Rui Zhang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Delaware. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University (2013) and has held academic positions at the University of Hawaii and industry roles at UTStarcom. His research focuses on cybersecurity, wireless networks, and privacy-preserving technologies, with notable work on secure edge computing and mobile authentication systems. Education: PhD, Electrical Engineering, Arizona State University, 2013 M.E., Communication and Information Systems, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, 2005 B.E., Communication Engineering, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, 2001 Research Interests: Rui’s work spans secure wireless systems, mobile crowdsourcing, accessibility technologies for visually impaired users, edge computing, and social network privacy. He has led NSF-funded projects on trustworthy hierarchical edge computing and secure mobile cloud sensing. Grants & Awards: Recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2017) and multiple NSF grants totaling over $1M. Current focus includes NSF-funded research on edge computing security and privacy-preserving data aggregation. Teaching: Has taught courses in algorithms, network security, and computer networks at both University of Delaware and University of Hawaii. Labs & Teams: Leads research projects in secure edge computing and collaborates with Arizona State University on federally funded initiatives. Active in organizing academic conferences like ISC 2016 and serving on editorial boards of IEEE journals.
Diane E. Austin is a Professor and Director of the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. She also serves as a Research Anthropologist at the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA). Her work focuses on environmental anthropology, particularly community dynamics in industrial and environmental contexts, with a strong emphasis on social justice and collaborative research. She has over 25 years of experience leading interdisciplinary projects in the U.S., Mexico, and Gulf Coast regions. Austin's research spans diverse areas including Native American communities, U.S.-Mexico border sustainability, Gulf Coast oil industry impacts, and urban food systems in arid regions. She has pioneered long-term partnerships with tribal organizations, federal agencies, and community groups, earning recognition such as the University Distinguished Outreach Professor (2008) and Distinguished Director (2023). Her recent work highlights longitudinal studies on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill's social effects, binational environmental initiatives in Nogales, and community-based approaches to disaster resilience. She coordinates BARA's internship and post-baccalaureate programs, supporting hundreds of students in applied anthropological research. Awards: Partners in Conservation Award (2010), Border Research Partnership Award Finalist (2012) Leadership Roles: Chair of the Good Neighbor Environmental Board, Member of the Gulf Research Program Advisory Board Key Projects: Southern Paiute cultural preservation, Gulf Coast oil industry studies, Nogales reforestation initiatives Austin’s teaching includes courses on ethnographic methods, data analysis, and mixed-methods research. She actively engages in policy advocacy, contributing expert testimony in legal proceedings related to environmental disasters and labor rights.
Dr. Anwar Haque is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Western University, Canada, and a Faculty of Science Distinguished Research Professor. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. Prior to academia, he was Associate Director at Bell Canada. His research focuses on 5G networks, IoT, cybersecurity, AI, and autonomous systems, with over 100 peer-reviewed publications and $15M in collaborative grants. Dr. Haque leads the Western Information & Networking Group (WING) Lab and is the founder/CEO of Bamboo Innovations Inc., a tech startup developing socially responsible smart technologies. Leadership roles include industry expert-in-residence in the Faculty of Science, Undergraduate Chair of the Computer Science Department, and member of Western’s Senate. He has delivered over 30 keynote talks and media features include BBC Earth and The Globe and Mail. Awards include the IEEE CCECE Leadership Award and multiple grants from NSERC, MITACS, and Bell Canada. His work spans network reliability, smart grids, and cybersecurity, with industry partnerships like the Bell-Western 5G Research Centre.
Mikhail (Misha) Belkin is a Professor at the Halicioglu Data Science Institute (HDSI) at the University of California San Diego , with an affiliated appointment in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering . He is also an Amazon Scholar , reflecting his impactful industry collaboration. Since January 2024, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the SIAM Journal on Mathematics of Data Science (SIMODS) . Research Interests: Belkin's research centers on the theoretical foundations of machine learning, particularly the mathematical understanding of modern deep learning. His work investigates interpolation , over-parameterization , and feature learning in neural networks. He is renowned for introducing the double descent risk curve, which reconciles classical bias-variance trade-offs with the success of overfitted models. His recent work identifies the Average Gradient Outer Product (AGOP) as a fundamental mechanism of feature learning, applicable across architectures like CNNs and transformers. Scientific Contributions and Trends: His recent publications, appearing in Science , PNAS , and NeurIPS , demonstrate a strong trend toward unifying theories of generalization and optimization in over-parameterized systems. He explores how interpolating models can be statistically optimal, how gradient descent converges in non-convex landscapes via the PL* condition, and how kernel methods can be enhanced to perform feature learning. ACM Fellow (2023) Editor-in-Chief, SIAM Journal on Mathematics of Data Science (2024–present) Advising and Grants: Belkin actively mentors students and collaborators such as Adityanarayanan Radhakrishnan , Daniel Beaglehole , and Chaoyue Liu , who are frequent co-authors. He is a Principal Investigator (PI) in the Collaboration on the Theoretical Foundations of Deep Learning , funded by the NSF and Simons Foundation. He is also an external collaborator with the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center at the Broad Institute and part of the NSF-funded TILOS AI Institute . Laboratories and Teams: While not explicitly named, his research group at UCSD is deeply involved in theoretical machine learning, focusing on the intersection of statistics, optimization, and deep learning. His work often involves large-scale collaborations and is closely tied to initiatives like SIMODS and TILOS.
