Judy Hoffman is an Associate Professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, with a joint appointment in the School of Interactive Computing and affiliation to the Machine Learning Center . She received tenure in April 2025 after joining Georgia Tech as an Assistant Professor. Her research focuses on enabling AI systems that are reliable, fair, and resource-efficient. PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (2016, UC Berkeley) Postdoctoral Fellowships at Stanford (2017) and UC Berkeley (2018) Former Research Scientist at Facebook AI Research Her work intersects computer vision and machine learning , with specialization in domain adaptation , adversarial robustness , and algorithmic fairness . She has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles, including the award-winning DeCAF (ICML 2024 Test of Time Award) and co-founded Women in Computer Vision (2015), which has sponsored ~40 women annually to premier conferences. ICML Test of Time Award (2024) NSF CAREER Award (2022) PAMI Distinguished Young Researcher (2023) Samsung AI Researcher of the Year (2021) Dr. Hoffman has served as Program Chair for CVPR 2023, Associate Editor for T-PAMI (2021-2023), and co-organizer of workshops at major AI conferences. She has delivered over 70 invited talks and contributes to open-source projects like cycada_release (567 stars) and lsda (47 stars).
Elisa Ricci is a Full Professor at the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science (DISI) at the University of Trento and serves as Head of the Research Unit Deep Visual Learning at Fondazione Bruno Kessler. She coordinates the Doctoral Program in Information Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Trento and holds prestigious fellowships from ELLIS and IAPR. Her research focuses on advancing computer vision and deep learning systems capable of operating in open-world environments. Key interests include domain adaptation, continual learning, and self-supervised learning for visual and multi-modal data processing. Her work addresses critical challenges in enabling machines to adapt to new domains without forgetting prior knowledge, with applications spanning robotics perception, medical imaging, and privacy-preserving AI systems. Recent publications reveal a dominant trend toward leveraging vision-language models for open-vocabulary tasks, training-free adaptation methods, and federated learning architectures. Significant research thrusts include machine unlearning for privacy, robustness against bias in visual classifiers, and novel class discovery using foundation models—particularly evident in 2025 publications addressing medical imaging, 3D segmentation, and collaborative generative systems. Her major recognitions include: ELLIS Fellow IAPR Fellow As Doctoral Program Coordinator at the University of Trento, she oversees PhD training while leading the Deep Visual Learning unit at Fondazione Bruno Kessler. Her research group secures competitive grants in AI-driven perception systems, though specific funding sources aren't detailed in the source material. The Deep Visual Learning Research Unit specializes in open-world computer vision challenges, developing frameworks for domain adaptation, continual learning, and multi-modal perception. Current projects integrate generative models with robotics applications while addressing privacy concerns in vision-language systems through unlearning techniques.
Karthik R. Narasimhan is a Professor at Princeton University's School of Engineering and Applied Science in the Department of Computer Science. Previously, he earned his PhD from MIT under Regina Barzilay and served as a visiting research scientist at OpenAI during 2017-18. His research focuses on the intersection of language and decision-making, building autonomous agents that learn from both experience and human knowledge. His research spans multiple high-impact areas including language agents (Text-DQN, CALM, ReAct, Tree of Thoughts), reinforcement learning (h-DQN, Multi-Objective RL), and AI safety (Toxicity in ChatGPT, DataMUX). He has developed critical datasets and benchmarks such as WebShop, InterCode, SWE-bench, and SILG that have become standard evaluation tools in the field. Current work emphasizes agent capabilities, software engineering automation, and multimodal interaction. His publication trends show strong focus on practical agent deployment (SWE-agent, Tree of Thoughts), safety evaluation (Probing AI Safety), and efficiency improvements (DataMUX). Recent work increasingly addresses real-world challenges in software engineering, security, and human-AI collaboration through rigorous benchmarking. Co-author of foundational GPT (2018) paper Key developer of Text-DQN (2015), CALM (2020), ReAct (2022), Tree of Thoughts (2023) Creator of influential benchmarks: WebShop (2022), SWE-bench (2023), InterCode (2023) He actively advises students through Princeton's computer science program, with research supported by multiple grants focused on autonomous agent development and language-based decision systems. His GitHub repositories (nlp-datasets, text-world-player) demonstrate strong community engagement in open-source research tools. Current projects include advancing language agent capabilities through Reflexion (2023) and Tree of Thoughts (2023) frameworks while addressing critical safety and efficiency challenges.
