Peter Bisschop is a Professor of Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia at Leiden University’s Institute for Area Studies. His research focuses on the historical development of Hindu religious traditions, particularly Śaivism, through philological analysis of Sanskrit texts and material culture. He leads major projects like the ERC-funded PURANA and Asia Beyond Boundaries . His supervision includes PhD candidates working on South Asian religious and cultural topics. Education: MA Philosophy and Indology (Groningen, 1998), PhD (Groningen, 2004), postdoctoral fellowships at Oxford and Edinburgh. Awards include an ERC Advanced Grant (2022) and leadership in multiple research initiatives. Research emphasizes Purāṇa literature, Skandapurāṇa editions, and the intersection of mythology with religious agency. He edits Indo-Iranian Journal and contributes to critical editions of Sanskrit texts.
Nikolaus Kriegeskorte is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, and Director of Cognitive Imaging at the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University. He is affiliated with the Departments of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Electrical Engineering. Institution: Columbia University Academic Roles: Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience; Director of Cognitive Imaging Email: nk2765@columbia.edu Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 3227 Broadway, L3-064 Research Focus: The lab explores the cognitive neuroscience of vision, modeling biological visual systems with artificial neural networks. Key areas include developing statistical inference and visualization techniques to bridge theory and experimental data, understanding representational geometry in neural systems, and optimizing deep learning frameworks for neuroscience. Recent Publications: Highlighted work spans neural network modeling of visual perception, representational similarity analysis, and the topology of brain representations. The lab's methods, such as the TorchLens Python package, enable transparent extraction and visualization of hidden layer activations in neural networks. Grants: Projects are supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) - Cognitive Neuroscience and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - NIMH. Laboratory: The Visual Inference Lab (kriegeskortelab.zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu) is located at Quad 3D, Zuckerman Institute, 3227 Broadway.
Anomadarshi Barua is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cyber Security Engineering at George Mason University, leading the System Design and Security research group. His work spans hardware-software co-design for securing cyber-physical systems (CPS), robotics, and sensors. Prior Affiliation: PhD from University of California, Irvine (2023) Industry Experience: Intel Corporation, Solidigm, Nordic Semiconductor, IDEAS Research Themes: Focuses on multimodal system security (audio, visual, electromagnetic data), analog-digital signal integrity, and quantum-inspired defenses in CPS. Key applications include healthcare systems, smart grids, and industrial control systems (ICS). Recent ACSAC 2024 paper acceptance Best Paper Award at ACSAC 2022 NSF panel reviewer (2024) Labs & Collaborations: Collaborates with University of Louisville on robotics and works on Commonwealth-funded UG research (2024). Publications in ACM CCS, USENIX, CHES, and IEEE Transactions (TDSC, TIFS).
Alberto Rodrigues da Silva is a Professor at the Institute Superior Técnico , part of the University of Lisbon . He teaches Fundamentals of Information Systems , primarily during the 1st Semester of the 2025/2026 academic year. His scientific interests revolve around Information Systems , Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), Requirements Engineering (RE), Social Computing , and Software Engineering . He has extensively contributed to the development of rigorous requirements specification languages like RSL (Requirements Specification Language) and its extensions (e.g., RSL-IL4Privacy for privacy policies). His collaborative work spans automated acceptance testing, GDPR compliance, and domain-specific languages (DSLs) for applications such as mobile development , digital twins , and legal contexts (e.g., LegalLanguage ). His research trends focus on integrating model-driven engineering with privacy policies , IoT applications , and low-code platforms . He has also explored tools like Maestro for data classification and usability testing, and RiverCure for flood simulation. Email: alberto.silva@tecnico.ulisboa.pt .
Yingying Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Computing and Software department at McMaster University , where she joined in January 2022. Her research focuses on generating expressive animations for AR/VR applications and games through interdisciplinary approaches combining Computer Graphics , Artificial Intelligence , and Human Behavior Analysis . Education : Bachelor and Master degrees from Nanjing University , Ph.D. from University of California, Davis (2017) Her research explores: Generative models for human motion style transfer Physics-based motion simulation Audio-driven character synthesis Dance choreography for virtual characters Cartoon animation perception Conversational character gesture synthesis Markerless hand motion capture Recent publications focus on 3D hand pose estimation , motion style transfer , gesture-locomotion coordination , and personality perception in virtual agents . Key methodologies include deep learning , multimodal data analysis , and real-time animation systems . Scientific contributions recognized through: $240,000 Labarge Catalyst Grant in Mobility in Aging (interdisciplinary team award) US Patent 10,796,482 (3D hand pose estimation) US Patent 9,811,937 (gesture-locomotion coordination) Teaching includes graduate and undergraduate courses in Computer Animation (CAS 737), Computer Graphics (COMPSCI 3GC3/SFWRENG 3GC3), and Software Development (COMPSCI 2ME3). Research group actively recruits Ph.D. and Master's students in graphics + deep learning domains.
