UN AI Panel Technical Annex

1. Girmaw Abebe Tadesse

Current Position: Principal Research Scientist and Manager, Microsoft AI for Good Research Lab^[1]

Educational Background:

• PhD, Queen Mary University of London (Erasmus Mundus Double Doctorate Program in Interactive and Cognitive Environments)^[2]
• Focus: Computer vision and machine learning for human activity recognition

Previous Positions:

• Staff Research Scientist, IBM Research Africa^[3]
• Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Oxford^[2]

Research Focus: AI applications for social impact including agriculture, healthcare, and biodiversity. Work on trustworthy AI, including evaluation of generative models and representation analysis.^[2]

Notable Collaborations: Collaborations with Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation^[2][3]

2. Tuka Alhanai

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering, NYU Abu Dhabi^[4] Associated Faculty, Computer Science and Engineering Department, NYU Tandon^[5]

Leadership Role: Director, Laboratory for Computer-Human Intelligence (CHI-lab), NYU Abu Dhabi^[4]

Educational Background:

• PhD, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019^[5]
• Master’s degree, MIT
• Bachelor’s degree, Petroleum Institute, UAE

Research Focus: Machine learning systems for healthcare, robotics, finance; speech analysis for mental health diagnostics; AI systems that quantify subjective human behaviour^[4]

Notable Recognition:

• MIT Technology Review 35 Under 35 MENA Award (2018)^[5]
• UAE Government Excellence Award (2019)^[5]
• MIT Legatum Award (2016)^[5]
• MassChallenge Winner (2017)^[5]
• NSF SBIR Grant (2019)^[5]

Entrepreneurship: Co-founder, Ghamut Corporation (machine learning consultancy), 2016^[4]

Publication Metrics: 1,412 citations (Google Scholar)^[6]

3. Joëlle Barral

Current Position: Senior Director of Research & Engineering, Google DeepMind^[7]

Location: Based in Paris, France

Portfolio Responsibilities:

• Theoretical and empirical aspects of frontier AI models
• Early-stage research in AI and life sciences
• Leadership of Google DeepMind healthcare efforts^[8]
• Team leadership across Europe and North America^[8]

Previous Experience:

• Software Lead, Verily (Google’s sister life sciences company)
• Head of Verily Surgical
• Part of founding team, Verb Surgical (Verily and Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon joint venture)^[8]

Educational Background:

• Stanford University (graduate education)^[9]
• École Polytechnique, France (X-2001)^[10]

Recognition: Prix Pierre Faurre 2019 (from École Polytechnique)^[10]

Public Engagement: Regular speaker on responsible AI development, AI safety, security, and privacy^[7]

4. Yoshua Bengio

Current Position: Full Professor, Université de Montréal, Department of Computer Science and Operations Research^[11] Founder and Scientific Advisor, Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute^[11] Co-President and Scientific Director, LawZero^[12]

Major Recognition:

• 2018 ACM A.M. Turing Award (with Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun)^[13]
• Most-cited living scientist across all fields by total citations (as of 2025)^[14]
• First living scientist to surpass one million citations on Google Scholar (October 2025)^[14]
• 2019 Killam Prize^[11]
• 2022 Herzberg Gold Medal^[11]

Honours and Appointments:

• Fellow, Royal Society of London^[11]
• Fellow, Royal Society of Canada^[11]
• Officer, Order of Canada^[11]
• Knight, Legion of Honour (France)^[11]
• Member, UN Scientific Advisory Board for Independent Advice on Breakthroughs in Science and Technology^[11]
• TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People (2024)^[11]

Research Focus Pivot: Public statement from 2023: \”At the beginning of 2023, I began a pivot from research in machine learning aimed at increasing AI capabilities\… to research on AI safety.\”^[15]

AI Governance Activity: Signatory, Future of Life Institute open letter (March 2023) calling for pause on AI systems more powerful than GPT-4^[16]

Citation Metrics: Over 1,000,000 citations on Google Scholar (first living person to achieve this)^[14]

5. Tegawendé Bissyandé

Current Position: Professor of Computer Science (Chief Scientist II / Investigador CINVESTAV 3F equivalent), Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT), University of Luxembourg

Leadership Role: Head, Trustworthy Software Engineering (TruX) Research Group, SnT

Grant Awards: European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant holder – First recipient from Burkina Faso and West Africa

Educational Background:

• PhD, Computer Science, University of Bordeaux (France), 2013
• Engineering Degree, Telecommunications, ENSEIRB (France), 2009
• MSc, Software Engineering, University of Bordeaux, 2009

Research Focus: Software security, automated software repair, program analysis, code review, code generation, Android malware detection and analysis, trustworthy AI

Major Projects:

• ERC-funded NATURAL project on natural program repair using AI
• Principal Investigator, LuxWAyS and SnT4Dev projects (Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign Affairs) training PhD cohorts from West Africa
• Canada-funded project establishing Interdisciplinary Centre of Excellence in AI for Development in Burkina Faso
• Industry partnerships: BGL BNP Paribas (FinTech), BMedical (Industry 4.0), Zortify (Human Resources), LuxArmy (Cybersecurity)

Africa Capacity Building:

• Lecturer, Université Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Burkina Faso
• Regular contributor to higher education in Senegal, Chad and other African nations
• Established university incubator and Centre of Excellence in AI for Development in Burkina Faso

Notable Recognition:

• Distinguished and best paper awards at ASE, SANER, APSEC, KDD, and MSR conferences
• Eiffel Scholarship (prestigious French government grant for foreign students)
• Distinguished PhD Award from GDR GPL for Linux Kernel debugging contributions
• Highest ranking student in Burkina Faso at national High School Diploma exams (2004)

Major Research Contributions:

• Creator of AndroZoo dataset (3+ million Android applications for malware research)
• Pioneering work in automated program repair
• Advanced mobile security analysis methodologies
• Significant contributions to trustworthy software engineering

Publication Impact:

• 13,620 citations (Google Scholar)
• H-index: 54
• Over 100 articles in top-tier academic venues
• Presented research at Google, Huawei, Facebook headquarters

Career Progression:

• 2013-2019: Postdoctoral Fellow then Assistant Professor, SnT, University of Luxembourg
• 2019-2021: Associate Professor, SnT
• 2021-present: Professor (Chief Scientist II), SnT
• Visiting positions: Singapore Management University (2012), Université Pierre et Marie Curie (2011), UC Santa Barbara (2008)

Additional Context: First from Burkina Faso to receive prestigious ERC Starting Grant, reflecting both scientific excellence and commitment to advancing African research capacity; balances frontier research in software engineering with substantial effort building computing education infrastructure across West Africa; work bridges theoretical advances in trustworthy AI with practical applications in security and reliability

6. Loreto Bravo

Current Position: Director, Institute of Data Science, Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD), Santiago, Chile

Government Advisory Role: Member, National CTCI Council (National Council for Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation) – Chile’s highest advisory body to the President of the Republic on science, technology, and innovation policy

Educational Background:

• PhD, Computer Science, Carleton University, Canada
• Ingeniera Civil Industrial (Industrial Civil Engineering degree), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Previous Academic Positions:

• Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Universidad de Concepción, Chile
• Affiliated with Millennium Institute for Foundational Research on Data (IMFD)

Board Membership: Board Member, Alaya (technology company with 20+ years experience in digital solutions for finance, mining, retail, and manufacturing sectors)

Research Focus: Data science, data quality and data cleaning, database systems, spatio-temporal data, human mobility analysis using mobile phone data, multi-criteria decision making, inconsistency handling in databases

Major Research Contributions:

• Pioneering work on data quality management and cleaning methodologies
• Analysis of human mobility patterns using large-scale mobile phone data
• Social stratification of internal migration during COVID-19 pandemic
• Linking physical violence to women’s mobility patterns in Chile
• Multi-granular database models and spatio-temporal consistency
• Extended inclusion dependencies with conditions
• Consistent query answers from mediated data integration systems

Publication Impact:

• 1,625 citations (Google Scholar)
• Research published in top venues including VLDB, IEEE Transactions, EPJ Data Science
• Collaborated with international research groups including universities in France, Canada, Italy

Academic Programme Development: Leadership in establishing Master’s in Data Science and executive education initiatives focused on AI adoption and digital transformation at UDD

Key Collaborations: Research partnerships with Leo Ferres, Luca Pappalardo, Carlos Rodríguez-Sickert, Eduardo Graells-Garrido, Pablo Barceló, and international data science community

Professional Activities: Strategic guidance on artificial intelligence, data-driven decision-making, and digital transformation for government and industry partnerships

Research Domains: Interdisciplinary work spanning data analytics, computational social science, urban mobility, gender-based violence analysis, pandemic response, data warehousing and OLAP, database theory

Additional Context: Bridges academic research with national policy influence through CTCI Council role; leadership developing data science education and research infrastructure in Chile; work on social impact applications of data science particularly notable in analysing human mobility and social equity issues

7. Mark Coeckelbergh

Current Position: Professor of Philosophy of Media and Technology, Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Austria (since 2015)

Additional Appointments:

• ERA Chair, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
• Guest Professor, WASP-HS and University of Uppsala, Sweden
• Circle U. Academic Chair for Artificial Intelligence, University of Vienna

Educational Background:

• PhD, Philosophy, University of Birmingham, UK

Leadership Positions:

• Former Vice Dean, Faculty of Philosophy and Education, University of Vienna (until 2020)
• Former President, Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT)

European Commission Role: Member, High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence for the European Commission

Austrian Government Advisory:

• Member, Rat für Robotik (Austrian Robotics Council), Austrian Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology
• Member, Austrian Advisory Council on Automated Mobility
• Member, Expert Council Ethics of AI, Austrian UNESCO Commission

Professional Service:

• Former member, IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in AI and Autonomous Systems
• Steering Committee member, ETHICOMP
• Associate Editor, AI & Society
• Editorial board member: Cambridge Forum on AI, AI and Ethics, Technophany, Science and Engineering Ethics, multiple other leading journals

Major Recognition:

• World Technology Network (WTN) Fellow
• Finalist, 2017 World Technology Awards (Ethics category)
• Nominated, 2014 and 2017 World Technology Awards (Ethics category)

Publication Impact:

• 14,660 citations (Google Scholar)
• H-index: 62 (August 2025)
• Author of 15+ books
• Numerous articles across philosophy, technology ethics, AI ethics, robotics, environmental philosophy, political philosophy

Major Books:

• Communicative AI (with David Gunkel, Polity, 2025)
• Why AI Undermines Democracy and What To Do About It (Polity, 2024)
• The Political Philosophy of AI (Polity, 2022)
• Self-Improvement: Technologies of the Soul in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Columbia University Press, 2022)
• Robot Ethics (2022)
• AI Ethics (MIT Press, 2020) – widely praised introduction to field
• Introduction to Philosophy of Technology (Oxford University Press, 2019)
• New Romantic Cyborgs: Romanticism, Information Technology, and the End of the Machine (MIT Press, 2017)
• Growing Moral Relations (2012) – attributed with ‘relational turn’ in thinking about moral status

Research Focus: Philosophy of technology, ethics of AI and robotics, political philosophy of AI, environmental philosophy, moral status and moral relations, democracy and communication, technology and temporality, romantic philosophy and technology