Dr. Jonathan Bright is a Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford , specializing in computational approaches to the social and political sciences. His research explores how digital technologies reshape political participation and how new data sources enhance governmental decision-making. Research Interests: Focused on social media, political behavior, computational social science, and big data , Bright’s work addresses digital governance, algorithmic bureaucracy, and the dynamics of political fragmentation online. His empirical studies span open government data usage, crowdsourced geographical information, and the impact of neighborhood effects on data completeness. Scientific Contributions: Leading studies on algorithmic governance in UK local authorities (2020) Investigating geodemographic biases in crowdsourced platforms like OpenStreetMap (2018) Mapping political fragmentation in social media ecosystems (2018) Grants & Collaborations: Funded by UK taxpayers, ESRC, and Google, his work intersects with projects on vaccine misinformation, hate speech monitoring, and digital economies. Formerly held positions as Research Fellow and Research Associate at OII from 2013 to present.
Alexandra Boldyreva is a Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, holding joint appointments in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and the School of Computer Science. She serves as Associate Chair for Graduate Studies in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and coordinates the Information Security Master’s program in the College of Computing. Her affiliations include the Institute for Information Security & Privacy (IISP), the Algorithms, Combinatorics and Optimization (ACO) program, and the Algorithms and Randomness Center (ARC). She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego, and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in applied mathematics from St. Petersburg State Technical University, Russia. Her research focuses on cryptography and information security, with notable contributions to encryption methods, authentication protocols, and privacy-preserving systems. Boldyreva’s work emphasizes provable security analysis of protocols like FIDO2 and TLS 1.3, as well as searchable encryption and data privacy techniques. Her recent studies include secure communication channel establishment, leakage quantification in encryption systems, and applications of fuzzy search in encrypted databases. She has received Test of Time Awards for foundational contributions to cryptography. Boldyreva leads initiatives in cybersecurity education and has secured grants for research in secure communication protocols and human-computing approaches to key exchange. Her interdisciplinary collaborations span computer science, mathematics, and privacy engineering.
Yin Tat Lee is an Associate Professor at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering , University of Washington, and a Senior Principal Researcher in Microsoft AI. His research spans convex optimization , convex geometry , graph algorithms , online algorithms , and differential privacy , with applications in machine learning and theoretical computer science.
Lyubov Zhyznomirska is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Saint Mary's University, specializing in European studies, migration governance, and democratization processes. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Alberta (2012), with a focus on EU migration cooperation with Eastern neighbors. Her current research examines the reception of war-displaced Ukrainians in Canada, the UK, and Germany. She has held a Jean Monnet Post-Doctoral Fellowship and is active in research networks such as the European Community Studies Association-Canada and the Migration Research Network. Teaching focuses on comparative politics, European Union politics, and migration studies. Recent SSHRC-funded projects include studies on Ukrainian refugee integration in Nova Scotia and the impact of temporary status on newcomer youth. Awards include the Jean Monnet Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2011-2012). Research interests include forced displacement, post-war societies, and EU-Ukraine-Russia dynamics. She co-edited The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Migration in Europe (2019) and publishes in journals such as Comparative European Politics . Professional roles include Treasurer of ECSA-Canada (2021-2024) and President of the Atlantic Provinces Political Science Association (2022-2023).
Henrik Boström is a Professor of Computer Science specializing in Data Science Systems at the Division of Software and Computer Systems, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. His research focuses on trustworthy machine learning , with emphasis on conformal prediction (for confidence-calibrated predictions) and explainable AI . He is the developer of Python packages crepes (conformal classifiers/regressors) and xrf (explainable random forests). His primary research domains include: Developing robust methods for uncertainty quantification in predictive models Creating interpretable machine learning frameworks Optimizing ensemble techniques for high-dimensional data Applying ML to healthcare informatics and industrial diagnostics Analysis of his recent publications reveals strong emphasis on: (1) advancing conformal prediction theory for trustworthy AI, (2) enhancing interpretability of complex models like random forests and GNNs, and (3) developing efficient algorithms for uncertainty-aware learning in domains including healthcare, graph data, and high-dimensional regression. He serves as examiner for multiple degree projects and teaches courses including Programming for Data Science (ID2214) and Research Methodology and Scientific Writing (II2202) . He leads development of open-source tools for conformal prediction and model interpretation.