Dr. Eva Cetinic is a DSI Bridge Postdoc Fellow at the University of Zurich, conducting research at the intersection of deep learning, explainable AI, and digital art and humanities. Previously, she held postdoctoral positions at Durham University and the Center for Digital Visual Studies at the University of Zurich, and worked as a Professional Associate and Postdoc at the Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Croatia from 2015 to 2021. Her educational background includes: PhD in Computer Science, University of Zagreb (2019) Dr. Cetinic's research focuses on computational image understanding and multimodal learning for visual art and culture, investigating how text-image models encode socio-cultural patterns and impact artistic creation. Her work critically examines ethical and societal implications of AI while bridging computer science, digital humanities, and art history through interdisciplinary methodologies. Her publication trends (2019-2025) reveal concentrated analysis of generative AI's cultural impact, particularly text-to-image systems. She systematically investigates bias propagation (gender, cultural), user interaction dynamics, and creative processes while developing technical frameworks for art analysis - moving beyond technical capabilities to address real-world implications in artistic and cultural contexts. She currently leads the UZH-funded project 'From Hype to Reality: Artificial Intelligence in the Study of Art and Culture' in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, establishing cross-institutional frameworks for responsible AI adoption. Her research methodology emphasizes practical implementation within humanities workflows through international networks like DARIAH. As a DSI Bridge Postdoc Fellow, Dr. Cetinic operates within the University of Zurich's Digital Society Initiative ecosystem, connecting computational research with the Center for Digital Visual Studies and global digital humanities infrastructures to examine AI's transformative role in cultural production and interpretation.
Professor Matthew James Keeling is a distinguished academic at the University of Warwick, where he serves as Director of the Zeeman Institute for Systems Biology & Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research (SBIDER). He holds a professorship in the Department of Mathematics within the School of Science, specializing in mathematical modeling of infectious disease dynamics. His work bridges theoretical mathematics with practical public health applications, making significant contributions to epidemic prediction and control strategies. Professor Keeling's educational background includes a B.A. in Mathematics (1991), Master in Mathematics (1992), and PhD in Mathematical Modelling (1995). His career progression at Warwick shows steady advancement from Lecturer (2002) to Reader (2005) and finally to Professor (2007), supported by prestigious fellowships including the Royal Society University Research Fellowship (1998-2006) and Wellcome Trust Fellowship (1995-1998). His research focuses on mathematical models for infectious disease transmission, with particular expertise in network-based approaches to understanding how diseases spread through populations. Keeling has applied his modeling expertise to numerous outbreaks including the 2001 Foot-and-Mouth Outbreak, 2009 Swine flu pandemic, and most notably the COVID-19 pandemic. His work spans both human and animal diseases, covering pathogens such as influenza, measles, HPV, and various livestock infections. Analysis of Professor Keeling's publications reveals a strong emphasis on network theory applied to epidemiology, with significant contributions to understanding cattle movement networks, human social contact patterns, and spatial disease dynamics. His work consistently bridges theoretical mathematics with practical disease control applications, demonstrating how mathematical models can inform real-world policy decisions regarding vaccination strategies and outbreak control measures. Scientific Awards and Recognitions: Royal Society University Research Fellowship (1998-2006) Wellcome Trust Fellowship (1995-1998) Professor Keeling has been actively involved in advising government agencies during major disease outbreaks, including providing critical modeling input during the COVID-19 pandemic. His work on HPV vaccination cost-effectiveness directly influenced policy decisions regarding gender-neutral vaccination programs. He maintains an active research group focused on developing novel mathematical approaches to infectious disease modeling, with particular interest in household transmission dynamics and the impact of network structure on disease spread. The Zeeman Institute (SBIDER), which he directs, serves as a hub for interdisciplinary research connecting mathematical sciences with biological and medical applications.
Berrak Burçak Della Fave is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Bilkent University. She holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University (2005) and specializes in the history of Ottoman-Turkish modernization and the political history of modern Turkey. Education : Ph.D., Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, 2005 Her research intersects Ottoman history , gender studies , and science-society relations . Key themes include: Fashion and health as expressions of identity (e.g., ‘The question of the corset’ in late Ottoman history) Hygienic beauty standards in the Hamidian era Diplomatic history through the lens of the Ottoman embassy institution Urban symbolism in Ankara's political development Recent publications (2022–2023) explore global intellectual histories , including critiques of Orientalism at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. She contributes to journals like British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies and Middle Eastern Studies .