Gauri Joshi is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department at Carnegie Mellon University, with affiliate appointments in the Machine Learning Department and Robotics Institute. Her work focuses on system-aware algorithms for distributed machine learning, combining optimization, probability, and coding theory to address communication and computational constraints in edge networks. MIT Ph.D. in EECS (2016) IIT Bombay B.Tech/M.Tech in Electrical Engineering (2010) Research themes include federated learning with communication efficiency, erasure coding for non-linear computations, and reinforcement learning for heterogeneous queueing systems. She leads the Optimization, Probability and Learning (OPAL) lab , affiliated with the Parallel Data Lab (PDL), CyLab, and FLAME Center. Recent publications highlight advances in: federated fine-tuning with low-rank adaptation, robust PCA for model aggregation, privacy-preserving prediction mechanisms, and adaptive reinforcement learning for job dispatching systems. Her group has received 15+ paper awards across SIGMETRICS, MobiHoc, and NeurIPS workshops. Scientific recognition includes: IEEE Goldsmith Lecturer (2025), MIT Technology Review '35 Innovators Under 35' (2022), ONR Young Investigator Award (2023), NSF CAREER (2021), and ACM SIGMETRICS Best Paper (2020). She has advised 20+ graduate students, many now at tech giants like Google, Apple, and Meta. Service contributions span program co-chair roles (MLSys 2025), associate editorships (IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking), and workshop organization (ICML, NeurIPS). Her NSF AI-EDGE Institute leadership (2021-present) drives next-generation intelligent edge networks for robotics and aerospace applications.
Apostolos Fasianos is a Lecturer in Economics at Brunel University London, specializing in macroeconomic implications of household financial behavior. Prior roles include economist positions at the Hellenic Ministry of Finance (2017-2020) and Central Bank of Ireland (2016-2017) , with collaborative research spanning the Bank of England and Reserve Bank of New Zealand . PhD in Economics, University of Limerick MSc in Economic Development, University of Glasgow MPhil in Economics, University of Athens Research focuses on household finance , housing economics , monetary policy , and economic inequalities . Recent work explores AI-enabled technological shocks on UK labor markets via Bayesian VAR modeling and textual patent analysis. Publications span topics like wealth inequality , housing market asymmetries , and financialization trends . Selected publications highlight interdisciplinary approaches, merging macroeconomic theory with empirical analysis of crises (e.g., Covid-19 ), housing markets, and historical financial trends. Key methodologies include textual analysis , VAR modeling , and spatial econometrics . Active in policy analysis, Fasianos represented Greece in international forums such as the EPC - Ageing Working Group and OECD Working Party 1 . Current projects include a 2023-2024 BRIEF AWARDS grant on AI’s macroeconomic impacts.
Olga Saukh is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Technical Informatics, Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), and a Faculty member at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH). She leads the Embedded Learning and Sensing Systems research group, which operates across both institutions, focusing on the design and deployment of efficient AI-based systems on edge and mobile platforms. Her work bridges deep learning and embedded systems, with applications in environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, and digital health. Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Bonn (2009) Habilitation in Embedded Systems, TU Graz (2020) Postdoctoral Training, ETH Zurich (2010–2016) B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (2002) M.Sc. in Applied Computer Science, University of Freiburg (2004) Her research centers on efficient machine learning, particularly model optimization, neural network pruning, and contrastive learning for resource-constrained devices. She is deeply engaged in solving real-world challenges in IoT, sensor networks, and cyber-physical systems. Her work emphasizes data privacy, sustainability, and practical deployment of AI at the edge. The 15 most recent publications highlight a strong trend in efficient deep learning, including model compression, pruning, and transfer learning, applied to diverse domains such as environmental sensing (air quality, pollution tracking), digital agriculture (cattle farming), and embedded AI (sensor calibration, on-demand sensing). Her work frequently appears in top-tier venues like NeurIPS, ICLR, and IEEE/ACM IPSN, reflecting her leadership at the intersection of machine learning and embedded systems. Scientific awards include: CONET Ph.D. Academic Award (2010) Multiple Best Paper Awards at IEEE PerCom, ACM/IEEE IPSN, IEEE ICPADS, IEEE SECON, and UrbCom Spotlight and Oral presentations at ICML and CoLLAs workshops Ph.D. scholarship from IPVS, University of Stuttgart (2004–2005) Prizes in Ukrainian national mathematics competitions (1996–1998) Olga Saukh actively serves on program committees of leading international conferences in machine learning and embedded systems. She has advised multiple students and leads a collaborative research group spanning TU Graz and CSH Vienna. Her group develops practical AI systems for real-world deployment, with a focus on sustainability and privacy. She co-organizes the public EfficientML reading group and has secured recognition through numerous grants and awards. Her future work continues to explore the theoretical and practical challenges of deploying efficient, trustworthy AI in mobile and embedded environments. Her research group, Embedded Learning and Sensing Systems, operates jointly between TU Graz and CSH Vienna, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration across institutions. The team develops AI solutions for edge computing, sensor networks, and cyber-physical systems, with a strong emphasis on environmental sustainability and data privacy. Members work on joint challenges using advanced collaboration tools, reflecting the distributed nature of modern academic research.
