Mr Pieter Roffelsen is a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney , affiliated with the Integrable Systems group within the School of Mathematics and Statistics . Prior to this, he was a Research Fellow in the Geometry and Mathematical Physics group at SISSA, Trieste. His research focuses on the interplay between integrable systems, complex analysis, and algebraic geometry. Education : PhD in Mathematics (2017) from the University of Sydney under Nalini Joshi. Riemann-Hilbert theory, Painlevé equations, and monodromy manifolds form the core of his work. He explores connections between nonlinear differential/difference equations and algebraic surfaces like Segre and Jimbo-Fricke cubic surfaces, with applications to special functions and quantisation problems. His publications reveal a strong emphasis on: q-difference Painlevé equations Monodromy manifolds and Segre surfaces Orthogonal polynomials on elliptic curves Quantisation and asymptotics Nonlinear connection problems Roffelsen collaborates with leading mathematicians including Nalini Joshi , Davide Masoero , and Marta Mazzocco . Key recent works investigate the crystal limit of q-Painlevé equations, geometric visualizations of Segre surfaces, and asymptotic distributions of polynomial zeros.
Lisa Grant Ludwig is a Professor in the Department of Population Health and Disease Prevention at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She is a nationally recognized expert in earthquake science, focusing on translating geophysical research into policy for disaster risk reduction. Her work bridges seismology, public health, and policy implementation. PhD in Geology with Geophysics minor (Caltech) MS in Environmental Engineering Science (Caltech) BS in Applied Environmental Earth Science (Stanford) Dr. Ludwig's research centers on earthquake dynamics, particularly along the San Andreas Fault, advancing disaster resilience through innovative nowcasting techniques using AI and machine learning. Her publications demonstrate expertise in seismic hazard modeling, geodetic imaging, and community preparedness studies. Recent publications highlight AI-enhanced earthquake prediction (QuakeGPT), temporal-spatial nowcasting models, and applications of geodetic data for crustal deformation analysis. These works integrate machine learning with traditional seismological methods to improve hazard forecasting. President of Seismological Society of America NASA 2012 Software of the Year Medal Featured on Science magazine cover Congressional Testimony provider Active Federal Advisory Committee member Her interdisciplinary approach combines geophysics, public health policy, and computational science. Current projects focus on earthquake nowcasting, fault zone analysis, and developing accessible geospatial tools like GeoGateway for disaster response.
Shane Dawson is the Executive Dean of UniSA Education Futures and Professor of Learning Analytics at the University of South Australia. His work bridges social network analysis and learner interaction data to enhance teaching quality and educational outcomes. Affiliation : University of South Australia Research Focus : Learning Analytics, Curriculum Mapping, K-12 Decision-Making Systems, and AI in Education Recent Research Trends : Shane’s 2025 publications emphasize generative AI for curriculum analytics, ethical considerations in K-12 dashboards, and longitudinal graduate attribute monitoring. His articles often integrate psychometric models, social network tools, and open-source software like OVAL and SNAPP . Advising and Collaboration : As a co-developer of key learning analytics tools and a supervisor for research students, he collaborates globally with institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. Labs and Teams : Shane leads UniSA’s Teaching Innovation Unit and is a founding member of the Society for Learning Analytics Research , driving institutional and international initiatives in educational technology.