European Research Projects: INBOTS, SATORI (ethical impact assessment), PERSEO, DREAM (robot-enhanced therapy for children with autism), WWTF Interpretability and Explainability project

Academic Career:

• 2014-2019: Professor, Technology and Social Responsibility, Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
• 2012-2014: Managing Director, 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology, Netherlands
• 2007-2014: Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department, University of Twente, Netherlands

Key Theoretical Contributions: Phenomenological and relational approach to AI ethics; communicative conception of democracy applied to AI; political philosophy framework for understanding AI governance; critique of AI’s impact on democratic processes; environmental ethics connecting climate change and AI

Additional Context: Leading voice in European AI ethics policy development; work spans theoretical philosophy and practical policy influence; bridges continental philosophy tradition with contemporary technology challenges; argued for embedding values in AI design and translating democratic values into technical practice

8. Carlos Coello Coello

Current Position: Full Professor with Distinction (Investigador CINVESTAV 3F), Department of Computer Science, CINVESTAV-IPN (Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional), Mexico City

Additional Appointment: Visiting Professor, Basque Center for Applied Mathematics, Spain

Educational Background:

• PhD, Computer Science, Tulane University, USA, 1996
• MSc and undergraduate degrees in Computer Science

Editorial Leadership: Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation

Major Recognition and Awards:

• 2024: MCDM Edgeworth-Pareto Award, International Society on Multi-Criteria Decision Making
• 2023: ACM SIGEVO Outstanding Contribution Award, Association for Computing Machinery
• 2023: Premio Crónica in Science and Technology
• 2023: Listed #69 in Líderes magazine \”300 Most Influential Leaders in Mexico\”
• 2021: IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award
• 2019: Luis Elizondo Award, Tecnológico de Monterrey
• 2016: TWAS (The World Academy of Sciences) Award in Engineering Sciences
• 2013: IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award \”for pioneering contributions to single- and multi-objective optimization techniques using bioinspired metaheuristics\”
• 2012: National Medal of Science and Arts (Physics, Mathematics and Natural Sciences) – highest scientific award in Mexico
• 2012: Scopus Award (Mexico edition) for most highly cited scientist in engineering (5-year period)
• 2011: Ciudad Capital Heberto Castillo Award (scientists under 45, Basic Science)
• 2009: Medal to Scientific Merit, Mexico City Congress
• 2007: National Research Award (Exact Sciences), Mexican Academy of Science

Professional Recognition:

• IEEE Fellow (since January 2011)
• Level 3, National System of Researchers (SNI), Mexico
• Ranked #289 worldwide and #1 in Mexico, Guide2Research 2022 Ranking (Top 1000 Scientists, Computer Science and Electronics)

Research Focus: Evolutionary computation (genetic algorithms and evolution strategies), evolutionary multi-objective optimization, particle swarm optimization, engineering optimization, biologically inspired stochastic algorithms for complex optimization problems

Major Contributions: Pioneering contributions to evolutionary multi-objective optimization – now recognized subdiscipline; design of novel meta-heuristic algorithms for single and multi-objective optimization; applications across engineering domains; foundational work establishing field methodologies

Publication Impact:

• Over 600 publications
• Over 200 journal papers
• 50+ book chapters
• Most cited paper \”Evolutionary algorithms for solving multi-objective problems\” has over 7,800 citations
• Massive citation impact across evolutionary computation field

Key Books: \”Evolutionary Algorithms for Solving Multi-Objective Problems\” (with Gary B. Lamont and David A. Van Veldhuizen, Springer) – seminal text in field

Research Group: Founder and leader, Evolutionary Computation Group (EVOCINV), CINVESTAV-IPN (established 2001)

• Supervised 10+ PhD students
• Supervised 30+ Master’s students

Editorial Service: Associate Editor: Applied Soft Computing, Computational Optimization and Applications, Pattern Analysis and Applications, Journal of Heuristics

Teaching: Master’s and PhD courses: evolutionary computation, evolutionary multiobjective optimization, programming languages, engineering optimization at CINVESTAV-IPN; short courses internationally in Spain, England, India, USA

Conference Leadership: General Chair, 2013 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation

Professional Society Leadership: IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, ACM SIGEVO (Special Interest Group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation)

Career Background: Born in Tonalá, Chiapas; undergraduate degree from Autonomous University of Chiapas; worked in construction before obtaining scholarship for graduate studies; PhD from Tulane University positioned him as leading researcher in evolutionary computation

Additional Context: Most highly cited Mexican computer scientist; pioneering work established evolutionary multi-objective optimization as major research field; extensive graduate training contribution developing next generation of researchers; balance of theoretical advances with engineering applications; numerous national and international recognition for scientific excellence

9. Melahat Bilge Demirköz

Current Position: Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, Middle East Technical University (METU/ODTÜ), Ankara, Turkey

Leadership Role: Director, Research and Application Center for Space and Accelerating Technologies (IVMER), METU

Educational Background:

• PhD, Physics, University of Oxford, UK (moved from MIT after Space Shuttle Columbia disaster)
• BSc, Physics and Music (dual degree), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2001
• High School: Robert College, Istanbul, 1997

Major Fellowships and Awards:

• 2024: Eisenhower Fellow (22 global fellows selected across 5 continents)
• World Economic Forum Young Global Leader
• L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Rising Talent Fellowship
• Marie Curie Fellow under FP7
• 2014: Turkish Physics Society Engin Arık Scientist Award
• 2014: METU Young Researcher Achievement Award
• Scientific Achievement Award for 8th March World Women’s Day, Ministry of Family and Social Policy
• Ten Outstanding Young People (TOYP) Award
• 2001: Joel Matthew Orloff Award, MIT
• Selected to carry Olympic Flame in Istanbul

Academic Recognition:

• Associate Member, Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÃœBA) (selected 2013)
• Member, Global Young Academy
• Science Board Member, Yunus Emre Institute
• Former member, TUBITAK Science Board (2013-2016)

Major Research Collaborations:

• Member, ATLAS Experiment at CERN (including Higgs boson discovery 2012)
• Member, AMS-02 collaboration (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on International Space Station)
• Coordinator, Particle Radiation Tests Creation Laboratory (first Turkey-CERN collaboration)

Research Focus: Astro-particle physics, space radiation environment, particle detector development, artificial intelligence applications in physics, cosmic ray studies, dark matter searches, semiconductor radiation resistance, big data analysis for space science

Major Achievements:

• 2021: Led team developing Turkey’s first scientific payload sent to space (radiation meter)
• Established first radiation environment test facility for space and particle physics research at TAEK SANAEM (Saraykoy Nuclear Research and Training Center) in Turkey
• Analysis of cosmic ray flux variability collected by Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
• Research on jet shapes from ATLAS experiment (900 GeV and 7 TeV data)
• Testing particle detectors using cosmic rays
• Total Ionizing Dose (TID) tests of space power amplifiers (SANTEZ project with ASELSAN)

Publication Impact:

• 124,134 citations (Google Scholar) – includes major collaboration papers (ATLAS, AMS-02)
• 307 publications
• H-index: 48
• Contributing author to landmark ATLAS Higgs discovery paper (Physics Letters B, 2012)

Career Progression:

• 2017-present: Professor, METU
• 2009-2017: Faculty positions progressing to Associate Professor, METU
• 2009-2011: Postdoctoral Fellow, CERN and Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE), Barcelona
• 2009: Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Cambridge
• 2007-2009: Postdoctoral Fellow, CERN (ATLAS experiment)

Science Diplomacy and Public Engagement:

• Founded Engin Arik Fellowship (2008) supporting Turkish students at CERN
• Co-funded THE Port humanitarian hackathons at CERN
• Active in promoting science education and international scientific cooperation

PhD Research: \”Cosmic tests and performance of the ATLAS SemiConductor Tracker Barrels\” (University of Oxford, 2007)

Research Infrastructure Development: Building Turkey’s capacity in space radiation testing, particle detection for medical facilities, and big data analysis for space science applications through IVMER

Additional Context: Bridge builder between fundamental physics research and practical space technology applications; pioneering Turkey’s space radiation research capabilities; work spans frontier science (dark matter, cosmic rays) and national technology development (semiconductor radiation hardening, space instrumentation); active in science diplomacy connecting Turkish research community to major international collaborations (CERN, ISS); contributes to both theoretical understanding of cosmic phenomena and practical engineering challenges for space missions

10. Adji Bousso Dieng

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University

Educational Background:

• PhD Statistics, Columbia University (2020) – advised by David Blei and John Paisley
• MS Applied Statistics, Cornell University (2013)
• Diplôme d’Ingénieur, Télécom ParisTech, France (2013)

Research Focus: Probabilistic modeling bridging probabilistic graphical models and deep learning; AI for natural sciences (materials science, chemistry, biology); diversity metrics for ML systems; nanomaterial design for carbon capture and drug delivery

Key Affiliations:

• Princeton High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI)
• Princeton Chemical & Biological Engineering (associated faculty)
• Princeton Materials Institute (associated faculty)
• Quantitative & Computational Biology program (associated faculty)
• Research Scientist, Google AI
• Founder & President, The Africa I Know (nonprofit supporting African STEM education)

Notable Recognition:

• First Black female faculty member in Princeton School of Engineering history (2021)
• First Black faculty member in Princeton Computer Science Department
• AI2050 Early Career Fellow, Schmidt Futures (2022, \$300K)
• Annie T. Randall Innovator Award, American Statistical Association (2022)
• Savage Award for Applied Methodology (2020) – first Black woman recipient since 1977
• Columbia University Outstanding Recent Alumni Award (2023)
• Prix Galien Africa Special Prize (2025)
• The Africa Report: 10 African Scholars to Watch (2025)
• Google PhD Fellowship in Machine Learning (2019, \$35K + tuition)
• Rising Star in Machine Learning, University of Maryland (2019)

Research Impact:

• 3,614 citations (Google Scholar)
• \”The Vendi Score\” paper – novel diversity evaluation metric for ML
• Vertaix Lab – AI for natural sciences applications

Additional Context: From Kaolack, Senegal; won Senegalese Olympiad in Philosophy; Pathfinder Foundation scholarship; founded The Africa I Know to inspire young Africans in STEM; spoke at UN Economic Commission for Africa

11. AWA Bousso Dramé

Current Position: Founder & CEO, CoastGIS Research Institute (Cabo Verde & Senegal); PhD Researcher, University College London

Educational Background:

• PhD in progress: Environmental/Ocean Sciences & GIS/AI, University College London (expected 2025)
• MRes Earth & Environmental Sciences (Hydrosystems Engineering & GIS, First Class Honours), Columbia University (2019)
• Previous education: Sorbonne University (Paris, France)

Research Focus: Ocean sciences and GeoAI (AI, GIS, Remote Sensing); coastal geomorphology; ocean dynamics and wave climate variability in West Africa; climate change impacts on coastal areas; application of AI and GIS to coastal management for African Island States

Key Affiliations:

• University College London, Department of Geography (affiliated)
• UNESCO Youth Forum Steering Committee & Advisory Board
• UN Ocean Decade Strategic Advisory Board
• African Union Women in GMES – Secretary & Diaspora Lead (Governing Council)

