Haibin Ling is the SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stony Brook University, part of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. His research focuses on computer vision, medical image analysis, augmented reality, and AI applications in science. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland (2006) and prior degrees from Peking University. Previously, he worked at Temple University (2008–2019) and held roles at Siemens Corporate Research, UCLA, and Microsoft Research Asia. Professor Ling's work spans biomedical imaging, AI for science, and human-computer interaction. He leads the CV Lab and collaborates with the AI Institute at Stony Brook. Awards include the NSF CAREER Award (2014), Best Student Paper (ACM UIST 2003), and IEEE Fellow (2020). He serves on editorial boards for IEEE Trans. PAMI, Pattern Recognition, and CVIU, and chairs major conferences like CVPR. His research group includes over 50 students and alumni, with active projects in tracking benchmarks (LaSOT), Leafsnap, and medical imaging tools. Notable publications address OCTA flow estimation, backdoor attacks on vision models, and topology-guided medical learning. Collaborations involve institutions like Temple University and Stony Brook's Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics.
Richard E. Mayer is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, affiliated with the College of Letters & Science. His work bridges cognition, instruction, and technology to advance understanding of how people learn and how to design effective educational interventions. Research focuses on multimedia learning , computer-supported learning environments , and computer games for learning Current projects examine immersive virtual reality, generative learning strategies, and social cues in online instruction Recipient of top honors: Thorndike Award, Scribner Award, and APA’s Distinguished Contribution Award Principal Investigator on grants from the Office of Naval Research , Institute of Education Sciences , and National Science Foundation He leads the Mayer Lab for Research on Learning and Instruction, which emphasizes learning for transfer —ensuring learners apply knowledge in new contexts. His research has established 12 instructional design principles for online learning environments.
Elena Maria Baralis is a Full Professor at the Department of Control and Computer Science (DAUIN) at the Polytechnic University of Turin. She serves as Pro-Rector, member of the Board of Directors (without voting rights), member of the Academic Senate (without voting rights), and coordinator of the University's Permanent Observatory for Monitoring the Academic Sector. She chairs the Control and Computer Engineering Department and previously chaired the Computer Engineering School from October 2012 to October 2018. Her research interests focus on database systems and data mining, specifically explainable AI, bias detection in data analytics, and machine learning algorithms for big data. Her work spans various application domains including predictive maintenance, Industry 4.0, and healthcare. Recent publications demonstrate her expertise in speech processing, bias mitigation, and innovative neural network architectures like Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks. Her research output shows a clear trend toward addressing fairness and explainability in AI systems while exploring novel approaches to speech and language understanding. Professor Baralis has received significant recognition including becoming a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences of Turin in 2017. She has served as Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Internet of Things Journal (2016-2019) and Knowledge and Information Systems (2014-present). She actively mentors doctoral students including Claudio Savelli (researching Machine Unlearning), Eleonora Poeta, Giuseppe Gallipoli, Alkis Koudounas, and others. Her research is supported by numerous projects including AI4CTI (Artificial Intelligence for Cyber Threat Intelligence, 2025-2028), Smart manufacturing driven by Machine Learning in Industry 4.0 (2019-2020), and I-REACT (2016-2019).
Cyrill Stachniss is a Full Professor at the University of Bonn , where he heads the Lab for Photogrammetry and Robotics and is affiliated with the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence . He was previously a Visiting Professor in Engineering at the University of Oxford until 2025. His academic journey includes positions at the University of Freiburg, University of Zaragoza, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. University: University of Bonn School: Faculty of Engineering Department: Department of Photogrammetry Academic Rank: Professor His research spans robotics, photogrammetry, SLAM, autonomous navigation, perception systems, agricultural robotics, and unmanned aerial vehicles . He emphasizes probabilistic techniques for mobile robots and has made significant contributions to visual and LiDAR-based localization, scene understanding, and 3D reconstruction. The recent publications highlight a strong trend toward neural implicit representations, agricultural phenotyping, radar-based perception, and active learning . His team develops robust systems for real-world deployment in dynamic and unstructured environments, particularly in precision farming and autonomous vehicles. Scientific Awards: IEEE RAS Early Career Award (2013) Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow (2010) 7th EURON Georges Giralt Award (2008) Multiple Best Paper Awards at ICRA, IROS, RSS, and RAL Faculty Teaching Award, University of Freiburg He has advised numerous students and leads the DFG Cluster of Excellence PhenoRob and Research Unit FOR 1505 Mapping on Demand . His lab has co-founded three startups, reflecting strong industry and societal impact. He also runs the educational video series 5 Minutes with Cyrill , explaining key robotics concepts.
