Paul Barnes is a Professor at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), specializing in disaster management, infrastructure resilience, and risk analysis. His work spans water resource management under climate change, crisis response planning, and IT governance in public sectors. He has co-edited proceedings of major conferences like the International Institute for Infrastructure Renewal and Reconstruction and contributed to influential reports on disaster resilience and trilateral cooperation in humanitarian assistance. Research interests include resilience modeling, crisis escalation dynamics, and the integration of security systems in transportation hubs. Barnes has collaborated with institutions globally, addressing challenges in maritime safety, airport security, and community-based risk reduction. His interdisciplinary approach bridges engineering, policy, and sociology to enhance preparedness for natural and human-made disasters. Key contributions include frameworks for assessing water supply system resilience, scenario-based disaster capability planning, and analyses of governance reforms in Indonesia. Barnes has also led projects on business continuity management in airports and the insurance industry, emphasizing proactive measures against disruptions.
Emine Yilmaz is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science, University College London (UCL), and an EPSRC Fellow. She is also a faculty fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, an ELLIS fellow, and an Amazon Scholar working with the Alexa Shopping team. She leads the Web Intelligence Group at UCL's Centre for Artificial Intelligence and co-founded Humanloop, a UCL spinout company. Her research focuses on information retrieval and natural language processing, leveraging machine learning, statistics, and information theory. She has authored over 150 papers, with significant contributions to conversational search, synthetic data evaluation, and AI ethics. Her work is funded by EU Horizon 2020, EPSRC, Google, and Bloomberg. Key awards include the Karen Sparck Jones Award and Google/Bloomberg research awards. She serves as co-editor-in-chief for the Information Retrieval Journal and holds editorial roles in AI Journal and ACM Transactions on Information Systems. She has organized major conferences like ACM SIGIR and TREC Deep Learning Track since 2019. Current research includes proactive conversational systems, bias analysis in synthetic data, and large language model evaluation. She advises numerous PhD students and postdocs, with notable alumni holding faculty and research roles globally.
Professor Emine Yilmaz is a distinguished academic at University College London (Department of Computer Science), holding concurrent roles as a Turing Fellow and Amazon Scholar. She leads the Web Intelligence Group at the UCL Centre for Artificial Intelligence and collaborates with Amazon's Alexa Shopping team as an Amazon Scholar. Her research focuses on information retrieval, natural language processing, and machine learning, with over 150 publications (6,250+ citations, H-index 39). Notable awards include the Karen Sparck Jones Award, Google Faculty Research Award, and Bloomberg Data Science Research Award. Her work is funded by EU Horizon 2020, EPSRC, and industry partners like Google and Bloomberg. She has served in leadership roles for journals (e.g., Information Retrieval Journal) and conferences (e.g., ACM SIGIR 2024 PC Chair). Recent projects include organizing the TREC Deep Learning Track and co-founding Humanloop, a UCL spinout company. Research Interests: Machine learning for search systems, conversational AI, educational technology, and ethical AI. Key Contributions: Synthetic test collections (SYNDL), contextual understanding in dialogue systems, and knowledge-enhanced retrieval frameworks. Her articles emphasize robustness in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), proactive search systems, and bias mitigation in synthetic data. Recent highlights include work on personalization benchmarks (PersonaLens) and trustworthiness in AI systems (TrustRAG). Awards: Karen Sparck Jones Award (2021), Google Faculty Research Award (2020), Bloomberg Data Science Award (2019). She advises over 10 current PhD students and has mentored 9 former students, many now in academia and industry. Her grants span EU, UK, and industry funding, with recent support from Bloomberg’s PhD fellowship program and Google Research Awards. Labs/Teams: Web Intelligence Group (UCL), co-founder of Humanloop, and key contributor to the TREC Deep Learning initiative.
Dr. Grace Hui Yang is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Computer Science at Georgetown University, where she leads the InfoSense (Information Retrieval and Sense-Making) research group. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Language Technologies from Carnegie Mellon University and has received prestigious recognition including an NSF CAREER Award. Her research focuses on: Deep reinforcement learning for interactive systems Privacy-preserving information retrieval Proactive conversational agents Neural information retrieval architectures Publication analysis reveals three primary research trajectories: (1) Fundamental advances in neural IR infrastructure including segment-based indexing and gaze-incorporated models; (2) Theoretical frameworks for understanding search behavior and task classification; (3) Applied systems for conversational AI and proactive interaction. Recent work increasingly examines LLM integration in information systems. Dr. Yang has led major initiatives including TREC Dynamic Domain tracks and SIGIR workshops on privacy-preserving IR. She currently supervises multiple PhD students working on large language models and conversational agents. Her research has been supported by DARPA and NSF, including a recent $599,974 grant for developing proactive conversational systems.
