and Mali, while also exploring the intersection of visual methods with ethnographic research. Active in collaborative visual research with African communities Member of the War and Peace Dynamics research group Co-founder of the Sahel on Sahel research initiative Research Interests include: Migrant integration in urban African contexts Conflict dynamics in the Sahel region Participatory visual methods for ethnographic knowledge production His recent work has examined Boko Haram's impact on youth communities and the role of collaborative filmmaking in documenting post-conflict resilience. Professor Waage frequently collaborates with researchers across institutions in Norway and Africa to explore cultural translation and visual epistemology. He serves as: Editorial contributor to the Journal of Anthropological Films Supervisor in Master of Philosophy in Visual Anthropology program Co-developer of Visual Anthropology curricula in Niger
Thomas DC Little is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering at Boston University. He serves as the Associate Dean for Educational Initiatives, driving the growth of the engineering master’s program and enhancing pedagogy through mobile and cloud technologies. Additionally, he is the Associate Director and Principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center (LESA), a multi-institutional effort advancing visible light communication and smart lighting systems. Professor Little's research centers on ubiquitous computing and communications, with a focus on using optical cells to expand wireless data capacity for mobile devices. He pioneers ambient intelligence that enables environments to anticipate human needs. His key areas include Visible Light Communications (VLC), Optical Wireless Communications, Indoor Positioning Systems, and Smart Lighting. By integrating lighting infrastructure with communication networks, his work addresses the growing demand for wireless data and enables energy-efficient, responsive smart buildings and urban environments. Analysis of his recent publications (2019-2024) shows a strong trend toward occupancy sensing, indoor positioning, and hybrid RF/VLC networks. His team develops innovative solutions for people counting, zone-based positioning, and interference mitigation in dense optical wireless environments. There is increasing integration of machine learning for security and optimization, with applications in energy-efficient buildings and user-centric smart spaces. Scientific awards received by Professor Little include: Janetos Award for Continuous Indoor Air Quality Assessment for BU Buildings (2025) Professor Little actively mentors graduate students and postdocs, with notable advisees including Iman Abdalla (awarded Best Computer Engineering Dissertation, 2020-2021) and the MenuNav team (Societal Impact Award for a navigation app for the blind). He has secured significant research funding, including a $1M Department of Energy/ARPA-E project for occupancy sensing to reduce energy costs in commercial buildings and grants for indoor air quality sensor development. He leads the NSF Smart Lighting ERC (LESA), which develops COSSY people counting technology, sensory lighting systems, and dynamic light control applications. His team collaborates with industry and has spun off Helux Technologies, Inc. to commercialize dynamic lighting control. Current projects focus on creating safe, energy-efficient buildings through advanced sensor integration and wireless communication.
Ron Steinfeld is an Associate Professor at the Cybersecurity Lab of the Faculty of Information Technology , Monash University . His research focuses on lattice-based cryptography , post-quantum cryptographic protocols , and privacy-preserving technologies . He has contributed to advancements in secure multiparty computation , digital signatures , and blockchain confidentiality . Key areas: Lattice-Based Cryptography, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, Blockchain Security Recent work trends: Quantum-safe protocols, Efficient sampling algorithms, Scalable blockchain solutions Scientific Awards : BEST PAPER AWARD (ASIACRYPT 2015) He has served on program committees for major conferences including CRYPTO , EUROCRYPT , and ASIACRYPT . Ron is a member of the Discrete Mathematics Research Group and has collaborated with institutions like Macquarie University in the past.
Dr. Naveen K. Vaidya is a full Professor at San Diego State University (SDSU) in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics . He received his PhD and M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from York University, Canada , and M.Sc., B.Sc., and B.Ed. from Tribhuvan University, Nepal . His postdoctoral research was conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Western University, Canada . Research Interests : Dr. Vaidya specializes in applied mathematics and mathematical biology , focusing on modeling infectious diseases such as HIV, SARS-CoV-2, dengue, malaria, and tuberculosis. His work spans within-host and between-host dynamics, integrating differential equations , dynamical systems , optimal control , and biostatistics . Recent projects explore climate impacts on disease spread and machine learning in public health analytics. Scientific Awards : He has received prestigious honors, including the University of Missouri Faculty Scholars (2015/2016) Susan Mann Dissertation Award (2008) NSERC Visiting Fellowships in Canadian Government Laboratories (2008/2009) Travel Support Awards from NSF and MBI (2018) Simons Foundation Collaboration Grant (2020, declined due to NSF grants) Grants and Funding : Dr. Vaidya has secured multiple grants from the National Science Foundation (2016–2021; 2020–2023), Simons Foundation , International Mathematical Union , and SDSU Start-up Funds . He also organized the AMNS-2019 conference in Nepal and led workshops on collaborative research. Labs and Teams : As principal investigator of the SDSU-DiMoLab , he leads a multidisciplinary team studying COVID-19 , HIV , and other infectious diseases. The lab trains graduate and undergraduate students and collaborates internationally, particularly with Tribhuvan University, Nepal .
Rasheed Hussain is an Associate Professor of Intelligent Network Security at the Smart Internet Lab and Bristol Digital Futures Institute (BDFI), School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol, UK. Previously, he served as a Senior Lecturer at the same institution from December 2021 to July 2025. He has held academic positions at Innopolis University, Russia, where he served as Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of Information Security and Cyber-Physical Systems, and as a guest researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. His educational background includes a PhD in Computer Engineering from Hanyang University, South Korea (2011-2015), an MS in Computer Engineering from the same institution (2008-2010), and a B.Sc in Computer Software Engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan (2003-2007). Hussain's research focuses on network and cybersecurity, particularly future network security including 6G, the role of Digital Twins in future networks and systems security, and Responsible AI including fairness, trustworthiness, and explainability. His work spans information security, privacy, applied cryptography, vehicular networks, Internet of Things, Content-Centric Networking, cloud computing, API security, and blockchain applications. Senior member of IEEE Member of ACM ACM Distinguished Speaker Editorial board member for IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, IEEE Access, and other journals His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on the intersection of AI, networking, and security, with particular emphasis on Digital Twins, blockchain applications, federated learning, and 6G security. His research shows a clear trajectory toward addressing security challenges in emerging network architectures while incorporating responsible AI principles. Scientific Recognition: ACM Distinguished Speaker Netherlands University Teaching Qualification (Basis Kwalificatie Onderwijs, BKO) Hussain serves as a reviewer for major IEEE transactions, Springer and Elsevier journals, and participates in technical program committees for conferences including IEEE VTC, IEEE VNC, IEEE Globecom, and IEEE ICC. He is also certified as a trainer for the Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) and contributes to the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures (CenSoF) at the University of Bristol. His laboratory work centers around the Networks and Blockchain Lab, which focuses on security solutions for next-generation networks, with particular emphasis on Digital Twins security, blockchain applications, and AI-driven network security solutions. His current projects involve developing secure frameworks for future networks, trustworthy AI models, and privacy-preserving federated learning approaches.