Dr. Emily Wall is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Emory University, leading the CAV Lab (Cognition and Visualization). She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech (2020) and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University before joining Emory. Ph.D., Computer Science, Georgia Tech (2020) Postdoctoral Researcher, Northwestern University Current: Assistant Professor, Emory University Her research focuses on enhancing human decision-making through data visualization and visual analytics by addressing cognitive limitations and biases. Key areas include metacognition promotion, computational strategies for bias mitigation, and human-AI collaboration in data analysis. She combines cognitive psychology principles with technical implementation using tools like D3.js and Tableau. Recent publications highlight her work on LLM applications in visual analytics, cognitive bias interventions, and trust calibration in AI systems. Current students like Mengyu Chen, Shiyao Li, and Zhongzheng Xu are presenting at top conferences such as CHI and IEEE VIS. She also explores educational applications through interactive visualization pedagogy and innovative assessment methods. Dr. Wall actively engages in academic service through graduate mentorship, conference judging, and diversity initiatives. Her lab emphasizes both technical proficiency and social justice implications in visualization design, reflected in course projects that merge artistic expression with data-driven storytelling.
Zeynep Akata is the Liesel Beckmann Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Director of the Institute for Explainable Machine Learning at Helmholtz Munich. Previously she was a W3 Professor at the University of Tübingen (2019-2023) and held faculty and post-doctoral positions at the University of Amsterdam, UC Berkeley and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics. Her research focuses on multimodal learning and explainable artificial intelligence . Education: PhD, University of Grenoble / INRIA Rhône-Alpes, 2014 MSc, RWTH Aachen University, 2010 BSc, Trakya University, Turkey, 2008 Research Interests: Professor Akata’s group develops algorithms that learn from vision, language and other modalities simultaneously, with a strong emphasis on zero-shot, few-shot and continual learning . A central theme is making decisions interpretable, leading to work on explainable AI, concept bottleneck models, multimodal reasoning and human-aligned representation learning . Recent projects investigate large-scale multimodal language models, dataset distillation, model merging and continual knowledge editing. Publication Trends: Her 2024-2025 publications reveal a shift toward foundational large-scale models (diffusion, LLMs, vision-language transformers) while retaining the core themes of interpretability and generalization under limited supervision . Topics span dataset distillation, model merging, continual learning, fairness auditing of generative models and novel evaluation protocols for zero-shot learning systems. Scientific Awards: Lise-Meitner Award for Excellent Women in Computer Science (2014) Young Scientist Honour, Werner-von-Siemens-Ring Foundation (2019) ERC Starting Grant, European Commission (2019) DAGM German Pattern Recognition Award (2021) ECVA Young Researcher Award (2022) Alfried Krupp Award (2023) Advising & Funding: Prof. Akata currently supervises or co-supervises 25+ PhD students across TUM and the University of Tübingen via ELLIS and IMPRS-IS doctoral programs. She holds major grants including an ERC Starting Grant and DARPA Explainable AI funding, and is a frequent program chair and area chair for premier conferences (CVPR 2024, ECCV 2026, NeurIPS, ICML, etc.). Labs & Teams: She leads the Institute for Explainable Machine Learning at Helmholtz Munich and heads the Multimodal Learning and Explainable AI group at TUM. The institute collaborates closely with the ELLIS Institute Tübingen and Cyber Valley ecosystem, and maintains close ties with the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and Informatics.