Dr. Andrew Weaver is Professor in Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, currently on leave. His research spans climate change policy, ocean-climate interactions, and renewable energy solutions. Previously focused on paleoclimate reconstruction and ocean modeling, current work emphasizes practical climate mitigation strategies including ocean thermal energy conversion. Research contributions include development of the UVic Earth System Climate Model, analysis of multi-millennial climate policy impacts, and studies linking plastic pollution to carbon cycling. Recent publications examine mental health dimensions of climate change and educational applications of climate science. As former lead author for IPCC assessment reports and BC Green Party leader, work bridges scientific research, policy development, and public communication of climate science.
Prof. Wolfgang Minker is a University Professor at the Institute of Communications Engineering, Ulm University, Germany. He holds dual doctorates in Engineering Science and Computer Science from the University of Karlsruhe and Université Paris-Sud. His professional roles include serving as Dean of Studies, Director of the Interns' Office, and Ombudsperson for PhD Programs. He co-directed the International Research Laboratory for Multimodal Biometric and Speech Systems at ITMO University (2017–2022) and currently leads the ERSAMUS Educational Coordination team. His research focuses on AI-driven dialogue systems, human-robot interaction, and computational paralinguistics, emphasizing trust modeling, empathetic systems, and cross-cultural applications. Key projects include the BEA argumentation framework and the KURT household assistance robot. Education: 1997/1998: Dual Doctorate in Engineering Science (Karlsruhe) and Computer Science (Paris-Sud) 1993: Diplom Degree in Engineering Science (Karlsruhe) & DEA in Computer Science (Paris-Sud) 1987–1993: Electronics Systems Engineering studies at University of Karlsruhe with ERASMUS specialization in Paris Research Themes: Proactive dialogue systems, AI ethics, multimodal interaction, affective computing, and human-centric AI applications in healthcare and education. His work bridges theoretical frameworks with real-world deployment, addressing challenges in trust, cultural adaptation, and ethical AI integration. Key Contributions: Pioneered context-aware dialogue systems (e.g., Robert DIY assistant), developed emotion recognition pipelines using audiovisual fusion, and advanced argumentative dialogue architectures. His research emphasizes socially-aware reinforcement learning and user engagement optimization in group interactions. Institutional Roles: Member of Habilitation Committee & Examination Boards Admission Board representative for engineering programs Coordinator for international educational partnerships
Amanda Millmore is a Professor of Law at the University of Reading's School of Law, specializing in legal pedagogy and family/criminal law. She holds a National Teaching Fellowship (2022) and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her research bridges teaching innovation and legal practice, focusing on employability skills, technology-enhanced learning, and vulnerable witness support in justice systems. Educations: MA (Cantab), Christ's College, Cambridge Called to the Bar (Lincoln’s Inn, 1996) PGCAP in Academic Practice, University of Reading (2015) Research Interests: Student-staff partnerships in curriculum design Technology in legal education (e.g., Mentimeter) Employability integration in law degrees Witness vulnerability in criminal trials Her ESRC-funded projects include 'Autism in Court: Measuring Special Measures' (2024) and 'Access to Justice for Children with Autism' (2022). She has led over 8 pedagogical projects since 2018, focusing on disabled students, blended learning, and inclusive assessments. Awards: 2025 Collaborative Award (Diversity & Inclusion Dialogues), 2022 Reading Students' Union Teaching Excellence Award, 2019 University Teaching Fellowship. Grants & Collaborations: ESRC grants (2022, 2024), PLanT scheme projects (2020-2023), and inter-professional workshops with psychologists. She oversees advocacy training programs for law students.
Owen Conlan is Professor of Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin and Head of Artificial Intelligence Discipline. As Co-director of Trinity Centre for Digital Humanities, his research focuses on personalization, adaptive hypermedia, and user modelling. Awarded Fellow of Trinity College (2015) for contributions to personalized systems. Education includes PhD in Computer Science. Leads ADAPT Centre's Personalising User Experience theme with €10.8m research funding. Teaches undergraduate/postgraduate courses on AI and digital humanities. Publications demonstrate consistent focus on explainable AI and user control in personalized systems. Recent work explores virtual humans for medical training, misinformation countermeasures, and time management assistants. Hypertext 2021 General Chair; ACM Web Conference 2027 General Chair. Research groups: Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge & Data Engineering (KDEG).