Miguel Mahecha is Professor of Environmental Data Science and Remote Sensing at the University of Leipzig, where he serves as Institute Head of the Institute for Earth System Science and Remote Sensing. He is also affiliated with the Remote Sensing Centre for Earth System Research, a collaboration between Leipzig University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). Mahecha is a member of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and serves as Principal Investigator in the Centre for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, he is a Fellow of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems and co-spokesperson for the National Research Data Infrastructure for Earth System Sciences (NFDI4Earth). Full Professor for Modelling Approaches in Remote Sensing, University of Leipzig (since 03/2020) Research Group Leader: Empirical Inference in the Earth System, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (12/2012 - 03/2020) PostDoc, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (10/2009 - 11/2012) PhD in Environmental Sciences, ETH Zürich (06/2006 - 09/2009) Diploma in Geoecology, Bayreuth University (10/2000 - 04/2006) Mahecha's research focuses on understanding ecosystem responses to climate extremes and human-environment relationships during these events. He investigates macro-ecological dynamics and ecosystem functioning using data-driven methods and high-dimensional Earth observations. A key contribution is his co-development of the Earth System Data Cube concept, which integrates empirical methods with theoretical understanding to analyze complex Earth system interactions. His work spans biogeography, ecosystem functioning, and advanced data science methodologies for environmental monitoring. His recent publications demonstrate a strong emphasis on analyzing compound climate extremes, particularly heatwaves and droughts, and their impacts on ecosystems. Mahecha has pioneered methods using Earth System Data Cubes to integrate diverse environmental datasets, enabling novel insights into biosphere-atmosphere interactions. His research increasingly incorporates artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches to understand spatiotemporal patterns in ecological systems, with applications in real-time forest monitoring and biodiversity assessment. Fellow of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems Co-spokesperson for NFDI4Earth (National Research Data Infrastructure for Earth System Sciences) Mahecha leads multiple significant research projects including Digital Forest (real-time forest monitoring), NFDI4BioDiversity, and XAIDA (extreme events: AI for Detection and Attribution). His work receives funding from diverse sources including EU, DFG, and Stiftungen Inland. He collaborates extensively with the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Centre for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. His research group, Earth System Data Science (ESDS), focuses on developing methods to extract valuable information from long-term environmental observations to understand coupled Earth system dynamics. At the Remote Sensing Centre for Earth System Research, Mahecha's ESDS group investigates how ecosystem functions respond to climate extremes, societal vulnerability to environmental hazards, and nonlinear interactions in coupled Earth systems. The group leverages citizen science data, remote sensing observations, and advanced computational methods to address pressing environmental questions.
Laura Moorhead is an Associate Professor in the Department of Journalism at San Francisco State University and a researcher with the ScholCommLab at Simon Fraser University. Her work bridges journalism ethics, science communication, and social justice, focusing on how media narratives address homelessness, health equity, and marginalized communities. Research interests include: Visual solutions journalism and its ethical application to societal issues Science communication dynamics between journalists and researchers Access to knowledge frameworks and open science practices Collaborative journalism models for community-driven reporting Recent article trends emphasize participatory action research, climate crisis education, and preprint usage in science reporting. She co-leads NIH-funded and NNLM grants focused on health equity and serves on the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
Kavita Bala is the 17th Provost of Cornell University and a Professor of Computer Science. She previously served as the inaugural Dean of the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, leading its transition to a degree-granting college by 2025, and as Chair of Cornell’s Department of Computer Science. Her academic leadership includes expanding faculty, establishing research programs like the Bowers CIS Undergraduate Research Experience (BURE), and securing a new research facility for computing and information science. Education: B.Tech (IIT Bombay), M.S. and Ph.D. (MIT, Computer Science) Bala’s research focuses on computer vision, artificial intelligence, and computer graphics , with groundbreaking work in material and style recognition using deep learning. Her innovations in crowdsourced training data and differentiable rendering have advanced visual search technologies and translucent material modeling, powering her startup GrokStyle. She pioneered AI techniques applied to environmental monitoring through projects like MONITRS and AllClear , addressing Earth observation challenges. Her scientific awards include: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2025) SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award (2020) IIT Bombay Distinguished Alumnus Award (2021) ACM Fellow (2019) SIGGRAPH Academy Fellow (2020) As Provost, Bala drives strategic initiatives like the Cornell AI Initiative , creating interdisciplinary minors in AI and AI in Society, and establishing the Schmidt AI in Science postdoctoral program. She co-chaired a task force for generative AI guidelines in education.