Notable Recognition:

• 2022 L’Oréal/UNESCO Women in Science Prize
• 2023 Forbes Africa 30 Under 30
• 2024 PMI Future 50 Honoree
• GEN4STEM and Field2Lab programs featured in 2025 UNESCO Open Science Hub
• Featured in 2025 UNESCO Global Compendium for Gender Inclusion in STEM

Research Impact:

• 7 publications (ResearchGate)
• Author of \”Ocean4Kids Cabo Verde\” book
• Contributed to Senegal National AI Strategy

Additional Context: Pioneer in Ocean Sciences and GeoAI in West Africa; 10+ years international experience across 20 countries; founded gender-inclusive STEM programs (GEN4STEM, Field2Lab, Ocean4Kids) reaching 21 countries in West Africa and training 450+ women and girls; Ocean4Kids Cabo Verde endorsed by United Nations Ocean Decade; advocate for African Island States (prefers term \”Big Ocean States\” over SIDS)

12. Mennatallah El-assady

Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, ETH Zürich; Head, Interactive Visualization and Intelligence Augmentation (IVIA) Lab

Educational Background:

• PhD Data Analysis and Visualization, University of Konstanz, Germany
• Joint dissertation award winner of German, Austrian, and Swiss Informatics Societies
• Also studied at OntarioTech University, Canada (Visualization for Information Analysis Lab)

Research Focus: Interactive visualization and intelligence augmentation; explainable AI; interactive machine learning; computational linguistics; human-AI collaboration interfaces for problem-solving and decision-making; bridging human and AI intelligence through co-adaptive processes

Key Affiliations:

• ETH Zürich AI Center (former research fellow)
• University of Konstanz, Data Analysis and Visualization Group (former research associate)
• OntarioTech University (former research associate)

Notable Recognition:

• 2024 IEEE VIS Visualization Significant New Researcher Award
• 2023 EuroVis Early Career Award
• 2023 Eurographics Junior Fellow
• Joint dissertation award of German, Austrian, and Swiss Informatics Societies
• Honorable mention for VGTC VIS Doctoral Dissertation Award

Research Impact:

• 3,784 citations (Google Scholar)
• Development of LingVis.io platform for computational linguistics
• Co-founded workshop series: Vis4DH (Visualization for Digital Humanities) and VISxAI (Visualization for AI Explainability)
• Pioneering work at intersection of visualization and machine learning

Additional Context: TEDxVienna speaker on explainable AI; interdisciplinary collaborations with political science and linguistic scholars; focus on designing transparent, controllable, and collaborative AI systems; emphasis on empowering humans through intelligent augmentation

13. Hoda Heidari

Current Position: K&L Gates Career Development Assistant Professor in Ethics and Computational Technologies, Carnegie Mellon University; Joint appointments in Machine Learning Department and Institute for Software, Systems, and Society

Educational Background:

• PhD Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania
• MS Statistics, Wharton School of Business
• BSc Computer Engineering, Sharif University of Technology

Research Focus: Ethical and societal aspects of AI and ML; algorithmic fairness and accountability; responsible AI; fairness in public policy applications (education, criminal justice, child welfare, health services); AI governance and ethics; human-AI collaboration; validity of predictive algorithms in high-stakes domains; pipeline-aware approach to algorithmic fairness

Key Affiliations:

• Carnegie Mellon University: Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Heinz College, CyLab, Block Center for Technology and Society
• Co-leader, CMU Responsible AI Initiative
• Co-leader, K&L Gates Initiative for Ethics and Computational Technologies
• Senior personnel, NSF AI Institute for Societal Decision Making (AI-SDM)

Notable Recognition:

• 2021 Best Paper Award, ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT)
• 2021 Exemplary Track Award, ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC)
• 2021 J.P. Morgan and Chase Individual Faculty Award
• 2021 Facebook Research Award (for fairness algorithms bias-testing tool)
• NSF Program on Fairness in AI in Collaboration with Amazon (funding)
• Additional research support from PwC, CyLab, Meta

Research Impact:

• 4,758 citations (Google Scholar)
• Extensive publications in top venues: FAccT, AIES, EC, CHI, CSCW, ICML, WWW
• Focus on translating fairness goals in public policy into computationally tractable measures
• Emphasis on pipeline-aware fairness (addressing root causes throughout ML pipeline)

Additional Context: Advocate for participatory frameworks in AI system development; emphasis on building relationships with affected communities before system design; work on mathematical notions vs human perception of fairness; long-term impact studies of algorithmic decision policies; developed sandbox tools for bias-testing fairness algorithms

14. Juho KIM

Current Position: Associate Professor (tenured), School of Computing, KAIST; Director, KIXLAB (KAIST Interaction Lab); Co-Founder & CTO, SkillBench Inc.; Affiliated faculty, Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI at KAIST

Educational Background:

• PhD EECS, MIT (2015)
• MS Computer Science, Stanford University (2010)
• BS Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University (2008)

Research Focus: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human-AI Interaction; Interaction-Centric AI – designing transparent, controllable, and collaborative AI systems; interactive technologies empowering people to learn, create, and decide with Large Language Models and Generative AI; learning at scale; social computing; video interaction; crowdsourcing

Key Affiliations:

• KIXLAB (KAIST Interaction Lab) – Director
• SkillBench Inc. – Co-Founder & CTO (AI-powered productivity and workforce development)
• Former: Visiting Assistant Professor and Brown Fellow, Stanford University (2015-2016)

Notable Recognition:

• 2025 KAIST College of Engineering Impact Research Award
• 2025 KAIST Global Research Cooperation Award (Grand Prize)
• 2024 Outstanding Ethics Professor Award, KAIST Graduate Students Association
• 2022 KIISE/IEEE-CS Young Computer Researcher Award
• 2022 NeurIPS Keynote: \”Interaction-Centric AI\”
• 2021 HCOMP Keynote: \”Crowd-Powered Interactive Systems\”
• 2022 Creative Education Award, KAIST
• 2020 Songam Distinguished Research Award, KAIST
• 2020 Grand Prize for Creative Teaching, KAIST
• 2020 Kyu-Young Whang School of Computing Career Award
• 2022 ACM CHI: Best Paper Award and Honorable Mention (presented 7 papers, tied for most)
• 20+ paper awards and recognitions at top-tier HCI venues

Research Impact:

• 10,032 citations (Google Scholar)
• Published 100+ papers in top venues (CHI, CSCW, UIST, IUI, Learning at Scale)
• Research translated to industry collaborations and technology transfer
• Ringle: Led product development of AI-powered English proficiency diagnosis

Additional Context: Pioneer in \”Interaction-Centric AI\” approach; interdisciplinary work spanning HCI, AI, education technology, and social computing; known for work on learnersourcing, interactive evaluation of LLMs, content-based video navigation; extensive teaching awards including Excellence in Teaching (2019) and Grand Prize for Creative Teaching (2020)

15. Anna Korhonen

Current Position: Professor of Natural Language Processing, University of Cambridge; Co-Director, Language Technology Laboratory (LTL)

Educational Background:

• PhD Computer Science, University of Cambridge
• MS Computer Science, University of Cambridge
• MS Linguistics, University of Cambridge
• Former: JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo; Researcher, University of Pennsylvania

Research Focus: Natural Language Processing (NLP) and computational linguistics; human-centric NLP drawing on cognitive, social, and creative intelligence; responsible AI; applications for social and global good; multilingual conversational AI; cross-lingual NLP; biomedical text mining; computational neurolinguistics

Key Affiliations:

• University of Cambridge Language Technology Laboratory – Co-Director
• Cambridge Computer Laboratory (affiliated)
• Alan Turing Institute (affiliated)
• Former: Royal Society University Research Fellow

Notable Recognition:

• ERC Grant: MultiConvAI – Enabling Multilingual Conversational AI
• EPSRC Grant: Modeling Idiomaticity in Human and Artificial Language Processing
• Multiple Innovate UK and NSF collaborations
• Extensive interdisciplinary research collaborations

Research Impact:

• 15,822 citations (Google Scholar)
• 180+ peer-reviewed publications in leading NLP, computational linguistics, and cognitive science venues
• Development of LingVis.io platform with computational linguists
• Pioneering work in cross-lingual transfer learning and multilingual language modeling

Additional Context: Based in Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics (School of Arts and Humanities); emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration across AI, linguistics, cognitive science, and health; research on culturally aware and adapted NLP; biomedical applications including cancer research text mining; computational approaches to understanding human language processing

16. Aleksandra Korolova

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs, Princeton University; Center for Information Technology Policy

Educational Background:

• PhD Computer Science, Stanford University
• Grew up in Latvia (attended Riga Secondary School #40)

Research Focus: Privacy (differential privacy, private data analysis); algorithmic fairness; algorithm auditing and accountability; societal impacts of AI/ML systems; online advertising privacy; discrimination in algorithmic systems

Key Affiliations:

• Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy
• Former: Research Scientist, Google; WiSE Gabilan Assistant Professor, University of Southern California; Privacy Advisor, Snap Inc.

Notable Recognition:

• 2025 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)
• 2024 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Computer Science
• 2020 NSF CAREER Award
• 2025 ACM CCS Test-of-Time Award (RAPPOR paper)
• 2011 Privacy Enhancing Technologies Award (co-winner) – microtargeted advertising privacy violations
• 2015 Privacy Enhancing Technologies Award (runner-up) – RAPPOR differential privacy system
• 2021 WWW Best Student Paper Award (runner-up)
• 2019 ACM CSCW Honorable Mention and Diversity & Inclusion Recognition

Research Impact:

• 16,661 citations (Google Scholar)
• Pioneering work on black-box auditing methodologies for algorithmic systems
• RAPPOR system: first commercial deployment of differential privacy (Chrome 2014)
• Research demonstrating Facebook ad delivery discrimination led to 2022 DOJ settlement requiring Meta to modify ad delivery algorithms
• Extensive publications in top security, privacy, and social computing venues (IEEE S&P, USENIX Security, ACM CCS, WWW, CSCW)

Additional Context: Recognized expert on privacy-preserving data collection, algorithmic discrimination in online advertising, and platform accountability; work has directly influenced tech industry practices and regulatory outcomes; advocate for increased transparency and external auditing of algorithmic systems

17. Vipin Kumar

Current Position: Regents Professor, University of Minnesota; William Norris Endowed Chair, Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Educational Background:

• PhD Computer Science

Research Focus: Data mining and machine learning; high-performance computing; knowledge-guided machine learning (integrating scientific knowledge into ML model design); applications to climate science, ecosystems, and healthcare; parallel algorithms and graph partitioning

Key Affiliations:

• University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment (Fellow, 2016)
• Led NSF Expeditions in Computing project: \”Understanding Climate Change – A Data Driven Approach\” (\$10M, 10 years)
• Developer of METIS, ParMETIS, and hMETIS graph partitioning software (widely used in high-performance computing)

Notable Recognition:

• 2025 IEEE Computer Society Taylor L. Booth Education Award
• 2023 AAAI Fellow
• 2021 ACM/IEEE George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship (Test of Time Award)
• 2016 IEEE Computer Society Sidney Fernbach Award (HPC excellence)
• 2015 Regents Professorship, University of Minnesota
• 2012 ACM SIGKDD Innovation Award (highest honor in data mining)
• 2006 AAAS Fellow
• 2006 ACM Fellow
• 2005 IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award
• 2000 IEEE Fellow