Animesh Garg is an Assistant Professor at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, where he leads the People, AI, and Robotics (PAIR) research group . He holds a Senior Researcher position at Nvidia Research and has courtesy appointments at the University of Toronto and Vector Institute. Previously, he served as Chief Scientific Officer at Apptronik (2024-2025) and Senior Staff Research Scientist at Nvidia Research (2018-2024). Education : Ph.D. in Operations Research from UC Berkeley (2011-2016), MS in Computer Science and Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech and University of Delhi. Research Focus : Building Generalizable Autonomy through Reinforcement Learning , Control Theory , and 3D Vision , with applications in Surgical Robotics , Self-Driving Labs , and Manufacturing . Key Article Themes : His recent work emphasizes Foundation Models for robotics, Differentiable Simulation , Language-Guided Autonomy , and Structured Inductive Biases in sequential decision-making. Scientific Awards : Stephen Fleming Early Career Professorship at Georgia Tech. Teaching : Courses on AI, Deep Reinforcement Learning, and Algorithmic Intelligence in Robotics at Georgia Tech. Labs & Collaborations : Affiliated with Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM) and ML@GT at Georgia Tech; collaborates intensively with Nvidia Robotics.
Ravi Ramamoorthi is the Ronald L. Graham Professor of Computer Science and Director of the UC San Diego Center for Visual Computing. He holds a faculty position in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and is an affiliate of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). He joined UC San Diego in 2014, previously at UC Berkeley and Columbia University. He also holds a part-time appointment as a Distinguished Research Scientist at NVIDIA. His research focuses on visual computing, including rendering, computer vision, light field cameras, and physics-based modeling. Notable contributions include foundational work on spherical harmonic lighting, neural radiance fields (NeRF), and Monte Carlo rendering techniques. His work bridges graphics, vision, and signal processing with applications in sparse reconstruction, importance sampling, and real-time rendering. He teaches courses like CSE 167 (Computer Graphics), CSE 168 (Rendering), and advanced topics in computer graphics. Awards include ACM and IEEE Fellowships, the Okawa Foundation Grant, and multiple Frontiers of Science Awards. His research is supported by NSF, ONR, and industry collaborators including Adobe, Sony, and Qualcomm. Key projects include the Center for Visual Computing, Light Field research, and educational initiatives like edX MOOCs on computer graphics and rendering. His work has influenced industry tools (e.g., Pixar, RenderMan) and modern real-time rendering pipelines with denoising techniques.
Jonathan T. Barron is a Researcher at Google DeepMind in San Francisco, specializing in Computer Vision , Neural Rendering , and 3D Scene Reconstruction . He earned his PhD at UC Berkeley under Jitendra Malik and has pioneered advancements in NeRF (Neural Radiance Fields) and diffusion-based 3D generation. Research Interests : Computer Vision, Deep Learning, Generative AI, Image Processing, and 3D Reconstruction via Radiance Fields. His work includes Bolt3D for rapid 3D scene generation, CAT3D/CAT4D for text-to-3D/4D, and Zip-NeRF for anti-aliased radiance fields. He has also developed real-time rendering frameworks like SMERF and NeRF-Casting for reflections. Scientific awards: PAMI Young Researcher Award He has served as Area Chair for CVPR, ICCV, and NeurIPS, and his research is widely adopted in applications like Google's Lens Blur , Portrait Mode , and Jump VR .