Núria Agell Jané is a Full Professor at ESADE Business School , Universitat Ramon Llull, specializing in Artificial Intelligence and Decision-Making Systems. She leads the JUICE (Judgements and Decisions in the Market Place) research group and the ESADE D3 - Institute for Data-Driven Decisions . Doctorate in Applied Mathematics (Qualitative Reasoning Modelling), UPC-BarcelonaTech Bachelor's in Mathematics, University of Barcelona Her research focuses on Artificial Intelligence , Decision-Making Systems , and Fuzzy Logic , with applications in Business, Marketing, and Sustainability. Recent publications emphasize Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets , Consensus Modeling , and AI in Sustainable Development . She coordinates multiple publicly and privately funded projects applying AI to Business and Marketing challenges. As PhD Programme Director (2005-2013) and current Department Director of Operations, Innovation and Data Sciences , she has shaped academic and research strategies at ESADE. Her work spans collaborations with institutions like LAAS-CNRS (France) and University of Edinburgh Business School , with over 40 journal publications and 50 conference contributions. She has directly supervised 11 PhD students in AI and Decision Sciences.
Dr. Hua Xu is the Robert T. McCluskey Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science at Yale School of Medicine. He serves as Vice Chair for Research and Development in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science and as Assistant Dean for Biomedical Informatics at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Xu leads the Clinical NLP Lab and is Chair of the NLP working group at the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) program. Dr. Xu received his PhD in Biomedical Informatics from Columbia University, an MS in Computer Science from New Jersey Institute of Technology, and a BS in Biochemistry from Nanjing University. Dr. Xu is a renowned researcher in clinical natural language processing (NLP), having developed novel algorithms for important clinical NLP tasks such as entity recognition and relation extraction. His work has been top-ranked in over a dozen international biomedical NLP challenges. He has developed CLAMP, a comprehensive clinical NLP toolkit that has been successfully commercialized and adopted by hundreds of healthcare organizations worldwide. His research focuses on applying NLP technologies to diverse clinical and translational studies to accelerate clinical evidence generation using electronic health records data. Recently, he has been utilizing NLP to harmonize metadata of biomedical digital objects to promote FAIR principles in biomedicine, and his lab is actively working on developing large language models (LLMs) for diverse biomedical applications. Dr. Xu's recent publications demonstrate a clear trend toward leveraging large language models for biomedical applications. His work spans from benchmarking LLMs for clinical NLP tasks to developing specialized architectures like BiomedRAG (retrieval augmented LLMs for biomedicine). His research addresses critical healthcare challenges including adverse event extraction, oncology clinical trial analysis, and EHR-based association studies, showing how NLP can bridge the gap between unstructured clinical text and actionable medical insights. Dr. Xu's lab has achieved top rankings in numerous NLP challenges, including multiple #1 positions in i2b2 Temporal information extraction, SemEval Disease-modifier extraction, BioCREATIVE Chemical-induced disease extraction, and other prestigious competitions. His contributions to clinical NLP have significantly advanced the field's ability to extract meaningful information from complex medical texts. As the leader of the Clinical NLP Lab at Yale, Dr. Xu oversees research that forms a complete ecosystem: developing novel NLP methods, building robust software tools, and applying these technologies to clinical and translational research. His lab's work closes the loop between methodological innovation and practical healthcare applications, ensuring that advances in NLP directly benefit patient care and medical research.