Research Impact:

• 161,002 citations (Google Scholar)
• 400+ research articles
• Co-authored 11 books including widely-used textbooks: \”Introduction to Parallel Computing\” and \”Introduction to Data Mining\”
• Pioneer in applying machine learning to climate change monitoring (global forest cover, surface water bodies, land cover changes using satellite data)
• Developed isoefficiency analysis framework for parallel algorithms

Additional Context: One of the world’s most highly cited computer scientists; extensive work integrating domain science knowledge into AI/ML systems; significant contributions to both theoretical foundations (parallel computing, data mining algorithms) and practical applications (climate science, environmental monitoring); emphasis on knowledge-guided AI that combines data-driven approaches with scientific principles

18. Sonia Livingstone

Current Position: Professor of Social Psychology, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); Director, Digital Futures for Children Research Centre (LSE and 5Rights Foundation)

Educational Background:

• DPhil Psychology, University of Oxford (supervised by Michael Argyle)
• BSc Psychology, University College London

Research Focus: Children and media in the digital age; children’s rights in the digital environment; media audiences and reception studies; internet safety and risks/opportunities for children; media literacy; media regulation; digital citizenship; privacy and data protection for children; public engagement with media

Key Affiliations:

• Former Head, Department of Media and Communications, LSE
• Founder (1993), MSc in Media and Communications programme, LSE
• Director, Global Kids Online (with UNICEF)
• Former Co-Director, Digital Futures Commission (with 5Rights Foundation)
• Past President, International Communication Association (ICA)
• Former positions: Professor II University of Oslo (2014-16); Guest Professor Paris-Panthéon-Assas University (2009); Faculty Fellow Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard (2013-14)

Notable Recognition:

• 2019 Erasmus Medal – \”highest level of international scholarship and significant contribution to European culture and scientific achievement\”
• 2018 Fellow of the British Academy (FBA)
• 2014 Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) – \”for services to children and child Internet safety\”
• Fellow, British Psychological Society (FBPS)
• Fellow, Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS)
• Fellow, Royal Society for the Arts (FRSA)
• Honorary Doctorates: University of Montreal, University of Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), Erasmus University of Rotterdam
• 2021 REF ‘world-leading’ impact case study: \”Realising children’s rights in a digital world\”

Research Impact:

• 90,349 citations (Google Scholar)

• 21 books published, including:

• \”Parenting for a Digital Future\” (Oxford University Press, 2020)
• \”The Class: Living and Learning in the Digital Age\” (NYU Press, 2016)
• \”Media Regulation: Governance and the Interests of Citizens and Consumers\” (Sage, 2012)
• \”Children and the Internet: Great Expectations, Challenging Realities\” (Polity, 2009)

• Led major research projects: EU Kids Online, Global Kids Online, Preparing for a Digital Future, Children’s Data and Privacy Online

• Extensive publications on screen time debate, children’s digital play, age-appropriate design, child rights impact assessment

Additional Context: Advisory roles to UK government, European Commission, European Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, OECD, ITU, and UNICEF on children’s internet safety and digital rights; pioneering work on reconceptualising \”screen time\” debate to focus on content, context and connections; emphasis on embedding children’s rights in digital infrastructure design; major contributions to audience studies and reception theory; research spanning television audiences (1980s-90s) to comprehensive focus on children’s digital environments

19. Qinghua LU

Current Position: Group Leader, Software Systems Research Group, CSIRO’s Data61; Acting Research Program Director, Software and Computational Systems, CSIRO Data61; Adjunct Professor, University of New South Wales

Educational Background:

• PhD Computer Science, University of New South Wales, 2013
• Former researcher, NICTA (predecessor to Data61)

Research Focus: AI Engineering and Software Engineering for AI; Responsible AI and AI Safety; Agentic AI systems (foundation model-based agents); software architecture for AI systems; AI assurance and trustworthy AI metrics; knowledge-guided machine learning; blockchain technology; distributed trust systems

Key Affiliations:

• Member, Australia’s National AI Centre Responsible AI Think Tank
• Member, International Working Group on AI Metrology (established by Frontier Model Forum and Human Intelligence)
• Member, OECD.AI’s Trustworthy AI Metrics Project Team
• Contributing expert, Australia’s AI Safety Standard
• Steering Committee Member, International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)
• Editorial Board Member, IEEE Blockchain Technical Briefs; Elsevier Blockchain Research and Applications
• IEEE Senior Member

Notable Recognition:

• 2023 Asia-Pacific Women in AI Trailblazer Award
• 2023 IEEE Hyper-Intelligence Technical Committee (HITC) Mid Career Award
• ACM Distinguished Paper Award – \”Towards a Roadmap on Software Engineering for Responsible AI\” (widely cited, set future direction for the field)

Research Impact:

• 9,895 citations (Google Scholar)
• 322 publications in premier software engineering, AI, and computer science venues
• h-index: 23
• Author, \”Responsible AI: Best Practices for Creating Trustworthy AI Systems\” (Pearson Addison-Wesley, December 2023) – world’s first responsible AI book for practitioners; became Amazon’s #3 AI book bestseller
• Author, \”Engineering AI Systems: Architecture and DevOps Essentials\” (Pearson Addison-Wesley, March 2025)
• Developed Responsible AI Patterns Catalogue – multivocal literature review widely adopted for AI risk mitigation
• Created Agent Design Pattern Catalogue for foundation model-based agents
• Published extensively on: AI system architecture, responsible generative AI, AI governance frameworks, software engineering for AI safety, foundation model-based systems

Additional Context: Leading authority on operationalizing responsible AI at scale through pattern-oriented engineering approaches; pioneering work on reference architectures for foundation model-based agentic systems; extensive advisory roles linking academic research to practical industry implementation; work featured in Australia’s National Framework for the Assurance of AI in Government; focus on system-level AI safety beyond model-level approaches; bridging governance/process/system perspectives in AI assurance; research emphasis on concrete, reusable, and evolving responsible AI engineering methods

20. Teresa Ludermir

Current Position: Full Professor (Professora Titular), Centro de Informática, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE); Coordinator, National Institute of Science and Technology in Artificial Intelligence (INCT IA); Director, Applied Research Center in Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity (FAPESP-MCTIC/CGI Scientific and Technological Cooperation Agreement)

Educational Background:

• PhD Neural Networks, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London, 1990
• MSc Computer Science, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
• BSc Computer Science, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

Research Focus: Neural networks; machine learning; artificial intelligence; computational intelligence; automated machine learning (AutoML); quantum computing applications in neural networks; hybrid intelligent systems; pattern recognition; optimization algorithms for neural network training

Key Affiliations:

• Member, Council for Sustainable Economic and Social Development of the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil
• Member, Interministerial Committee for Digital Transformation Advisory Board
• Member, UK Expert Advisory Panel for State of Science Report on risks associated with frontier AI
• Associate Coordinator, CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel), since 2022
• CNPq Research Productivity Fellow since 1992 (PQ 1A level since 2012)
• Former Director of Graduate Studies, UFPE (2015-2019)
• Former Member, CNPq Computer Science Advisory Committee (2005-2008, 2015-2017, 2020-2023; committee chair for two terms)
• Former Member, CAPES Computer Science Advisory Committee (2016-2017, 2021-2022)
• Former Board of Governors, International Neural Network Society (INNS) (2015-2017, 2019-2021)
• Former Member, IEEE Awards Board (2017-2022)
• Former Chair, Brazilian Computer Society (SBC) Neural Networks Committee (1996-1997, 2002-2004, 2010-2012)

Notable Recognition:

• Member, National Order of Scientific Merit (Class: Commander)
• Member, Brazilian Academy of Sciences
• Member, Pernambuco Academy of Sciences
• Fellow, Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA)
• IEEE Senior Member
• International Neural Network Society (INNS) Senior Member
• CONFAP Award – Distinguished Researcher in Exact Sciences
• Scientific Merit Award, Brazilian Computer Society
• Awards from SBC Special Committees on Neural Networks and Artificial Intelligence
• Multiple visiting professorships: Imperial College London, King’s College London, INRIA Paris-Rocquencourt, Université d’Orléans, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics (Berlin)

Research Impact:

• 10,982 citations (Google Scholar)
• 447 publications
• Contributed to International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI (Interim Report, 2024) – mandated by nations attending AI Safety Summit in Bletchley, UK (30 nations, UN, OECD, EU participation)
• Pioneering researcher in machine learning in Brazil
• Significant contributions to Automated Machine Learning algorithms
• Research on quantum perceptrons and quantum neural networks
• Extensive editorial and conference leadership roles in neural networks and computational intelligence

Additional Context: One of Brazil’s leading AI researchers with extensive scientific management experience; coordinator of national AI research institute and cybersecurity AI research center; active in national policy advisory roles including presidential council on sustainable development; extensive international collaboration with visiting positions at premier institutions globally; decades-long involvement in organizing and serving on program committees of prominent international neural networks and computational intelligence conferences; former Editor-in-Chief of major international journal in field

21. Vukosi Marivate

Current Position: Professor of Computer Science, University of Pretoria; ABSA UP Chair of Data Science, University of Pretoria; Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Lelapa AI; Principal Investigator, Data Science for Social Impact Research Group; Chief Investigator, Masakhane Research Foundation; Trustee, Deep Learning Indaba

Educational Background:

• PhD Computer Science, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Rutgers Pre-Doctoral Leadership Development Institute Fellow
• MSc Electrical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
• BSc Electrical Engineering (Information Option), University of the Witwatersrand

Research Focus: Machine learning and artificial intelligence for low-resource languages; natural language processing for African languages; data science for social impact; participatory research methods; machine translation; text augmentation for low-resource settings; social media analysis; reinforcement learning; automated machine learning

Key Affiliations:

• Co-Founder, Masakhane Research Foundation (grassroots community for developing NLP systems for Africa by Africans; \”we build together\” in isiZulu)
• Co-Founder and CTO, Lelapa AI (African AI startup: AI for Africans by Africans)
• Trustee, Deep Learning Indaba
• Steering Committee Member, Lacuna Fund
• Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program Fellow (2020-2021), Harvard Business School Program for Leadership Development
• Leader, Data Science for Social Impact Research Group, University of Pretoria

Notable Recognition:

• Joint Winner, Inaugural 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Research Award of the Year – for Masakhane NLP project research paper \”Participatory research for low-resourced machine translation: A case study in African languages\”
• Google AI Research Scholar Award
• Research recognised for potential to radically impact Wikimedia projects and research globally
• TEDxPretoria speaker – \”AI as Our Mirror: Exploring Ourselves Through AI Empowerment\”
• Multiple speaking engagements and media features on African AI and NLP

Research Impact:

• 2,278 citations (Google Scholar)
• 141+ research works
• Pioneering work on participatory research methods for machine translation of African languages
• Co-authored research on building automated tools for local language data processing
• Contributed to overcoming challenges African languages face in web accessibility and NLP technology
• Research focus on Zulu, Setswana, Sepedi, Hausa, and other African languages
• Development of FLORES evaluation dataset corrections for African languages
• Work on sentiment analysis, misinformation detection, and text classification for low-resource languages
• Data Science for Social Impact research applied to science, energy, public safety, utilities, COVID-19 response, financial fraud detection