Andreas Geiger is a Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Tübingen, Germany. He leads the Autonomous Vision Group (AVG) within CyberValley and is a core faculty member of the Tübingen AI Center. His roles also include PI in the ML in Science Excellence Cluster and the CRC Robust Vision, as well as ELLIS Fellow and coordinator of the ELLIS PhD program. He specializes in machine learning models for computer vision, robotics, and autonomous systems, with applications in self-driving cars, VR/AR, and scientific document analysis. Educational background: While not explicitly detailed, his positions imply a Ph.D. in Computer Science or related field. His work spans interdisciplinary collaborations with institutions like ETH Zürich, Microsoft, and the University of Bonn. Research focuses on 3D scene understanding, Gaussian splatting, generative models, and reliable autonomous systems. Notable contributions include the KITTI dataset and foundational work in neural radiance fields. Awards include the Sage 10-Year Impact Award (2024), ERC Starting Grant (2019), and IEEE PAMI Young Researcher Award (2018). Key projects include the Scholar Inbox paper recommender platform, ReSim (reliable world simulation), and advancements in 3D scene generation (e.g., UrbanCAD, PrITTI). His lab maintains a strong focus on open-source tools and datasets, such as the CARLA Route Generator. Grants and funding include support from Vector Stiftung (MINT innovation program) and EU initiatives like the ML in Science Cluster. His team collaborates internationally, with recent work presented at CVPR, SIGGRAPH, and NeurIPS.
Hao Liu is an incoming Assistant Professor of Machine Learning at Carnegie Mellon University and currently works as a research scientist at Google DeepMind. Previously, he completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at UC Berkeley under the supervision of Pieter Abbeel. He also spent two years part-time at Google as part of the Google Brain team. His educational background includes: Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley Hao Liu's research focuses on solving intelligence through deep learning, neural networks, and innovative learning objectives. His work spans multiple areas including large language models, reinforcement learning, world models, and attention mechanisms for long context processing. He has made significant contributions to making transformer models more efficient and capable of handling extremely long sequences through techniques like Ring Attention and Blockwise Transformers. His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on extending the capabilities of language and vision models, particularly in handling long sequences and multimodal data. Key themes include attention optimization, tokenization efficiency, and alignment techniques. His work bridges theoretical advances with practical implementations for real-world AI systems, with multiple papers at top conferences including NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR, often receiving spotlight or oral presentations. Hao is actively involved in open-source AI research, having contributed to projects like Koala and OpenLLaMa, which aim to make advanced language models more accessible to the research community. His work on RingAttention has been implemented as a Python package available on GitHub, demonstrating his commitment to practical implementations and community sharing.
Dinesh Jayaraman is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with primary and secondary appointments in the Department of Computer and Information Science (CIS) and Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE), respectively. He leads the Perception, Action, and Learning (PennPAL) Research Group at the GRASP Laboratory, focusing on interdisciplinary research at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and computer vision. Research Interests: Robotics, computer vision, reinforcement learning, and autonomous systems. Recent Publications: His work explores vision-language models for robotic tool use, symmetry-based control acceleration, articulated object modeling, and in-context learning frameworks. Awards: Recipient of the 2022 NSF CAREER Award for innovative contributions to robotics and AI. Teaching: Co-teaching a robot-learning seminar (CIS 7000/ESE 6800) with Antonio Loquercio in Spring 2025. Students: Advising PhD candidates including Edward Hu, Arjun Krishna, and co-advised students with Osbert Bastani, Vijay Kumar, and Rajeev Alur.