Michalis Vazirgiannis is a Professor at LIX, École Polytechnique in France, where he leads the Data Science and Mining group (DaSciM). He holds a degree in Physics and a PhD in Informatics from Athens University (Greece), and a Master's degree in AI from Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh (UK). His academic career spans multiple prestigious institutions including Fraunhofer and Max Planck MPI in Germany, INRIA/FUTURS in Paris, AUEB in Greece, Telecom-Paristech, ENS in France, Tsinghua and Jiaotong Shanghai in China, and Deusto University in Spain. Professor Vazirgiannis's research focuses on machine and deep learning methods for graph analysis, including community detection, graph clustering, node embeddings, and influence maximization. His work in text mining encompasses Graph of Words, word embeddings with applications to web advertising and marketing, event detection, and summarization. He has active collaborations with industrial partners in analytics and machine learning for large-scale data repositories across various application domains such as recommendations, meeting summarization, influence metrics for scientific and social networks, and predictive maintenance. His recent publications demonstrate a strong emphasis on Graph Neural Networks, multilingual NLP (particularly for French and Arabic), and applications of deep learning to diverse domains including social networks, legal text, and biomedical data. There's a clear trajectory toward developing more efficient, explainable, and specialized models that address real-world challenges in data analysis. ERCIM fellowship Marie Curie EU fellowship Tencent "Rhino-Bird International Academic Expert Award" (2017) Best Paper Award at IJCAI 2018 Best Paper Award at CIKM 2013 Professor Vazirgiannis has supervised 29 completed PhD theses and has attracted significant R&D funding from national and international sources, including research agencies and industrial partners such as Google, Airbus, Huawei, Deezer, BNP, and LVMH. He leads or has led several academic research chairs including DIGITEO (2013-15), ANR/HELAS (2020-25), and AXA (2015-2018). The DaSciM research group, which he leads at École Polytechnique, has extensive experience in real-world R&D projects involving large-scale data mining. The team maintains active collaborations with major industrial partners including AIRBUS, Google, BNP, Tencent, and Tradelab, working on cutting-edge machine learning projects. The group has co-organized major conferences such as ECML PKDD 2011 and ECML/PKDD 2017 and participates in the senior organization of AI and data mining events like AAAI and IJCAI.
Surendranath Suman is an Assistant Dean of Research and Professor in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences at the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. He also holds secondary appointments with the Center for Muscle Biology and the Division of Nutritional Sciences. With over 15 years of academic service at the university, he has progressed from Assistant Professor (2006-2012) to Associate Professor (2012-2017) and currently serves as Professor (2017-present). Dr. Suman earned his B.V.Sc. & A.H. from Kerala Agricultural University (1999), M.V.Sc. from Indian Veterinary Research Institute (2001), and Ph.D. from University of Connecticut (2006). He is also a Diplomate of the American College of Animal Sciences (2010). His research focuses on meat science with particular expertise in proteomics of meat quality, myoglobin chemistry and meat color stability, and novel strategies to improve meat quality. Dr. Suman has made significant contributions to understanding the biochemical mechanisms behind fresh meat color, particularly in beef and pork. His work integrates traditional meat science methodologies with high-throughput proteomic and metabolomic approaches to unravel complex biochemical pathways. Analysis of Dr. Suman's recent publications reveals a strong focus on meat color stability mechanisms, particularly through proteomic approaches. His research spans multiple species including beef cattle, pork, bison, and poultry, with particular attention to mitochondrial functionality, myoglobin chemistry, and post-translational modifications that influence meat quality attributes. Recent work has expanded into metabolomics applications in meat science. Scientific Awards and Recognition Distinguished Research Award, American Meat Science Association (2022) University Research Professor, University of Kentucky (2021) International Lectureship Award, American Meat Science Association (2019) Distinguished Alumni Award, University of Connecticut (2019) Meats Research Award, American Society of Animal Science (2018) Thomas Poe Cooper Distinguished Research Award, University of Kentucky (2017) Bobby Pass Excellence in Grantsmanship Award, University of Kentucky (2016) Special Visiting Researcher Fellowship, Government of Brazil (2014-2017) Early Career Achievement Award, American Society of Animal Science (2013) Dr. Suman has served as an invited speaker internationally across six continents and is an active editorial board member for numerous prestigious journals including Meat and Muscle Biology (Associate Editor), Journal of Animal Science, and Meat Science. His extensive editorial service reflects his standing as a leading authority in meat science research. He has successfully secured multiple research grants, as evidenced by the Bobby Pass Excellence in Grantsmanship Award he received in 2016. As Assistant Dean of Research, Dr. Suman plays a leadership role in advancing research initiatives within the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. His collaborative research involves multiple laboratories both domestically and internationally, particularly with institutions in Brazil, given his Special Visiting Researcher Fellowship from the Brazilian government. His work bridges fundamental biochemistry with practical applications in meat production and quality assessment.