Additional Context: Leading voice in African AI and NLP; pioneering community-driven approach to developing ML/AI tools for African languages; strong emphasis on participatory research that includes language speakers in data collection and evaluation; work addresses fundamental barriers to African language representation in global AI systems; focus on inclusive, grassroots community building and open participatory research; committed to ensuring technological advances serve human dignity, wellbeing and equity; extensive work on social impact applications of data science

22. Bilal Mateen

Current Position:

• Chief AI Officer, PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health)
• First Chief AI Officer in the health NGO sector globally
• Honorary Professor, University of Birmingham
• Former Fellow, Alan Turing Institute (UK’s national institute for data science and AI)

Education:

• PhD, King’s College London
• MPH (Master of Public Health), University of Edinburgh
• MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery), University College London
• BSc in Neuroscience and Medical Sciences, University College London
• Fellow, Faculty of Clinical Informatics (FFCI)

Career Progression:

• September 2024-present: Chief AI Officer, PATH

• Executive Director, Digital Square at PATH

• Managed US\$250+ million in grants and contracts
• Supported ministries of health across Africa and Asia
• Digital health transformation in low/middle-income countries

• Clinical Technology Lead & Senior Manager, Wellcome Trust

• Led digital public goods funding for mental health, climate health impacts, and infectious diseases
• One of world’s largest philanthropic foundations

• Clinical positions: King’s College Hospital (KCH)

• Research Fellow, Alan Turing Institute

Research Focus:

• AI ethics and inclusive applications in global health
• Health-related applications of data science and machine learning
• Clinical decision support systems using large language models
• Digital health transformation in low-resource environments
• ML/AI predictive modeling in medicine
• Regulatory frameworks for AI in healthcare

Major Achievements & Recognition:

• UN AI Panel Member – Pakistani expert representing intersection of AI, data science, and global public health
• G20 Keynote Speaker on regulation of AI in health
• Contributor to UN high-level expert panel on AI
• Co-author, Nature Health studies (2026) on LLM applications in Rwanda and Pakistan healthcare settings
• Leading world’s first randomized control trial of LLM-based clinical decision support in Africa (with Gates Foundation support)

Key Projects:

• LLM Healthcare Trial: Partnership with KEPRECON (research), Penda Health (care provider), OpenAI, and University of Birmingham

• Digital Square Initiative: Founded by Gates Foundation and USAID post-West African Ebola outbreak

• Raised US\$170 million investment across 33 African and Asian countries

• AI-powered diagnostics for frontline health workers in Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda

Citations & Impact:

• Google Scholar Citations: 5,826
• Research on measurement theory and data-driven decision-making in medicine
• Publications on validation of ML algorithms for medical applications
• Studies on COVID-19 mortality trends, hospital capacity, and healthcare systems

Professional Recognition:

• Described as bridging technical AI capability with practical global health implementation
• Authority on ethical AI deployment in health equity contexts
• Representative of Pakistan’s expertise in AI for social impact

Key Insight:

Mateen represents critical perspective on AI applications for underserved populations. His work demonstrates how LLMs can provide 24/7 clinical consultation at 500 times lower cost than human clinicians (US\$0.0035 per response vs \$5.43) while maintaining medical and cultural appropriateness in diverse linguistic contexts.

• PATH official profiles and press releases
• Nature Health publications (2026)
• Alan Turing Institute researcher profile
• ResearchGate and Google Scholar
• Exemplars in Global Health interviews
• SAIL symposium profiles

23. Yutaka Matsuo

Current Position: Professor, Department of Technology Management for Innovation, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo (since 2019)^[1]

Leadership Roles:

• Chairman, Japan Deep Learning Association (JDLA) (since 2017)^[1]
• Outside Director, SoftBank Group Corporation (since 2019)^[1]
• Expert Member, Council for Achieving New Capitalism (since 2021)^[1]
• Chair, AI Strategy Conference (since 2023)^[1]
• Chair, AI Institutional Study Group (since 2024)^[1]
• Board Director, AI Robot Association^[1]

Educational Background:

• PhD, Engineering, University of Tokyo, 2002^[1]
• BSc, Electrical Engineering, University of Tokyo, 1997^[1]

Previous Positions:

• Associate Professor, University of Tokyo (2007-2019)^[1]
• Visiting Researcher, Stanford University^[1]
• Researcher, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)^[1]
• Director, Planning Team, Artificial Intelligence Research Center, AIST (2015-2018)^[2]
• Visiting Associate Professor, National Institute of Informatics (2010-2014)^[2]
• Visiting Associate Professor, National University of Singapore (2014-2018)^[2]

Research Focus: Artificial intelligence, deep learning, web mining, world models, robotics, large language models, Brain x AI integration.^[3] Leading \”Hongo Valley\” initiative to create Japan’s AI innovation ecosystem comparable to Silicon Valley.^[4]

Notable Achievements:

• Co-authored Russian National AI Strategy (2019)^[3]
• Released Weblab-10B large language model^[3]
• Established TRAIL (Tokyo Robot And Intelligence Lab)^[3]
• Supervised founding of multiple listed companies through student entrepreneurship^[5]
• Leads laboratory teaching 10,000+ students annually on deep learning and data science^[3]

Awards and Recognition:

• Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence: Best Paper Award (2002), 20th Anniversary Project Award (2006), Field Innovation Award (2011), Distinguished Service Award (2013)^[6]
• Okawa Publishing Award for \”Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass Humans?\” (2015)^[3]
• Business Book Awards Special Jury Prize (2015)^[3]

Professional Society Leadership:

• Editor-in-Chief, Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (2012-2014)^[7]
• Ethics Committee Chair, Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (2014-2018)^[7]
• Board Member, Information Processing Society of Japan (until 2022)^[6]

Publication Metrics: 29,177 citations (Google Scholar, February 2026)^[8]

24. Joyce Nakatumba Nabende

Current Position: Professor and Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, Makerere University (since 2017)^[9] Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Persuasive Technology (since 2020)^[10]

Leadership Role: Head, Makerere Artificial Intelligence Lab^[9] Founding Member, Data Science Africa – Uganda Chapter^[11]

Educational Background:

• PhD, Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands, 2012^[9]
• MSc, Computer Science, Makerere University, Uganda, 2006^[12]
• BSc, Computer Science, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda, 2005^[12]

Previous Position: Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, Games Institute, University of Waterloo, Canada (2016-2017)^[13]

Research Focus: Machine learning, natural language processing for under-resourced African languages, AI applications in agriculture and health, responsible AI, feminist AI. Specialises in creating AI systems for smallholder farmers and developing NLP tools for Ugandan languages including Luganda.^[9]

Notable Projects:

• Created AndroZoo dataset with 3M+ Android apps^[14]
• Developed Makerere Radio Speech Corpus for Luganda ASR^[9]
• Led creation of first large publicly available NER dataset for ten African languages^[9]
• Developed Adsurv mobile crowdsourcing tool for crop disease surveillance^[9]
• Built AI-driven crop pest and disease monitoring from local radio broadcasts^[15]

Major Grants:

• US\$100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations Grant, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (2019)^[15]
• NSERC Discovery Grant (ongoing)^[12]
• Canada Foundation for Innovation funding^[16]

Awards and Recognition:

• Member, Educational Advisory Committee of the ACM^[12]
• Top 150 Canadian Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)^[10]
• Top Canadian Young Computer Science Researcher Award^[10]
• Top 100 Leading Nigerian Women^[10]
• Top 60 African Women in STEM^[10]
• Top 50 Young Most Influential Best Brains in Enugu State, Nigeria^[10]
• Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists (admitted 2020)^[14]
• Outstanding Early Career Researcher Award, CS-Can\|Info-Can (2021) – First recipient from Atlantic Canada institution^[14]

Diversity and Inclusion: Founded Education for Women and the Less Privileged Foundation (2002)^[13] Delivered 100+ invited talks, keynote speeches, and public presentations^[10] Spoken at United Nations panel^[10] Addressed Parliament of Canada (2012)^[13]

Media Coverage: 100+ instances from major outlets including CBC, BBC, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), StarPhoenix^[10]

Publication Metrics: 112+ peer-reviewed publications^[9] Citation rate: 750+ citations annually (2019-2021)^[14]

25. Andrei Neznamov

Current Position: Managing Director, Human-Centered AI Center, Sberbank^[17] Secretary General, AI Alliance Network (elected November 2024)^[18]

Key Leadership Roles:

• Chairman, Russian AI Ethics Commission^[19]
• Head, Expert Council on AI, Federation Council of the Parliament of the Russian Federation^[19]
• Chair, Working Group on Digital Economy and AI, BRICS Business Council Russian Chapter^[19]
• Head, AI Governance Group, Russian AI Alliance^[19]
• Head, Working Group on International Cooperation, Russian AI Alliance^[18]

Educational Background:

• PhD, Law, Ural State Law Academy, 2010^[19]
• Law degree (summa cum laude), Institute of External Economic Relations and Law, 2007^[20]

International Governance Roles:

• Former Chair, Consultation and Outreach Group, Ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAHAI), Council of Europe^[21]
• Representative of Russian Federation (with voting rights), Committee for Artificial Intelligence Standardization, International Organization for Standardization (ISO)^[21]
• Member, Council on AI, National Commission for UNESCO^[21]
• Engaged with: UNESCO, OSCE, Council of Europe, B20, SCO, BRICS, EAEU, CIS^[19][21]

Legal and Policy Experience: Over 20 years of legal practice^[19]

Major Policy Contributions:

• Co-author, Russian National AI Strategy (2019)^[19]
• Co-author and Head of Working Group, Governmental Concept of AI and Robotics Regulation (2020)^[19]
• Co-author and Head of Working Group, Russian AI Ethics Code (2021)^[19][22]
• Co-author, Model Convention on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (2017)^[19]
• Head of Author’s Group, Draft Law \”On the trial operation of innovative vehicles\” (2019)^[21]
• Co-author, Roadmap for development of \”Artificial Intelligence\” end-to-end technology (2019)^[21]
• Co-author, Roadmap for development of \”Components of Robotics and Sensors\” (2019)^[21]

AI Alliance Network: Led establishment of international network bringing together 17 industry associations from 14 countries: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Brazil, China, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Russia, Serbia, Chile, Ethiopia, South Africa.^[18][21] Network launched at AI Journey conference, November 2024.