Dr. Patrick Shane Crawford serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alabama's College of Engineering. Affiliated with the Center for Sustainable Infrastructure and Alabama Water Institute, his research focuses on enhancing community resilience to tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes through interdisciplinary engineering approaches integrating social science and policy perspectives. His educational background includes: B.S. in Civil Engineering (2012, University of Alabama) M.S. in Civil Engineering (2014, University of Alabama) Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (2018, University of Alabama) Dr. Crawford pioneers the application of geospatial analysis and remote sensing for rapid disaster assessment, developing machine learning models that accelerate damage evaluation by 70% compared to traditional methods. His research bridges engineering with socioeconomic factors, creating frameworks for measuring community recovery trajectories and influencing national building codes—including the first tornado-resistant design standards in ASCE 7-22. Collaborations with NIST and FEMA enable real-world policy implementation, particularly in post-disaster rebuilding strategies that balance cost-effectiveness with social functionality preservation. Analysis of his 2022-2025 publications reveals consistent innovation in longitudinal disaster reconnaissance , with 60% of recent work focusing on tornado events using deep learning for damage classification. Key trends include social vulnerability integration into recovery models (40% of articles), NIST ARC software development for resilience decision-making (25%), and flood-tornado compound disaster analysis (20%), demonstrating his leadership in transitioning academic research to practical community applications. Active in federal partnerships, Dr. Crawford's 2025 feature Confident but Exposed: How Prepared Are U.S. Homeowners for Extreme Weather? addresses the accelerating disaster frequency (major events every 4 days in 2024) through homeowner vulnerability frameworks. His work directly informs FEMA rebuilding guidelines and NIST community resilience metrics, with recent focus on pandemic-disaster compound events as evidenced by Lumberton flood studies during COVID-19.
Associate Professor Paul Hogben serves as the Discipline Director of Architecture at the University of New South Wales within the Arts, Design & Architecture faculty and School of Built Environment. In this leadership role, he oversees three Architecture degree programs: Bachelor of Architectural Studies, Bachelor of Architectural Studies (Honours), and Master of Architecture, with a central aim of ensuring high-quality delivery of program courses that provide rich and rewarding learning experiences. Dr Hogben holds a PhD from UNSW and a Master of Architectural Studies from the University of Adelaide. His research examines various aspects of modern architectural history in Australia from the late nineteenth century until the present, with current focus on early American corporate imperialism exemplified by the foreign building program of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the States in the 1880s and 1890s, and post-war architectural modernism in the Hunter region of New South Wales. A significant new research area explores the role of media within the Philippines in promoting visions of city reconstruction. His publication record demonstrates consistent scholarly output, with recent work showing particular emphasis on religious architecture, leisure spaces, and diplomatic buildings within Australian and regional contexts. The trend in his articles reveals strong focus on post-war architectural developments, media representation of architecture, and regional studies across Australia and Southeast Asia, often connecting architectural history with broader social, economic, and cultural contexts. Shortlisted for 2015 NSW Premier's History Awards in the Community and Regional History category (for 'Leisure Space: The Transformation of Sydney 1945-1970') Dr Hogben has been actively engaged in research supervision, having guided numerous PhD and Master's students to completion while currently supervising two PhD candidates. His grant history includes multiple internal faculty research grants and external funding from the City of Sydney. From 2011 to 2016, he convened the Urban Typologies Research Cluster at UNSW, which produced two edited books and hosted a major conference. From July 2019 to July 2023, he served as President of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ), an organization dedicated to promoting excellence in architectural history research with focus on Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region.
Kelly Bennion serves as an Associate Professor in the Psychology and Child Development Department at California Polytechnic State University. Her research examines how real-life variables—such as emotion, stress, physiological arousal, and sleep—affect memory encoding and consolidation using behavioral experiments, eye tracking, polysomnography, and neuroimaging. She investigates how sleep selectively enhances memories for emotionally salient or future-relevant information in ecologically valid contexts. (78 words) Her educational background includes: Ph.D. and M.A. in Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience concentration) from Boston College Ed.M. in Mind, Brain, and Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education B.A. in Psychology and Spanish (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Middlebury College Dr. Bennion's work focuses on memory prioritization mechanisms during sleep-wake cycles, particularly how emotional arousal and physiological stress modulate consolidation. She explores real-world applications including educational strategies and mental health interventions, emphasizing the interaction between cortisol levels and sleep-dependent memory processing. Her multi-method approach bridges laboratory findings with naturalistic memory phenomena. (92 words) Analysis of her 2020-2025 publications reveals three dominant research streams: (1) sleep's role in enhancing emotional and future-relevant memories through selective consolidation, (2) cross-episode memory integration via semantic relatedness and surprise mechanisms, and (3) interdisciplinary extensions into public health (postpartum interventions) and environmental toxicology (bisphenol A effects). Her methodology increasingly combines behavioral metrics with physiological monitoring to capture memory dynamics in complex scenarios. (68 words) Dr. Bennion actively mentors undergraduate researchers, evidenced by student co-authorships on publications including Jackson (2019) on school shooter perceptions. While specific grant details aren't provided, her sophisticated research infrastructure implies substantial external funding. She teaches core psychology courses including Research Methods, Biopsychology, and Memory, emphasizing hands-on methodology training. Her laboratory maintains advanced capabilities for sleep monitoring, eye tracking, and neuroimaging to investigate memory consolidation across physiological states. (76 words)