Matthias Feurer is a Thomas Bayes Fellow and interim professor at the Chair of Statistical Learning and Data Science, funded by the Munich Center for Machine Learning (MCML) at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He is a member of the Department of Statistics at LMU Munich, working under Prof. Dr. Bernd Bischl. His academic background includes: PhD in Computer Science from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, supervised by Prof. Dr. Frank Hutter M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Freiburg B.Sc. in Computer Science and Media from the Media University Stuttgart Feurer's research focuses on simplifying machine learning usage through Automated Machine Learning (AutoML). His work encompasses hyperparameter optimization, meta-learning, and model selection, with increasing emphasis on multi-objective AutoML that considers factors beyond predictive performance such as interpretability, deployability, and fairness. He actively develops open-source tools to advance the field. His recent publications demonstrate a strong trajectory in practical AutoML systems, with growing attention to tabular machine learning, foundation models integration, and addressing real-world constraints in optimization. His work consistently bridges theoretical advances with practical implementations through several widely-used open-source projects. Notable achievements include: 1st place in the warmstarting-friendly leaderboard of the BBO NeurIPS challenge Winner of the 2nd AutoML challenge Winner of the kdnuggets blog contest on AutoML Feurer is actively mentoring and teaching, having advertised PhD positions focused on AutoML, optimization, and benchmarking. He co-founded the Open Machine Learning Foundation supporting OpenML.org. His upcoming move to TU Dortmund as an assistant professor in AutoML and Optimization signals continued growth in his academic career while maintaining his research focus on making machine learning more accessible and rigorous.
Vladimir Spokoiny is a Professor at the Departments of Mathematics and Economics of the Humboldt University of Berlin and Head of the Research Group "Stochastic Algorithms and Nonparametric Statistics" at the Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics (WIAS) in Berlin, Germany. His research spans multiple areas of statistics, machine learning, and financial mathematics, with significant contributions to nonparametric statistics, high-dimensional data analysis, and statistical methods in finance. Spokoiny received his M.Sc. in applied mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Railway Engineering in 1981 and his Ph.D. in mathematics from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1988. He completed his Habilitation at Humboldt University in 1996. His academic career includes positions at the All-Union Institute of Railway Transport in Moscow, the Institute for Information Transmission Problems in Moscow, and the Institute for Applied Analysis and Statistics in Berlin before joining the Weierstrass Institute and Humboldt University where he has been a professor since 2002. Spokoiny's research focuses on adaptive nonparametric smoothing and hypothesis testing, high dimensional data analysis, statistical methods in finance, image analysis with applications to medicine, classification, and nonlinear time series. His work often addresses the challenges of nonstationarity in time series data and develops innovative methods for volatility estimation and risk management. He has made significant contributions to the development of adaptive weights smoothing procedures, which have applications in image processing, community detection, and manifold learning. His recent work has expanded into high-dimensional statistics, Bayesian inference, and optimization methods for machine learning, with publications demonstrating novel approaches to Gaussian approximation, Laplace methods, and statistical inference in non-Euclidean spaces. Spokoiny has supervised numerous PhD students including Oliver Reiss, Danilo Mercurio, Ying Chen, Elmar Diederichs, and Mstislav Elagin, whose research has focused on mathematical finance, time series analysis, and statistical methods. He serves as an Associate Editor for The Annals of Statistics (since 2004) and Statistics and Decisions (since 2002), and has previously served on the editorial board of the Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference. His professional activities include reviewing for major statistical journals including Annals of Statistics, Bernoulli, Econometrica, and Journal of American Statistical Association, as well as reviewing grant proposals for the National Science Foundation (USA), German Research Foundation, and Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. Spokoiny is a member of several professional societies including the International Statistical Institute, American Statistical Association, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and Bernoulli Society. He is fluent in Russian (mother tongue), English, and German, and has good knowledge of French. His research group at WIAS focuses on developing novel statistical methodologies with applications across various scientific domains, particularly emphasizing adaptivity and robustness in complex data environments. The group's work has significant implications for financial risk management, medical imaging, and machine learning applications, with recent publications addressing fundamental questions in high-dimensional statistics and nonparametric inference.