Russian AI Ethics Code: Established Code adopted by major Russian companies, universities and research institutes including Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Sberbank, Yandex (October 2021). Attracted 200+ signatories from organizations globally.^[22][23] Created Commission on Ethics in AI (May 2022) to ensure cooperation between signatories.^[22]

Public Projects: Founder and Head, \”Robolaw\” public project^[21]

Recognition: Winner, \”Leaders of Russia: Science\” contest, 2020^[19][21]

26. Maximilian Nickel

Current Position: Research Director, FAIR (Fundamental AI Research) at Meta AI (2016-2025)^[24] Member of Technical Staff, Anthropic (joined 2025)^[25]

Note on Affiliation: Panel nomination based on Meta FAIR position held during UN selection process. Recent move to Anthropic announced via LinkedIn in 2025.^[25]

Previous Leadership at Meta:

• Research Area Lead for Machine Learning and Society & Responsible AI, FAIR^[24]
• Leader, AI & Society Team, FAIR^[26]
• Program Chair, ICLR 2023 (Kigali, Rwanda) – first major AI/ML conference in Africa, achieved 1530% increase in African registrations^[27]

Educational Background:

• PhD (summa cum laude), Ludwig Maximilian University Munich^[27]
• Research Assistant, Siemens Corporate Technology (during PhD)^[27]

Previous Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)^[27]

• Laboratory for Computational and Statistical Learning^[27]
• Center for Brains, Minds and Machines^[27] Supervisors: Tomaso Poggio and Lorenzo Rosasco^[27]

Research Focus: Understanding the interplay of AI and social systems through combination of machine learning theory and complex systems theory including networks, dynamics, and emergence. Establishes theoretical and methodological foundations for AI to safely interact with society.^[26]

Specialisations: Geometric representation learning, neural dynamical systems, generative AI for complex systems, simulation-free generative modeling.^[24][27]

Notable Recognition:

• Outstanding Paper Award, NeurIPS 2021 for work on Moser Flow simulation-free generative modeling^[27]
• Program Chair, ICLR 2023, first major AI conference in Africa^[27]

Key Collaborations: Research collaborators include scientists at Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Carnegie Mellon University, Yale University, Université de Montréal/Mila.^[24]

Publication Metrics: 17,695 citations (Google Scholar, February 2026)^[24] H-index: 48^[24]

27. Rita Orji

Current Position: Professor, Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada (since 2017)^[28] Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Persuasive Technology (since 2020)^[29]

Leadership Role: Director, Persuasive Computing Lab, Dalhousie University^[28]

Educational Background:

• PhD, Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan, 2014 – as Vanier Scholar (ranked 5th of 167 recipients nationwide)^[30]
• MSc, Middle East Technical University, 2009 (only African student in class)^[31]
• BSc (First Class Honours), Computer Science, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria^[31]

Previous Position: Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, Games Institute, University of Waterloo, Canada (2016-2017)^[31]

Research Focus: Human-Computer Interaction, Persuasive Technology, behaviour change systems, games for change, personalised and adaptive systems, AI for health, technology for social and public goods, HCI for Development (HCI4D). Designs interactive systems to promote social wellness particularly for under-served populations in developing countries.^[28]

Personal Background: Born and raised in remote town Owelli, Enugu State, Nigeria, without electricity or piped water. Parents (Maria and Okonkwo Orji) never attended school, supported nine children through peasant farming. First woman from town of 50,000 to earn PhD. Had never used computer before university admission.^[31]

Notable Achievements:

• Founded \”Education for Women and the Less Privileged in Nigeria\” nonprofit (2002)^[31]
• Nigerian team member, International Mathematical Olympiad^[31]
• Presented at Parliament of Canada (2012)^[31]
• Spoken at United Nations panel^[29]

COVID-19 Contributions:

• Developed mobile sensing app monitoring social distancing impacts on youth (with IWK Health Centre)^[32]
• AI analysis of global Twitter sentiment on self-isolation for public policy insights^[32]

Major Awards and Recognition:

• Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists (Member, 2020)^[29]
• Outstanding Early Career Researcher Award, CS-Can\|Info-Can (2021) – First from Atlantic Canada institution^[32]
• Top 150 Canadian Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (hEr VOLUTION)^[30]
• Top 100 Leading Nigerian Women (Nigeria Women Annual)^[30]
• Top 60 African Women in STEM^[29]
• Top 50 Young Most Influential Best Brains in Enugu State, Nigeria^[29]
• International Society for Research on Internet Interventions Rising Star Award (2019)^[31]
• Dalhousie University President’s Research Excellence Award (2019)^[31]
• Vanier Scholarship, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council^[31]
• Women Leader in Digital Economy Award (for advancing technology in Canada and Nigeria)^[29]

Media Coverage: 100+ instances of coverage by CBC, BBC, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), StarPhoenix^[29]

Funding: Grants from NSERC Discovery Grant, Canada Foundation for Innovation^[33]

Publication Metrics: 190+ peer-reviewed papers^[29] Over 1,500 citations (2019-2020 period), accumulating 750+ citations annually^[32]

Research Excellence: As noted by Dean Andrew Rau-Chaplin: \”Dr. Orji’s research is of the highest quality, her publication record exemplary, and her students flourish under her supervision.\”^[32]

# UN AI Scientific Panel Members 28-32

28. Román Orús

Current Position:

Ikerbasque Research Professor, Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), San Sebastián, Spain (since 2018) Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Multiverse Computing (since 2019) Professor, Technical University of Munich (visiting/additional appointment)

Education:

PhD in Physics, University of Barcelona, Spain, 2006

• First PhD thesis on quantum algorithms in Spain
• Dissertation: \”Entanglement, quantum phase transitions and quantum algorithms\”

Previous Positions:

• Junior Professor, Condensed Matter Physics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany (2013-2018)
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Germany
• Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
• Research Assistant, Siemens Corporate Technology (during PhD)
• Visiting Professor, Université Paul Sabatier — CNRS, Toulouse, France
• Visiting Professor, DIPC, Spain
• Lecturer, Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA

Research Focus:

Quantum information science, quantum computing, tensor networks, complex quantum systems, quantum artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, condensed matter physics, applied quantum computing, machine learning compression.

Major Contributions:

• Pioneering work on tensor networks for quantum systems and machine learning
• Published \”A Practical Introduction to Tensor Networks\” (2014) – over 2,000 citations, foundational work in the field
• Developed quantum and quantum-inspired solutions for industrial applications
• Created algorithms for noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers (NISQ)
• Designed quantum-enhanced kernel methods for image classification and manufacturing defect detection
• Led development of CompactifAI using tensor networks to compress Large Language Models
• Research on quantum cyberattacks for symmetric-key cryptographic protocols

Commercial Innovation:

Multiverse Computing (co-founded 2019):

• World’s leading quantum AI software company
• Largest quantum software company in European Union
• \$215M Series B funding closed June 2025
• Graduated from Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) quantum program, Toronto, 2020
• Pioneered tensor networks for industrial applications ahead of SandboxAQ (Google spinoff), Amazon AWS, NVIDIA
• CompactifAI recognized by NVIDIA and Intel as revolutionary for AI energy efficiency

Company Awards:

• Manuel Laborde Werlinden Award (2019)
• Toribio Echevarria Award (2019)
• ADEGI New Company of Gipuzkoa Award (2022)
• Emprendedor XXI Award finalist
• Future Unicorn Award, EIT Digital
• Innovation Zero Award, UK
• Quantum Effects Award, Bosch

Major Awards and Recognition:

• Physics, Innovation and Technology Award, Royal Spanish Society of Physics — BBVA Foundation, 2024
• Early Career Prize, European Physical Society, 2014 (shared with Ian Chapman)
• Marie Curie Incoming International Fellowship, 2009
• Honorable Mention, Václav Votruba Prize, 2008
• Okawa Publishing Award for \”Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass Humans?\”, 2015
• Business Book Awards Special Jury Prize, 2015

Professional Leadership:

• Steering Board Member, Quantum Journal
• Editor, Symmetry Journal
• Member, Quantum for Quants commission, Quantum World Association
• Partner, Entanglement Partners
• Member, Scientific Committee, Centro de Ciencias de Benasque Pedro Pascual
• President, Specialized Group on Quantum Information, Royal Spanish Society of Physics (former)

Publications and Impact:

Citations: 11,629-12,720 (Google Scholar, February 2026) H-index: 48-49

Notable Publications:

• Orús, R. (2014). \”A practical introduction to tensor networks: Matrix product states and projected entangled pair states.\” Annals of Physics, 349, 117-158. [Over 2,000 citations]
• Orús, R. (2019). \”Tensor networks for complex quantum systems.\” Nature Reviews Physics, 1(9), 538-550
• Jordan, J., Orús, R., Vidal, G., Verstraete, F., Cirac, J.I. (2008). \”Classical Simulation of Infinite-Size Quantum Lattice Systems in Two Spatial Dimensions.\” Physical Review Letters
• Multiple highly-cited papers on geometric representation learning, neural dynamical systems, generative AI for complex systems

Extensive publication record in premier physics and quantum computing venues including Physical Review Letters, Physical Review B, Nature Reviews Physics, ICML, NeurIPS.

Collaborations:

Worked alongside pioneering scientists including Ignacio Cirac, Guifré Vidal, José Ignacio Latorre. Current collaborators at Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Carnegie Mellon University, Yale University, Université de Montréal/Mila.

Wikipedia, romanorus.com, Ikerbasque, Multiverse Computing, Google Scholar, DIPC, Royal Spanish Society of Physics, EverybodyWiki, Medium, Nature Index

29. Alvitta Ottley

Current Position:

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis (since 2016) Director, Visual Interface and Behavior Exploration (VIBE) Lab Courtesy Appointment, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University

Education:

PhD in Computer Science, Tufts University, Massachusetts, 2016

• Dissertation: \”Toward Personalized Visualizations\”
• Supervised by Dr. Remco Chang
• Graduated summa cum laude

MS in Computer Science, Tufts University, 2013

BS in Computer Science, State University of New York at Plattsburgh, 2010

• Summa cum laude

Previous Experience:

• Research Intern, IBM Research (post-Master’s)
• Research Intern, Clemson University Human-Centered Computing Lab, South Carolina (post-Master’s)

Research Focus:

Data visualization, information visualization, visual analytics, human-computer interaction, individual differences in visualization, cognitive traits and decision-making, medical decision-making support, adaptive and personalized visualization systems, AI-powered visualization.