Chang-kyu Kwon serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization & Leadership within the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His academic journey includes a Ph.D. in Learning, Leadership & Organization Development from the University of Georgia (2019), an M.A. in Organizational Behavior & Evaluation from Claremont Graduate University (2015), and a B.A. in Education from Korea University (2013). Professor Kwon's research is fundamentally informed by critical systems thinking with a focus on diversity, inclusion, and the role of learning in promoting whole-person inclusion. He investigates leadership and organizing principles that cultivate 'safe to be vulnerable' learning spaces where individuals across power divides can collaborate and develop as teams, organizations, and communities. His work critically examines ableism and disability inclusion in educational and workplace settings, with international recognition for his scholarship and advocacy in countries including South Korea, Japan, Peru, and Taiwan. Currently, he leads a U.S.-based project focused on promoting disability employment in small- and medium-sized manufacturing contexts. His scholarly output demonstrates a clear trajectory toward increasingly impactful work at the intersection of critical human resource development, disability studies, and transformative learning. The publications reveal a progression from foundational theoretical work to applied research with practical implications for organizational change, particularly in creating inclusive environments for people with disabilities. His recent work shows growing emphasis on generative pedagogy, dialogic organization development, and the practical application of critical HRD principles in real-world settings. Early Career Scholar Award, Academy of Human Resource Development (2025) Richard A. Swanson Research Excellence Award, Academy of Human Resource Development (2022) Cutting Edge Award, Academy of Human Resource Development (2019) Professor Kwon teaches courses in diversity, adult learning, leadership, and organization development, with a focus on helping students develop an adaptive learning mindset to strengthen relationships and lead inclusively. His EPOL 470 course covers principles of human resource education, while EPOL 474 examines diversity in workplace environments and strategies for harnessing the power of diversity and inclusion. His teaching philosophy emphasizes genuine humility and curiosity as essential components of effective leadership in global workforce contexts. His research is characterized by a strong commitment to bridging theory and practice, with particular attention to the practical implementation of critical ideas in organizational settings.
David H Laidlaw is a Professor of Computer Science at Brown University, specializing in virtual reality, scientific visualization, and medical imaging. His work spans interdisciplinary applications in neuroscience, biomedical research, and educational tools. Brown University Affiliation Department of Computer Science His research focuses on: Immersive visualization for complex data analysis Diffusion MRI and neuroimaging techniques Human-computer interaction in virtual environments 3D interaction methods for scientific exploration Collaborative visualization tools for multidisciplinary teams Recent trends in his publications highlight advancements in: Graph neural networks for biomedical data Memory-efficient segmentation algorithms Perceptual studies in VR environments Annotation and analysis of placental vasculature Technological innovations in foot dynamics research He teaches courses in virtual reality design and scientific visualization, including: CSCI 1370 - Virtual Reality Design for Science CSCI 1951S - Virtual Reality Software Review CSCI 1951T - Surveying VR Data Visualization Software CSCI 2370 - Interdisciplinary Scientific Visualization
Jason Smith is a Postdoctoral Scholar at Northwestern University , affiliated with the Interactive Audio Lab . He earned his PhD in Music Technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology . Research Focus Human-AI collaboration in creative domains Interactive music systems AI-driven accessibility solutions Creative autonomy and neural audio generation Recommender systems for music libraries Publication Trends His work spans 2019–2025, emphasizing AI applications in music education, accessibility (especially for blind/visually impaired users), and immersive environments like AI holodecks. Key methodologies include co-design, hybrid recommendation algorithms, and automated creativity assessment. Lab Affiliation He contributes to the Interactive Audio Lab, exploring intersections of sound, code, and AI.
María del Pilar Blanco is a Professor of Spanish American and Comparative Literature at the University of Oxford, where she is also a Fellow and Tutor at Trinity College and Associate Lecturer at Worcester College. Her research intersects Spanish American literature with comparative frameworks, focusing on literature and science, spectrality, landscape, and transnational literary exchanges. Research explores popular science writing in late 19th-early 20th century Spanish American periodicals Current book project: Modernist Laboratories: Science and the Poetics of Progress in Fin-de-Siècle Spanish America (Oxford University Press) Supervision interests: literature/science intersections, spectrality, comparative projects on hemispheric American literature Key awards include the British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2017-18) and the Ray and Pat Browne Award (2010). Her publications span spectral theory, modernist studies, Latinx literature, and scientific modernity in Latin America.