Rosta Farzan is a Professor and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Computing and Information. She specializes in social computing, focusing on online communities, socio-technical systems, and digital equity. Her work emphasizes empowering marginalized groups through technology design and fostering equitable participation in knowledge production. Education: Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh Affiliations: School of Computing and Information, Department of Informatics and Networked Systems Research Interests: Farzan's research integrates computational methods with social sciences to address societal challenges. Key areas include: Designing privacy-centric sensor systems Community-engaged digital equity programs Collaborative platforms for health support and education Recent Contributions: Recent work includes studies on algorithmic governance, LGBTQ+ suicide prevention interventions, and cyberbullying mitigation strategies. She leads projects funded by NSF and the R. K. Mellon Foundation addressing digital divides and hyperlocal community engagement. Awards: Leverhulme Trust Fellowship (2019) Teaching: Courses like Social Computing, Network and Web Data Technologies, and Information Systems Analysis Labs/Initiatives: Leads projects such as 'Critical Data Literacy for Advocacy' and 'Fostering Hyper-local Digital Equity.'
David Guston is a Professor and Associate Vice Provost at Arizona State University's Global Futures Laboratory. His work focuses on responsible innovation governance, technology assessment, and anticipatory policy frameworks. A leading scholar in science and technology studies, he explores ethical dimensions of emerging technologies like nanotechnology and synthetic biology through interdisciplinary collaboration. Research interests include: (1) Anticipatory governance mechanisms for technologies like gene editing and geoengineering; (2) Public engagement methods in science policy; (3) Theoretical frameworks for responsible innovation; and (4) Historical analysis of scientific responsibility. His work bridges academic scholarship with practical policy design, emphasizing stakeholder collaboration. Recent publications emphasize anticipatory governance strategies, public deliberation processes, and mythological narratives in technology (e.g., Frankenstein analogies). His research often combines empirical studies with normative policy recommendations, addressing both technical and societal dimensions of innovation. Led initiatives at the Global Futures Laboratory to develop forward-thinking strategies for complex technological challenges. Engages with policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society to build capacity for proactive science governance.
Ilhan Aslan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Aalborg University (Denmark), affiliated with the Technical Faculty of IT and Design. His work focuses on Human-Centered Computing, with a strong emphasis on AI-driven interaction design, emotion-aware systems, and tangible/somaesthetic interfaces. He leads research in areas such as conversational AI, mobile computing, and smart environments, integrating machine learning with user-centered methodologies. Aslan's recent projects explore emotional speech processing, proactive AI agents, and creativity support tools, often bridging technical innovation with human well-being applications. His research spans over two decades, with notable contributions to mobile navigation systems (e.g., Bum Bag Navigator), gesture-based interaction, and ambient intelligence. Media coverage highlights his work on AI solutions for COPD patients and stress management applications. Aslan's approach combines rigorous technical development with ethnographic and participatory design practices, ensuring ethical and user-centric outcomes. His lab collaborates across disciplines, addressing challenges in HCI, AI ethics, and sustainable computing. Key Research Themes : Emotion-Aware AI, Human-AI Collaboration, Tangible Interaction, Mobile Health, Interactive Machine Learning Notable Projects : 'Feel my Speech' (haptic emotion conversion), 'BEHAVE AI' (ethical agent design), and somaesthetic smarthome systems Media Impact : Featured in 400,000+ Danes-relevant health tech stories and COPD patient support innovations Aslan's publications reflect a prolific trajectory from early mobile learning platforms (2000s) to cutting-edge generative AI and multimodal systems. His work consistently prioritizes real-world applicability through iterative prototyping and user studies, making him a key figure in both academic and applied HCI domains.
ChengXiang Zhai is the Donald Biggar Willett Professor in Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , holding appointments in the Department of Computer Science , Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology , and the Department of Statistics . He leads research in intelligent information systems, with a focus on information retrieval, data mining, NLP, and machine learning. His TIMAN research group and DAIS explore applications in healthcare, education, and scientific discovery. He develops MOOCs on text retrieval and mining, and has published extensively on topics including LLM alignment, user simulation, and multimodal systems. Key Research Areas : Intelligent search engines, explainable AI, human-AI collaboration, biomedical informatics Recent Trends : LLM economics, knowledge overshadowing, just-in-time recommendation systems He has received the ACM Fellow title, SIGIR Salton Award , and multiple teaching honors including Rose Award and Graduate Mentoring Award . He serves as series editor for Springer Information Retrieval Book Series .