Major Research Contributions:

• Pioneering research on individual differences (personality traits, cognitive abilities) that modulate visualization effectiveness
• Development of machine learning techniques to model human interactions with visualization tools
• Using interdisciplinary approaches combining visualization, cognitive science, and machine learning
• Creating context-aware visual analytics systems
• Research on visualization literacy of Visual Language Models (VLMs)
• Work on uncertainty visualizations for legal decision-making (plea bargains)

Research Domains:

• Medical decision-making and health communication
• Criminal justice (plea bargain decision-making)
• Intelligence analysis
• Scientific discovery
• Standardized visualization literacy assessment

Major Awards and Recognition:

• EuroVis Young Researcher Award, 2022 – \”outstanding contributions to intelligent visualization systems with exemplary foundations and techniques based on individual differences and cognitive models\”
• NSF CAREER Award, 2022 – creating context-aware visual analytics systems
• NSF CRII Award, 2018 – using visualization to support medical decision-making
• EuroVis Best Short Paper Award, 2022 – \”Inferential Tasks as an Evaluation Technique for Visualization\”
• Multiple Best Paper and Honorable Mention Awards – CHI, VIS, TVCG conferences
• ACL Fellow status (Association for Computational Linguistics – note: this may be confused with another organization)

Professional Service:

• IEEE VIS Diversity and Inclusion Co-chair
• Doctoral Consortium Chair, ACM TAPIA Conference
• Frequent reviewer and program committee member for leading visualization conferences

Representation and Diversity:

• Among less than 1% of Black women holding CS PhDs in United States (National Center for Women & Information Technology)
• Approximately 3% of computer science degree earners and tech workforce are Black women
• Born and raised in St. Kitts and Nevis, Caribbean
• Director of AIR-D Summer Science Camp – teaching high school students from underrepresented backgrounds about AI and robotics

Publications and Impact:

Citations: 1,882 (Google Scholar, February 2026)

Notable Publications:

• Ottley, A., Peck, E.M., Harrison, L.T., et al. (2016). \”Improving Bayesian Reasoning: The Effects of Phrasing, Visualization, and Spatial Ability.\” IEEE TVCG, 22(1), 529-538
• Ottley, A., Crouser, R.J., Ziemkiewicz, C., Chang, R. (2015). \”Manipulating and controlling for personality effects on visualization tasks.\” Information Visualization, 14(3), 223-233
• Hakone, A., Harrison, L., Ottley, A., et al. (2017). \”PROACT: Iterative Design of a Patient-Centered Visualization for Effective Prostate Cancer Health Risk Communication.\” IEEE TVCG, 23(1), 601-610
• Book: \”Adaptive and Personalized Visualization\” – Synthesis Lectures on Visualization series

Work appears regularly in premier conferences and journals: CHI, IEEE VIS, TVCG (IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics), EuroVis.

Teaching and Mentoring:

Recognized for significant impact on students. PhD student Lemara Williams: \”She inspires me to want to be a better researcher and to reach her level of work ethic and dedication.\”

Collaborations:

Extensive collaboration with Jordan Crouser (Kenyon College), Remco Chang (Tufts University), and researchers from Northeastern University, EditShare, Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

Personal Background:

• First in family to pursue advanced education in computer science
• Did not initially envision STEM career growing up in Caribbean
• \”I was good at a lot of things, so there wasn’t one area that emerged for me\”
• Explored mathematics, accounting, and computer science at SUNY Plattsburgh before focusing on CS

alvitta.com, Washington University in St. Louis, Google Scholar, St. Louis American, EuroVis/Eurographics, DBLP, Information Visualization Journal, Wikipedia

30. Martha Palmer

Current Position:

Research Professor, Linguistics and Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder (since 2021) Institute of Cognitive Science Faculty Fellow, University of Colorado Boulder Former Helen & Hubert Croft Professor of Engineering, retired 2021

Education:

PhD in Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 1985

• First woman to obtain PhD in AI from Edinburgh University
• Dissertation: \”Driving semantics for a limited domain\”
• Supervised by Alan Bundy

Master’s degree, likely from University of Edinburgh or prior institution

Previous Academic Positions:

• Professor of Distinction, Linguistics and Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder (until 2021)
• Faculty member, University of Pennsylvania (prior to CU Boulder)
• Various visiting positions throughout career

Research Focus:

Computational linguistics, natural language processing (NLP), semantic role labeling, word sense disambiguation, machine translation, verb semantics, medical informatics, intelligent tutoring, human-centered computing.

Major Research Achievements:

• Pioneering work on verb semantics and their role in language understanding

• Development of PUNDIT system for DARPA (late 1980s) – powerful NLP system processing Navy ship telexes, identifying temporal and causal relationships

• Creator of major linguistic resources:

• PropBank (Proposition Bank) – corpus annotated with semantic roles
• VerbNet – computational verb dictionary with qualities/contexts
• These resources have enabled wide range of computational linguistics research globally

• Seminal 1994 paper with Zhibiao Wu: \”Verb semantics and lexical selection\” – now cited over 5,000 times

• Demonstrated verbs cannot be automatically translated one-to-one; context and usage patterns essential

• Project THYME (\”time\”) – NIH-funded project making medical records understandable by ordering medical events temporally

• Cross-linguistic annotation work in English, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi

Leadership Roles:

• President, Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), 2005
• Director, 2011 Linguistics Institute in Boulder
• Founding Director, CLASIC Program (Computational Linguistics MS, now emeritus director)
• Director, Center for Computational Language and Education Research (CLEAR), University of Colorado Boulder

Major Awards and Recognition:

• ACL Lifetime Achievement Award, 2023 – for 50+ years contributions to computational linguistics
• ACL Fellow, 2014
• Boulder Faculty Assembly Research Award, 2010
• Outstanding Graduate Advisor Award, 2014

Academic Service:

• Board of Studies member: Multiple institutions including Thiagarajar College of Engineering, PSG College of Technology, SJCE Mysore, Sastra University, Central University of Tamil Nadu
• Research Advisory Council member, IIIT Sri City
• Advisor: IIIT Delhi and IISER Bhopal on undergraduate AI/Data Science program design
• Faculty Selection Committee: IIT Palakkad, IIT Dharwad, LNMIIT Jaipur, IIST Trivandrum
• Editorial boards: PLOS One, Frontiers in Big Data
• Program Committee member and chair for numerous premier conferences

Publications and Impact:

Citations: 35,912 (Google Scholar, February 2026)

Notable Publications:

• Palmer, M., Gildea, D., Kingsbury, P. (2005). \”The Proposition Bank: A Corpus Annotated with Semantic Roles.\” Computational Linguistics Journal, 31:1
• Wu, Z., Palmer, M. (1994). \”Verb semantics and lexical selection.\” [5,000+ citations]
• Multiple papers on semantic role labeling, word sense disambiguation, machine translation
• Co-authored chapter on reinforcement learning in Handbook of Neural Computation, Oxford University Press, 1996
• Extensive publication record in premier venues: ICML, AAAI, IJCAI, ICDM, ICLR, NIPS, UAI, ISMB, AAMAS

Nearly 100 papers in top journals and conferences over career.

Teaching and Mentorship:

Developed and taught advanced NLP courses at CU Boulder for decades, including:

• Advanced Topics in NLP: Computational Lexical Semantics (multiple years)
• Computational Corpus Linguistics
• Cognitive Science Research Practicum
• Various graduate seminars

Founded CLASIC MS program that trains students for careers in language modeling, question-answering, machine translation, virtual agents.

Current Research Involvement:

Despite retirement from teaching position, still actively involved in five large-scale studies including Project THYME and other NLP/medical informatics projects.

Industry Collaborations:

Close collaboration with industrial research labs throughout career: Ericsson R&D, KLA Tencor, Intel Labs, Applied Materials, Adobe Research, Bosch, IBM India Research Labs, Yahoo! Labs, General Motors.

Historical Significance:

Tutorial survey on reinforcement learning (1994) was one of first articles in the area, included in Handbook of Neural Computation (Oxford, 1996).

Legacy and Impact:

Built corpora and computational dictionaries (PropBank, VerbNet) that have become foundational resources for global computational linguistics community. Mentored generations of NLP researchers. Follow-up to pioneering AI mentor Aravind Joshi (first ACL Lifetime Achievement Award winner).

University of Colorado Boulder websites (Linguistics, Computer Science, CLEAR), Google Scholar, ACL, Wikipedia, CU Boulder news articles

31. Johanna Pirker

Current Position:

Professor of Computer Science, Technical University of Munich (TUM) (since 2024) Assistant Professor, Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science, Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), Austria (since 2017) Director, Game Lab Graz, TU Graz

Education:

Dr. tech. (PhD) in Computer Science, Graz University of Technology, 2017

• Dissertation: \”Immersive motivational environments\” for STEM education
• Supervised by Christian Gütl (TU Graz) and John Belcher (MIT)
• Research focus on motivational environments that engage users to learn, train, and work together

Dipl.-Ing. (Master’s), Software Engineering and Economics, Graz University of Technology

• Master’s thesis completed at MIT – Center for Educational Computing Initiatives
• Research on integration of simulations and animations of electromagnetic fields into collaborative virtual world environments

BSc in Computer Science, Graz University of Technology

Industry Experience:

Electronic Arts – worked in video game industry prior to/during academic career

Research Focus:

Games research, virtual reality (VR), game design and development, serious games, educational games, immersive learning, game analytics, games user research, player behavior analysis, social network analysis in games, esports and streaming culture, HCI, data science, AI in games.

Major Research Projects:

• Maroon Project – VR physics laboratory with realistic simulations for experiments too expensive/dangerous in real life
• Motivational Active Learning (MAL) – pedagogical approach based on MIT’s TEAL (Technology-Enabled Active Learning) combined with gamification
• Project Beyond – gamified learning experience for building energy simulation in immersive VR
• Habitat – game about climate change and environmental protection encouraging eco-friendly behavior
• Programming education games for young women – multiplayer 3D environments teaching programming through collaborative gameplay
• Conversational AI agents in serious games for social communication skill development
• Game analytics research – influencer detection, player network analysis, visual game analytics
• Player behavior research – clustering 12,279 players from 26 countries to understand cultural differences in gaming
• Learning analytics using eye tracking biomarkers for serious games for adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Neurophysiological research on sense of presence in VR using EEG
• Evaluation of Large Language Models in communication games (Werewolf in Unity)

Conference Leadership:

• General Chair, International Conference on Game Jams, Hackathons, and Game Creation Events (ACM) – held at GitHub HQ, San Francisco (third annual edition)
• Special Track Chair, Immersive Learning Research Network Conference (since 2015)
• Multiple workshop and conference organizing roles

Major Awards and Recognition:

• Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe, Science & Healthcare category, 2018 – for efforts improving digital education with VR and games
• Käthe-Leichter Prize, 2020 – for initiatives in diversity in engineering and games industry
• Member, Austrian Council for Research, Science, Innovation, and Technology Development (FORWIT), since 2024

Science Communication:

• YouTube Channel – shares insights on computer science and game development
• Twitch Partner (username: JoeyPrink) – streams game development, programming, and gameplay
• Active public communicator on potential and cultural aspects of video games

Professional Service:

• Program committees for major games and learning conferences
• Reviewer for games research journals
• Organizer of game-related courses, workshops, game jams, development events

Speaking and Outreach:

Extensive speaking engagements including:

• GDC Educators Summit, San Francisco
• European Games Executives Summit panels
• Harvard Ludics Seminar
• Multiple academic and industry conferences
• Public talks on \”Games as empathy machines\” concept
• Workshops on 3D modeling and reconstruction with Blender & Unity

Publications and Impact:

Citations: 2,745 (Google Scholar, February 2026)

Publications in premier venues for games research, VR, and learning including:

• CHI (Human Factors in Computing Systems)
• IEEE Conference on Games
• Immersive Learning Research Network Conference
• ACM conferences on game creation events
• Computer Graphics Forum / EuroVis

Research addresses:

• Player experience across cultures
• VR for education and training
• Game-based learning effectiveness
• Social aspects of gaming and esports
• Technical innovations in game development

Teaching Philosophy:

Advocates for using games to make computer science and STEM accessible, particularly for underrepresented groups. Led workshops involving 235 girls learning programming through collaborative game environments.

Personal Mission:

\”Our research goal is to find ways to create better games, and create games to make us better.\”

Challenges stereotypes about gamers (average age 30+, \~50% female, prefer social play) and advocates for games as educational and empathy-building tools rather than objects of stigma.