Kyle Bellucci Johanson serves as a Visiting Critic in Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, Department of Art. Holding an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and a BA in Art and Reconciliation Studies from Bethel University, he merges artistic practice with critical theory through performance architecture and collaborative media. Whitney Independent Study Program (2022–23) Founding fellow at land's edge free school (Los Angeles) Teaching experience at SAIC, UIC, CUNY, and Cooper Union His research investigates: Power structures through spatial interventions Critical theory applications in art practice Post-capitalist imaginaries Hauntology and historical materialism Transdisciplinary approaches to social critique Project trends reveal: Reinterpretation of Soviet design principles Investigation of worker identity in post-industrial contexts Temporal and spatial dislocation in artistic practice Monument critique through performative methods Quantum theory-inspired architectural concepts Reimagining of common spaces as political sites Scientific awards include: Creative Research Grant (2025) Whitney ISP participation (2022–23) Automata Studio Residency (2022) Artists Run Chicago Grant (2021) BOLT Residency (2020–21) Through projects like KLUB WRKR —a nomadic workers' club reimagined for the gig economy—and table (2018–2022), a Chicago-based experimental space for artistic practice, he interrogates institutional frameworks while fostering community through discursive meals and collaborative exhibitions.
Yannis Chronis is an incoming Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science , ETH Zurich (starting August 2025), where he will join the ETH Systems Group . Prior to this, he spent 3 years as a Systems Researcher at Google's Systems Research Group in Sunnyvale, USA. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (advised by Prof. Jignesh Patel) and a Bachelor's/Master's from the University of Athens, Greece (advised by Prof. Yannis Ioannidis). His research focuses on optimizing databases and data processing for modern hardware through software-hardware co-design. Key areas include database efficiency in memory-centric architectures, learned query optimizers, and cloud resource management. His work is supported by a Facebook Fellowship and has been recognized with the EDBT 2016 Medal for best paper. Teaching: Taught CS 564 - Database Management Systems at UW-Madison (Spring 2022). Service: Served on program committees for SIGMOD, VLDB, CIDR, and others, and chairs the CIDR Proceedings Committee. Key Publications: His recent work includes studies on memory-centric computing for databases, cardinality estimation benchmarks, and adaptive query processing techniques.
François-Xavier Briol is an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistical Science at University College London (UCL). He co-leads the Fundamentals of Statistical Machine Learning research group and holds roles including theme lead for Computational Statistics and Machine Learning (CSML), co-director of the UCL CDT in Data-Intensive Science, and ELLIS scholar. His research focuses on merging scientific models with data through robust statistical and machine learning methods, emphasizing computational efficiency and model misspecification robustness. Education: BSc/MMORSE from the University of Warwick, PhD from the joint Warwick-Oxford CDT in Statistics. Postdoctoral roles at Imperial College London (Mathematics) and University of Cambridge (Engineering), followed by a Group Leader position at The Alan Turing Institute (2020–2023). Research interests include probabilistic numerical methods, Bayesian inference for intractable models, Stein’s method, and kernel-based approaches. His work has been recognized via awards like the AISTATS Best Paper Award and Blackwell-Rosenbluth Award, with funding from EPSRC and Amazon. Advising: Supervised PhD students in areas like Bayesian quadrature, robust inference, and Gaussian processes. Current students focus on topics such as Bayesian filtering and sensitivity analysis. Grants include EPSRC funding and an Amazon Research Award. Labs/Teams: Active in UCL’s ELLIS unit, CSML, and Turing Institute collaborations. Editorships include SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification and Bayesian Analysis.
Caroline Lemieux is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia (UBC), with research focused on advancing software correctness, security, and performance through innovative testing and synthesis techniques. Her work bridges Programming Languages and Software Engineering , particularly in fuzz testing, specification mining, and program synthesis. PhD from University of California, Berkeley (2021), advised by Koushik Sen Postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research, NYC (2021-2022) Key contributions: FuzzFactory , CodaMOSA , Arvada , and Gauss Her research integrates machine learning with traditional testing methods, exemplified by projects like RLCheck (reinforcement learning for test generation) and AutoPandas (neural synthesis for dataframes). Recent publications analyze generator-based fuzzing challenges and propose hybrid strategies combining coverage feedback with AI-driven insights. Scientific Awards : ACM/SIGSOFT Best Paper Award (ESEC/FSE 2019) ACM/SIGSOFT Tool Demonstration Award (ISSTA 2019) ACM/SIGSOFT Distinguished Artifact Award (ISSTA 2019) NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship-Doctoral (PGS D) UBC Governor General's Silver Medal (2016) Teaching roles include: 2025W2: CPSC 539L - Topics in Programming Languages 2024W2: CPSC 410 - Advanced Software Engineering 2023W2: CPSC 410 (with Alex Summers) She supervises graduate and undergraduate researchers working on projects like ExploTest (automated unit test generation) and GRIMOIRE (grammar extraction from pseudo-rules). Her research team collaborates with institutions including Microsoft Research, Google, and academic partners in systems security and AI-driven testing.