Jennifer Perry Cheatham is a Senior Lecturer on Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) and serves as Faculty Chair of Field Engagement. She co-chairs the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP) and the Collaborative on Political Leadership in the Superintendency. With over 25 years of experience in education leadership, Dr. Cheatham brings extensive practical knowledge to her academic role, having served as superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District, chief of instruction for Chicago Public Schools, and in various other leadership positions across multiple school systems. Dr. Cheatham earned her Ed.D. from Harvard University's Graduate School of Education in 2010 through the Urban Superintendent's Program. Her educational background reflects her deep commitment to leadership in educational systems and her focus on equity and transformational change. Her research focuses on education reform, addressing inequality and education gaps, K-12 school and system leadership, organizational change, and student achievement. She specializes in creating instructional coherence, cultivating strong teams, designing systems for professional learning, and strengthening routines for organizational learning. Dr. Cheatham has developed frameworks for political leadership in education that require attention to self, local community, and national context. Her work emphasizes equity-focused leadership that navigates complex political landscapes while maintaining focus on student outcomes. Dr. Cheatham's publications reveal a consistent focus on leadership challenges in today's polarized educational landscape. Her work examines superintendent evaluation, political leadership in education, entry planning for new leaders, and strategies for maintaining focus on student learning amid political turmoil. She emphasizes proactive leadership approaches, relationship building, and self-awareness as critical skills for educational leaders navigating today's complex environment. Dr. Cheatham advises emerging and experienced educational leaders through her executive coaching practice, focusing on leadership entry, strategy development, and team development. She has supported superintendents nationwide in crafting entry plans, developing strategic initiatives, and strengthening organizational learning routines. Her work with the Collaborative on Political Leadership in the Superintendency (2023-2025) through Claremont Graduate University represents a significant research initiative addressing contemporary challenges in educational leadership. As co-chair of the Public Education Leadership Project and the Collaborative on Political Leadership in the Superintendency, Dr. Cheatham leads initiatives that bring together educational leaders, researchers, and practitioners to address critical challenges in school system leadership. These programs provide professional development, research opportunities, and networking for educational leaders committed to equity-focused change.
Shyam Gollakota is a Professor at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington. His research spans Artificial Intelligence, Human-Centered Computing, and Wireless Systems , with interdisciplinary collaborations in Biology and Medicine. He leads the Mobile Intelligence Lab , co-founded Sound Life Sciences (acquired by Google), and developed battery-free computing technologies. Education: Ph.D. from MIT (2013), B.Tech from IIT Madras Awards: Infosys Prize 2024, Moore Inventor Fellow, NSF CAREER, ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award His research focuses on machine learning for mobile systems, battery-free sensing, and human auditory augmentation . Recent work includes proactive in-ear assistants (ACL 2025), spatial speech translation (CHI 2025), and sound bubbles for personalized audio (Nature Electronics 2024) . Publications span Human-Computer Interaction, Wireless Networking, and Medical AI . Scientific achievements include: Best Paper Awards: MOBICOM, SIGCOMM, UbiComp, SenSys, NSDI, CHI Breakthroughs: Battery-free phones, ambient backscatter, smartphone-based medical diagnostics His team co-developed underwater GPS (SIGCOMM 2023), AI-enabled ClearBuds (MobiSys 2022), and wireless blood clot testing (Nature Communications 2022) . Collaborations include the Washington Department of Agriculture for monitoring invasive hornets.
Dr. Ariel Macaspac Hernandez is a Research Fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) since 2024 and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Duisburg-Essen’s Faculty of Social Sciences since 2016. With dual PhDs in Economics/Political Science and a Habilitation in Political Science, they specialise in sustainability transitions, climate governance, and knowledge diplomacy. Education : Habilitation (2021) – University of Duisburg-Essen PhD in Economics (2014) – University of Cologne PhD in Political Science (2011) – University of Vienna Research Interests span climate change negotiations , conflict management , and sustainability scenario-building . Their work integrates care theory and human flourishing into post-2030 development frameworks. Publications focus on integrated assessment models , voluntary sustainability standards , and resilience-based policy . They lead the T4T Co-LABorate research project on global knowledge transfer and co-organise workshops on indigenous knowledge preservation and drug trafficking dynamics .