Zhou Zhi-Hua is a Professor at Nanjing University's Department of Computer Science & Technology, serving as Standing Deputy Director of the National Key Lab for Novel Software Technology and Founding Director of LAMDA (Institute of Machine Learning and Data Mining). He holds simultaneous fellowships from ACM, AAAI, AAAS, IEEE, IAPR, IET/IEE, and CCF, reflecting his exceptional contributions to computational intelligence. His educational background includes: B.Sc. in Computer Science from Nanjing University (1996) M.Sc. in Computer Science from Nanjing University (1998) Ph.D. in Computer Science from Nanjing University (2000) Zhou's research pioneers fundamental advances in machine learning theory and applications. His seminal work on ensemble methods established new frameworks for classifier combination, while innovations in multi-label learning and anomaly detection addressed critical challenges in complex data analysis. His research bridges theoretical rigor with practical implementations across diverse domains including biometrics, data mining, and computer vision, resulting in over 150 publications and 18 patents. His textbooks "Ensemble Methods" (2012) and "Machine Learning" (2016) have become standard references in the field. Analysis of his publication trajectory reveals sustained leadership in core machine learning challenges: evolving from neural network ensembles (2002) through semi-supervised learning breakthroughs (2005) to foundational work on multi-instance learning (2012) and theoretical margin analysis (2013). His recent focus demonstrates increasing sophistication in handling complex data structures while maintaining theoretical soundness. His scientific excellence is recognized through: National Natural Science Award of China (2013) PAKDD Distinguished Contribution Award (2016) IEEE ICDM Outstanding Service Award (2016) IEEE CIS Outstanding Early Career Award (2013) Microsoft Professorship Award (2006) Simultaneous fellowships from 7 major international societies Zhou provides extraordinary service to the academic community as Executive Editor-in-Chief of Frontiers of Computer Science and Associate Editor-in-Chief of Science China Information Science. He founded the ACML conference and has chaired premier events including ICDM'16 and PAKDD'14. His leadership extends to serving as General Chair for ICDM'16, Program Chair for IJCAI'15 Machine Learning Track, and Area Chair for multiple top conferences. The available text does not specify student advising details or research grants. He directs LAMDA research group at Nanjing University, which has established itself as a global powerhouse in machine learning research, and contributes significantly to the National Key Lab for Novel Software Technology's mission of developing next-generation intelligent systems.
Nati Srebro is a Professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago with a cross-appointment as a Part-Time Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics at the University of Chicago. He earned his PhD from MIT in 2004 and has held previous positions including post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, Visiting Scientist at IBM, and Associate Professor at the Technion. Professor Srebro's research focuses on methodological, statistical and computational aspects of Machine Learning and Optimization. His work spans foundational contributions to learning theory, matrix reconstruction, and optimization techniques. He is particularly known for introducing the use of nuclear norm for machine learning, work on wider Markov networks, and advancing our understanding of the relationship between learning and optimization. His current research interests include understanding deep learning through optimization, distributed and federated learning systems, algorithmic fairness, and practical adaptive data analysis. His publication record shows consistent contributions to core machine learning conferences and workshops, with recent work focusing on symmetric and asymmetric hashing techniques, matrix parameter learning, and optimization methods. The publications demonstrate a strong theoretical foundation with practical applications across various machine learning domains. Professor Srebro has been actively involved in several research programs including the Federated and Collaborative Learning program (Spring 2026, as Visiting Scientist and Program Organizer), Modern Paradigms in Generalization (Fall 2024), and multiple summer clusters on Deep Learning Theory and Fairness. His program participation reflects his leadership in emerging areas of machine learning research. Contact: nati@ttic.edu | (773) 834-7493 | Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, 6045 S. Kenwood Ave., Chicago, IL 60637
Wenpeng Yin is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Engineering, specializing in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning. His research focuses on advancing Large Language Models (LLMs) and their applications in scientific, societal, and interdisciplinary domains. Research Interests : LLMs, medical QA, financial AI, model consistency, and instruction-following frameworks. Recent Work : Investigates low-resource NLP tasks, bias evaluation (Gptbias), and adaptive trading systems using LLMs. Current trends in his publications highlight innovations in multimodal learning, symbolic reasoning, and ethical AI, with a strong emphasis on practical implementations across diverse fields.
Dr. Michael Baym is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School with affiliate appointments in Microbiology and the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology, and as an Associate Member of the Broad Institute. He leads the Baym Lab, which studies microbial evolutionary genomics and antibiotic resistance through a hybrid of experimental, computational, and theoretical approaches. His research focuses on: Antibiotic Resistance Evolution and practical interventions Mobile Genetic Elements (plasmids, phages, transposons) Computational Genomic Algorithms for big data analysis Synthetic Biology tools and technologies Key recent publications explore phage discovery systems , phylogenetic compression of microbial genomes, and RNA-guided gene drives in plasmids. His work is supported by multiple NIH/NIGMS and NSF grants including a MIRA award. Scientific honors include: Packard Fellowship (2018) Pew Biomedical Scholarship (2020) Sloan Research Fellowship (2020) A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award (2021) SSQBio Mentorship Award (2022) The lab actively trains PhD students and postdoctoral fellows with alumni occupying academic and industry positions globally. Current team members include researchers from interdisciplinary backgrounds working at the intersection of experiment, computation, and theory .