Dr Liyuan Wei is an Associate Professor in Marketing at Southampton Business School, University of Southampton. She joined the university in 2024 after academic positions at Brunel University London and City University of Hong Kong. Her research explores intersections between digital strategies, consumer psychology, technology, wellbeing, and quantitative methods. PhD: Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto Her research focuses on responsible consumption, ethical marketing practices, and consumer wellbeing. She employs quantitative methodologies to examine digital marketing impacts and develops frameworks for healthy aging interventions through marketing strategies. Recent publications demonstrate expertise in tourism marketing, film industry analytics, healthcare interventions, and sustainability research. Key themes include mindfulness in ethical consumption, pandemic response strategies, and digital loyalty systems. Articles appear in journals like Journal of Policy Research in Tourism , International Journal of Research in Marketing , and Journal of Business Research . Teaching responsibilities include Marketing Research Methods, Marketing Analytics, Digital Marketing, and Strategic Marketing. She actively supervises PhD students in marketing-related topics and welcomes new applicants.
Robert G. Salomon is the Charles Fredrick Mabery Professor of Research in Chemistry at Case Western Reserve University and holds a secondary appointment as Professor of Ophthalmology in the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences. With a career spanning over four decades at Case Western since 1973, Dr. Salomon leads the Lipid Research Group focused on understanding the role of lipid oxidation in disease processes and developing new diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies. Dr. Salomon received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1966, followed by a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1971. He completed postdoctoral studies at both the University of Wisconsin and Indiana University before joining Case Western Reserve University, where he progressed from Assistant Professor to his current named professorship. Dr. Salomon's research bridges chemistry, biology, and medicine with groundbreaking work on lipid oxidation products. His laboratory discovered critically important compounds including levuglandins and isolevuglandins - highly reactive oxidized lipids that contribute to disease through reactions with proteins and DNA. His work has established connections between lipid oxidation and conditions such as age-related macular degeneration, atherosclerosis, and cancer. The research employs a multidisciplinary approach combining organic synthesis, analytical chemistry, immunology, and cell biology to investigate disease mechanisms and develop potential interventions. Analysis of Dr. Salomon's recent publications reveals a continued focus on the biochemical and pathological effects of lipid oxidation products, particularly their role in retinal diseases and cancer. His work demonstrates how compounds like HOHA lactone and carboxyethylpyrroles contribute to disease mechanisms through protein modification, inflammation, and cellular dysfunction, with significant implications for understanding disease progression and developing targeted therapies. Mortar Board 'Top Prof' Award (2003) Cleveland Clinic Innovator Award (2006) Editorial Advisory Board, Chemical Research in Toxicology (2009-) Editorial Advisory Board, Journal of Lipids (2009-) Editorial Advisory Board, Organic Chemistry International (2009-) NIH Synthetic and Biological Chemistry A Study Section (2012-16) Director, Visual Sciences Research Center Tissue Culture & Hybridoma Core (2015-) Associate Editor, Free Radical Research (2019-) Dr. Salomon's Lipid Research Group operates from the Millis Science Center at Case Western Reserve University, working in a laboratory previously occupied by Nobel Laureate George A. Olah. His laboratory features extensive capabilities for HPLC analysis, radiochemical experiments, cell culture (bacterial and mammalian), immunological studies, organic synthesis, and tissue fractionation. Through strong collaborative interactions with biomedical researchers at the CWRU School of Medicine and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Dr. Salomon's research extends into sophisticated mass spectroscopic analyses, animal studies, and clinical investigations on human subjects.