Professor Wayne Luk is a Professor of Computer Engineering at the Department of Computing, Faculty of Engineering, Imperial College London. He leads the Programming Languages and Systems Section and the Custom Computing Research Group, and directs the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in High-performance Embedded and Distributed Systems and the Centre for Advanced Financial Engineering. He previously served as a Visiting Professor at Stanford University from 2006 to 2009. His research spans FPGA acceleration, quantum computing, deep learning optimization, and algorithm-hardware co-design, with affiliations to the CRUK Convergence Science Centre and the Engineering Secure Software Systems group. His research interests include computational modeling for particle physics, causal discovery in agent-based systems, and high-throughput digital electronics. Notable contributions include FPGA-accelerated algorithms for neural networks, quantum circuit simulation, and Bayesian optimization frameworks. His work emphasizes practical applications of reconfigurable hardware in fields like medical imaging, high-energy physics, and financial systems. Professor Luk is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, IEEE, and BCS. His publications focus on advancing hardware-aware machine learning, FPGA-based acceleration techniques, and scalable design methodologies. His research bridges theoretical computer science with applied engineering, addressing challenges in real-time systems, embedded computing, and next-generation computing architectures. His academic leadership includes directing interdisciplinary centers and training programs, fostering collaboration across computing, engineering, and physics. Current projects explore quantum computing tools, causal inference systems, and high-performance graph neural networks for particle physics applications.
Virginia Smith is the Leonardo Associate Professor of Machine Learning at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, with a courtesy appointment in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. She leads research addressing critical challenges in machine learning systems, particularly focusing on safety and efficiency. Her research interests span federated and collaborative learning, efficient training methods, data privacy, and AI safety. Recent work has explored topics such as model unlearning, LLM security, and resource-efficient distributed learning systems. She has made significant contributions to understanding how to make machine learning systems more robust, private, and efficient while maintaining performance. Professor Smith's publication record demonstrates a clear progression toward addressing practical challenges in deploying machine learning systems at scale. Her recent work shows strong emphasis on large language model safety, privacy-preserving techniques, and efficient distributed learning approaches. The research spans theoretical foundations to practical implementations, with numerous papers appearing in top-tier venues including NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, and MLSys. AFOSR Young Investigator Award Sloan Research Fellowship 2023 Samsung AI Researcher of the Year Best Paper Award at ICML 2025 Exploration in AI Workshop Outstanding Paper Award at MLSys 2023 As an educator, Professor Smith mentors numerous PhD students and postdocs while teaching advanced machine learning courses at CMU. She serves as Program Chair for ICML 2025 and co-organizes a semester program on Federated and Collaborative Learning at the Simons Institute. Her research group maintains strong collaborations with industry partners including Amazon, where she has received research awards.
Nam Sung Kim is the W. J. "Jerry" Sanders III-Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Endowed Chair and holds a Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois. He is also affiliated with the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science, Coordinated Science Lab, and National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). His research focuses on computer architecture, memory systems, chiplet integration, and hardware security. Key areas include energy-efficient computing, processing-in-memory (PIM), and mitigating hardware vulnerabilities like rowhammer attacks. Kim has received prestigious awards including IEEE Fellow (2016), MICRO Hall of Fame (2018), NAI Fellow (2023), and NSF CAREER Award (2015). His work spans publications in top venues like ASPLOS and IEEE journals, addressing topics such as CXL-based memory systems, DRAM module optimization, and GPU architecture improvements. Collaborations emphasize interdisciplinary research in hardware-software co-design and emerging technologies. His labs and teams at Coordinated Science Lab and NCSA drive innovations in scalable computing, near-memory processing, and cloud infrastructure for AI workloads. Ongoing projects include developing resilient memory hierarchies and accelerating large-scale machine learning models through novel architecture designs.