Vicente Ordóñez-Román is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Rice University, part of the George R. Brown School of Engineering. His research focuses on the intersection of computer vision, natural language processing, and machine learning, with an emphasis on fair, transparent, and interpretable AI. He leads the Vision, Language, and Learning Lab and contributes to the Ken Kennedy Institute's Closed-loop Computer Vision research cluster. Education: PhD in Computer Science (UNC Chapel Hill, 2015), MS in Computer Science (Stony Brook University), and Engineering (Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, Ecuador). Prior roles include Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia (2016-2021) and visiting positions at Adobe Research, the Allen Institute for AI, and Amazon. Research Interests : Developing multimodal AI systems that integrate visual and textual data, mitigating biases in AI, and advancing generative models. His work emphasizes ethical AI and societal impact, as seen in his contributions to the whitepaper advocating for federal regulation of facial recognition technologies. Awards & Recognition : NSF CAREER Award (2021), Marr Prize (ICCV 2013), Best Paper at EMNLP 2017, and multiple industry grants from Google, Amazon, and Facebook. His research has been featured in media outlets like WIRED, The New York Times, and Bloomberg News. Advising & Grants : Supervises a diverse research group spanning PhD, MS, and undergraduate students. Secured over $1.8 million in external funding, including NSF grants, Amazon FAI awards, and Google Cloud credits. Leads initiatives on bias mitigation, AI ethics, and multimodal learning. Labs & Collaborations : Directs the Vision, Language, and Learning Lab (vislang.ai), collaborating with industry partners like Adobe, Amazon, and SAP. Engages in interdisciplinary projects at the Ken Kennedy Institute, focusing on closed-loop computer vision systems.
Prof. Dr. Otmar Hilliges is a Full Professor at the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich. He leads the AIT lab and serves as the head of the Institute of Intelligent Interactive Systems. His research focuses on spatio-temporal understanding of human movement and interaction, leveraging algorithms and representations from videos, images, and sensor data for applications in Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Human-Robot Interaction. Education: Diplom (MSc) in Computer Science, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany PhD in Computer Science, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), Germany (2009) Research Interests: Hilliges' work spans computer vision, robotics, and human-computer interaction. He develops methods for 3D human pose estimation, generative models for realistic avatar creation, and physically plausible simulation of human-object interactions. His research emphasizes practical applications in AR/VR and assistive robotics, aiming to bridge the gap between perception and action. Grants & Contributions: ERC Consolidator Grant (2022-2027): 'AI-Perceive: Robust Human-Centric Computer Vision for Advanced AI-Agents' Google Research Agreement (2020-2025): 'Generative Modelling of Humans' Microsoft Research Grants: Focus on human-centric robotics and interactive technologies Labs & Teams: Leads the AIT Lab at ETH Zurich, which pioneers research in intelligent interactive systems, emphasizing human-centric AI and robotics. The lab collaborates on projects ranging from drone cinematography to haptic feedback systems.
Georgia Gkioxari is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Caltech , with a part-time affiliation at Meta AI . Her work focuses on extending visual perception models through advanced 2D and 3D representation learning, spatial reasoning, and generative models. Education: Not explicitly mentioned in the text Research interests span 3D perception , spatial reasoning , and vision-language integration , with projects like Visual Agentic AI for Spatial Reasoning and Token-by-Token Multimodal Alignment . Her publications emphasize 3D object detection , reconstruction , and generative modeling techniques including diffusion models and transformers . Scientific recognition includes the Meta LLM Evaluation Research Grant , Okawa Research Grant , Google Faculty Scholar Award 2024 , and Amazon Research Award . She teaches courses like Large Language & Vision Models (EE/CS 148) and Learning & 3D (CS 101) at Caltech. Labs & Teams: Leads Glab with members including Ilona Demler, Ziqi Ma, and Damiano Marsili