Professor Kelly Lyons is a Professor at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, cross-appointed to the Department of Computer Science. Her research focuses on service science, knowledge mobilization, social media, and data-driven innovation. Prior to academia, she held roles at IBM Toronto Lab's Centre for Advanced Studies. She has secured extensive funding from NSERC, IBM, and industry partnerships, and has advised numerous graduate students. Her work bridges interdisciplinary collaboration, emphasizing AI governance, digital economy impacts, and fostering Women in Technology initiatives. Research interests include the application of social platforms in service systems, data science for knowledge translation, and the societal implications of AI. Key projects involve analyzing gender dynamics in user reviews, open-source software structures, and pandemic-driven innovation trends. Her grants span data science, healthcare analytics, and smart city technologies. Publications span empirical studies on GitHub collaboration, AI governance frameworks, and biomedical knowledge systems. She received the Best Paper Award for 'The Effect of Collaborative Games on Group Work' (2015). Her teaching emphasizes service systems design and project management, with a focus on practical, interdisciplinary learning. Active in scholarly service, she chairs the Consortium for Software Engineering Research and serves on ACM-W's Executive Council. Collaborations include cross-institutional projects with University College London and UCL on AI governance frameworks. Her work extends to promoting STEM education and diversity in tech.
Dr. Rebecca K. Ivic is a Professor and Associate Dean of Research at the University of Alabama's College of Communication & Information Sciences. She holds a PhD and MA in Health Communication from Purdue University. Her research bridges health communication, public health, and computational social science to address global health challenges such as vaccine promotion and health equity. She currently serves as Senior Editor of the Journal of Health Communication and Co-Secretariat Lead for the Nature Medicine Commission's Quality Health Information for All initiative. Dr. Ivic has secured over $1.6M in research funding and contributed to 60+ peer-reviewed publications. She leads institutional research strategies, including a pilot funding program and strategic plans to enhance faculty and student research support. Her work emphasizes digital health directions, global partnerships, and evidence-based health information systems. She collaborates with multidisciplinary teams and international organizations to advance health equity through strategic communication frameworks. Key contributions include special journal collections, grant review roles for NIH and NSF, and partnerships with the CUNY School of Public Health. Dr. Ivic's research spans computational social science methodologies, social media discourse analysis, and health campaign effectiveness. Her recent work explores algorithmic impacts on misinformation, community support dynamics in online health spaces, and environmental health communication through social media networks.
Narges Mahyar is an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) . She is currently on sabbatical with the Aviz team at the Inria Center, University of Paris-Saclay . Her research focuses on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) , Information Visualization , and Digital Civics , aiming to empower communities through technology. Education: She holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Victoria, an MS in Information Technology from the University of Malaya, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Tehran Azad University. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia (2014–2016) and the University of California San Diego (2016–2018). Research Interests: Her work addresses complex societal challenges like climate change, urban planning, and healthcare by designing inclusive technologies. Key areas include civic engagement, data visualization for equity, and integrating AR/VR for public participation. Notable projects include CommunityClick and RisingEMOTIONS , which enhance public input in decision-making. Publications & Awards: With over 50 publications, her work has received prestigious awards including Best Paper Awards at CHI 2023 , Eurovis 2022 , and CSCW 2020 . Her research emphasizes ethical design and inclusivity, particularly involving marginalized communities. Grants & Advising: She has secured grants totaling over $1.4 million, including NSF funding for projects like "Mapping Instability" . Advises PhD student Mahmood Jasim and collaborates with Ali Sarvghad and Pari Riahi on interdisciplinary research. Labs & Teams: Leads the HCI-VIS Lab at UMass, focusing on social computing and visualization. Collaborates internationally with teams like Aviz and Inria on civic tech initiatives.