Professor Winston Hsu is a distinguished faculty member in the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Taiwan University, where he has served as a full professor since 2015. He is the co-director of the Communications and Multimedia Laboratory (CMLab) and founder of the MiRA (Multimedia indexing, Retrieval, and Analysis) research group. Additionally, he serves as the Founding Director for NVIDIA AI Lab at NTU, the first such lab in Asia. Professor Hsu received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University in 2007 under the supervision of Professor Shih-Fu Chang. Prior to his academic career, he was a founding engineer and research manager at CyberLink Corp., now a public image/video software company. National Taiwan University (2007-Present): Professor (2015-Present), Assistant/Associate Professor (2007-2015) MobileDrive (2021-2024): CTO and Vice President (Joint Venture between Foxconn and Stellantis) IBM TJ Watson Research Center (2016-2017): Visiting Scientist Microsoft Research Redmond (2014): Visiting Researcher Columbia University (2007): Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering Professor Hsu's research focuses on machine learning, computer vision, large-scale image and video search and recognition, and embedded AI. His work spans from fundamental research in visual recognition to practical applications in automotive systems, medical imaging, and e-commerce. He has pioneered work in disguised face recognition, low-resolution face hallucination, 3D model search, and virtual try-on systems. His current research emphasizes Embodied AI, integrating perception, action, and learning technologies for applications in automotive and robotics domains. His research group has produced numerous influential publications, particularly in top computer vision and multimedia conferences like CVPR, where they won first place in the Disguised Face Recognition competition in 2018. Their work spans diverse application areas including security, medical diagnostics, automotive systems, and e-commerce solutions, demonstrating strong translation from academic research to real-world impact. IBM Research Pat Goldberg Memorial Best Paper Award (2018) First Place, IARPA Disguised Faces in the Wild Competition (CVPR 2018) Best Brave New Idea Paper Award, ACM Multimedia 2017 NVIDIA AI LAB Award (First in Asia, 2016) First Place, MSR-Bing Image Retrieval Challenge (2013) World's Top 2% Scientists (2023) Professor Hsu actively mentors students and researchers, with his group consistently recruiting PhD students, postdocs, and research assistants. He has successfully bridged academia and industry through multiple collaborations, including his role as CTO at MobileDrive (a joint venture between Foxconn and Stellantis) from 2021-2024. His research has been supported by significant industry partnerships with Microsoft, IBM, and NVIDIA, as well as government grants from Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology. His laboratory, the Communications and Multimedia Laboratory (CMLab), maintains strong industry connections and focuses on cutting-edge research in visual AI. The lab has produced numerous award-winning projects and maintains active collaborations with global technology companies, particularly in the automotive and consumer electronics sectors.
Yaser Sheikh is an Associate Professor at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University (on leave) and Director of the Facebook Reality Lab, Pittsburgh . He holds appointments in the Mechanical Engineering Department and focuses on ' metric telepresence ' for AR/VR interactions. His research spans machine perception , computer vision , computer graphics , and machine learning , with applications in social behavior modeling and dynamic 3D reconstruction. University: Carnegie Mellon University Roles: Associate Professor (Robotics Institute), Director (Facebook Reality Lab) Contact: yaser@cs.cmu.edu, yasers@fb.com Research Interests include: Computer Vision: Pose estimation, 3D reconstruction, camera calibration Computer Graphics: Face/Hand animation, photorealistic rendering Machine Learning: Neural rendering, unsupervised learning for landmark detection AR/VR: Telepresence, immersive social interactions Notable Trends in Publications reveal a focus on real-time pose estimation (e.g., OpenPose), dynamic 3D reconstruction , and codec avatars for VR/AR. Recent works emphasize universal priors and neural rendering for photorealistic avatars. Scientific Awards include: Popular Science’s Best of What’s New Award Honda Initiation Award (2010) Best Paper Awards: WACV (2012), SCA (2010), ICCV THEMIS (2009) Hillman Fellowship for Excellence in Computer Science Research (2004) Advising and Grants: He has advised numerous PhD students (e.g., Hanbyul Joo, Tomas Simon) and received funding from the National Science Foundation , DARPA, and industry partners like Intel , Disney , and Honda . Labs & Teams: Leads the Facebook Reality Lab in Pittsburgh, collaborating with institutions like Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research.