Recognition of Games’ Potential:

Emphasizes games industry is larger than film and music industries combined. Promotes serious academic study of games and their applications in health, education, climate communication, and social understanding.

Collaborations:

Works with TU Munich, Vienna University of Technology, University of Auckland, University of Southern Denmark, Fraunhofer IAIS, various game studios and tech companies.

jpirker.com, gamelabgraz.com, TU Graz, Google Scholar, Wikipedia, ETH Zurich interview, ResearchGate, LinkedIn, DBLP

32. Balaraman Ravindran

Current Position:

Professor of Data Science and AI, Wadhwani School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (WSAI), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras Head, Wadhwani School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, IIT Madras Head, Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI), IIT Madras Head, Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBC-DSAI), IIT Madras Head, Centre for Responsible AI (CeRAI), IIT Madras Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras Mindtree Faculty Fellow, IIT Madras Co-director, Reconfigurable and Intelligent Systems Engineering (RISE) Group, IIT Madras (\~80 members)

Education:

PhD, Computer Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

Master’s degree (likely MS or MTech), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

Previous Positions and Visiting Roles:

• Visiting positions at:

• Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
• University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
• Google Research

Research Focus:

Reinforcement learning, machine learning, geometric deep learning, data mining, social network analysis, responsible AI, learning from and through interactions.

Recognized Expertise:

• #1 Deep Reinforcement Learning Expert in India
• Among Top 3 Machine Learning Experts in India
• Nearly two decades of research experience in AI/ML, specifically reinforcement learning

Major Research Contributions:

• Foundational contributions to reinforcement learning theory and practice
• Pioneer in establishing one of most active deep learning groups in India
• Work on joint representation learning widely cited internationally
• Tutorial survey on reinforcement learning (1994) – one of first articles in the area, included in Handbook of Neural Computation (Oxford, 1996)
• Research on predictive state representations
• Contributions to hierarchical reinforcement learning
• Co-authored reinforcement learning chapter in Handbook of Neural Computation, Oxford University Press

Research Significance: \”His research results are foundational in nature and have made a considerable impact internationally\” – official profile

Professional Leadership:

• President, ACM SIGKDD India Chapter (current)
• Founding Executive Committee Member, ACM SIGKDD India Chapter
• Editorial Board Member: PLOS One, Frontiers in Big Data
• Program Co-Chair, PAKDD (Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining), 2010
• General Co-Chair, Big Data Summit, Sydney, 2015
• Program Committee Member, multiple premier AI/ML conferences

Academic Service:

Extensive advisory and committee roles:

• Board of Studies: Thiagarajar College of Engineering (Madurai), PSG College of Technology (Coimbatore), SJCE Mysore, Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi Viswa Mahavidyalaya (Kancheepuram), Sastra University (Tanjore), Central University of Tamil Nadu (Thiruvarur), Sri Kanchi Kamakoti University (Kancheepuram)
• Research Advisory Council Member, IIIT Sri City
• Advisor: IIIT Delhi and IISER Bhopal on undergraduate AI/Data Science program design
• Faculty Selection Committee: IIT Palakkad, IIT Dharwad, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, LNMIIT Jaipur, IIST Trivandrum

Major Awards and Recognition:

• Fellow of AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence), elected January 2025
• Fellow of INAE (Indian National Academy of Engineering), elected September 2023
• Mindtree Faculty Fellowship, awarded 2019

Publications and Impact:

Citations: 8,504 (Google Scholar, February 2026)

Nearly 100 papers published in premier journals and conferences including:

• ICML (International Conference on Machine Learning)
• AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence)
• IJCAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence)
• ICDM (IEEE International Conference on Data Mining)
• ICLR (International Conference on Learning Representations)
• NeurIPS (Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems)
• UAI (Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence)
• ISMB (Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology)
• AAMAS (International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems)
• ACL (Association for Computational Linguistics)
• FAccT (Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency)
• MSR (Mining Software Repositories)

Recent Significant Publications (2024-2025):

• Work on LLM trustworthiness evaluation through natural language explanations
• Research on LLM readiness for Indian legal domain incorporating safety, accuracy, fairness
• Studies on code representation and software repository mining

Industry Collaborations:

Extensive partnerships with major industrial research organizations:

• Ericsson Research and Development
• KLA Tencor
• Intel Labs
• Applied Materials
• Adobe Research
• Bosch (Robert Bosch Centre namesake partner)
• IBM India Research Labs
• Yahoo! Labs
• General Motors

These collaborations focus on applying data mining and machine learning to challenging real-world problems.

Teaching and Curriculum Development:

Developed and teaches major courses through NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning):

• Introduction to Machine Learning – comprehensive elective course for senior UG/PG students covering learning paradigms, algorithms, architectures
• Reinforcement Learning – course on mathematical foundations and recent research directions in RL
• Both courses reach thousands of students annually across India

Course Content: Covers supervised/unsupervised learning, deep learning, data-driven methods, trial-and-error learning, applications across domains.

Institutional Leadership Impact:

Under his leadership, IIT Madras has established itself as:

• Leading interdisciplinary AI research center in India
• Hub for data science and AI education
• Center for responsible AI research and development
• Major partnerships with industry (Bosch, Wadhwani Foundation)

The RISE group he co-directs has grown to nearly 80 members, representing significant research capacity.

Research Applications:

Work spans theoretical foundations and practical applications in:

• Autonomous systems
• Social network behavior
• Medical informatics
• Software engineering
• Legal technology
• Natural language processing
• Computer vision
• Responsible and fair AI systems

Collaborators:

Works with researchers at leading institutions globally including collaborators at:

• Polytechnique Montreal (Mila, Canada CIFAR AI Chair)
• IIIT Hyderabad
• University of Texas at Dallas
• Harvard University
• Amazon
• Salesforce Research
• University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Mila – Quebec AI Institute

IIT Madras websites (DSAI, WSAI, RBC-DSAI, CeRAI, CSE Department), Google Scholar, NPTEL courses, rbcdsai.iitm.ac.in, personal academic website, ResearchGate

33. Maria Ressa

Current Positions:

• Co-founder and CEO, Rappler (Philippines-based digital news organisation), 2012-present
• Professor of Professional Practice, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
• Distinguished Fellow, Institute of Global Politics, Columbia University (since fall 2023)
• Vice Chair, UN Secretary-General’s Leadership Panel on the Internet Governance Forum (appointed 2022)
• Digital Fellow, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy

Education:

• Bachelor’s English (with certificate in Theater and Dance), Princeton University, Class of 1986
• Master’s degree, University of the Philippines Diliman
• Fulbright Scholar, Manila (post-graduation, 1986)

Career Background:

Journalism Career (1995-2012):

• CNN Bureau Chief and Lead Investigative Reporter, Southeast Asia (nearly 20 years)

• Manila Bureau Chief
• Jakarta Bureau Chief
• Covered: Indonesian President Suharto’s fall (1998), East Timor independence violence (1999), Philippine President Joseph Estrada impeachment (2000)
• Post-9/11: Investigated growth of terrorist groups in Southeast Asia, particularly Jemaah Islamiyah (al-Qaeda’s arm in region)

ABS-CBN (Philippine broadcaster):

• Head of News and Current Affairs (2005, returning role)
• Led newsroom before founding Rappler

Rappler & Investigative Journalism:

• Founded 2012: Launched Rappler.com as CEO and Executive Editor

• Critical Reporting: Documented President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration including:

• Violent war on drugs (12,000+ killings)
• Government corruption and human rights violations
• Use of social media to spread disinformation
• Harassment of opponents and manipulation of public discourse

• 2015 Interview: Interviewed then-Mayor Duterte who admitted killing three people

• One of few outlets critically covering Duterte policies after his 2016 election

Published Works:

• \”How to Stand Up to a Dictator\” (2022) – memoir of journey from immigrant to journalist to Nobel laureate
• \”From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism\” (2013) – research on terrorist networks’ use of social media
• \”Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia\” (2003) – post-9/11 investigative work

Nobel Peace Prize & Major Recognition:

2021 Nobel Peace Prize (shared with Dmitry Muratov, Russia):

• Awarded \”for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace\”
• First journalists since 1935 to receive Nobel Peace Prize
• 18th woman to receive the prize
• Recognised for using freedom of expression to expose abuse of power and authoritarianism

Other Major Honours:

• TIME Person of the Year 2018 – Part of \”The Guardians\” honouring journalists
• TIME 100 Most Influential People (2019)
• TIME 100 Women of the Century
• Knight International Journalism Award (May 2018)
• Golden Pen of Freedom Award, World Association of Newspapers (June 2018)
• Democracy Award 2017, National Democratic Institute
• BBC 100 Most Inspiring and Influential Women (2019)
• Prospect Magazine’s World’s Top 50 Thinkers
• Forbes 30 Under 30 (various recognition)

Government Harassment & Legal Cases:

Under Duterte Administration (2016-2022):

• 10 arrest warrants issued; posted bail 10 times to remain free
• Convicted 2020: Cyber-libel charges for 2012 story (currently appealing)
• 9+ ongoing legal cases at peak of harassment
• 2018: Philippine securities commission investigation; operating licence briefly revoked
• 2019: Direct threats from President Duterte: \”You will have a dose of your own medicine\”

Recent Developments:

• January 2023: Court of Tax Appeals acquitted Ressa and Rappler of four tax evasion charges
• September 2023: Acquitted of fifth tax evasion case
• January 2023: 12 Nobel Peace Prize laureates issued open letter to President Marcos requesting resolution of unjust charges
• January 2024: Philippine Supreme Court granted UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan’s motion to intervene as amicus curiae

Research Focus & Expertise:

• Disinformation & Social Media: Documented how platforms (especially Facebook) weaponised for political purposes
• AI & Democracy: Leads projects on AI’s impact on democratic institutions at Columbia University
• Gendered Disinformation: Highlighted how online harassment disproportionately targets women journalists
• Information Ecosystem: Warned of \”invisible atom bomb\” in information systems
• Generative AI Concerns: Focuses on AI’s potential for manipulation of human behaviour

Academic & Leadership Roles:

• Hauser Fellow (2021), Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School
• Shorenstein Fellow (2021), Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard
• Member, Information and Democracy Commission (Reporters Without Borders)
• Co-leader, Technology Initiative, Columbia University

Speaking & Public Engagement:

• 2023: Addressed Princeton Class of 2027 on disinformation threats
• 2021: MIT Social Media Summit speaker
• Regular speaker: Technology ethics, press freedom, AI governance
• Documentary Subject: \”A Thousand Cuts\” (2020 Sundance Film Festival)

Philosophy & Approach:

• Core Principle: \”At the core of journalism is a code of honour\”
• On Courage: Believes actions driven by values rather than courage
• Filipino Value: Utang na loob (debt from within) – system of paying it forward
• Mission: \”Helping close the AI knowledge gap\” through evidence-based journalism
• Warning: AI transformation question: \”Whether we will shape this transformation together, or allow it to shape us\”

Personal Background:

• Born: 2 October 1963, Manila, Philippines
• Childhood: Moved to United States at age 9; raised in Toms River, New Jersey
• Early Education: St. Scholastica’s College, Manila (Tagalog-speaking)
• Family: Father (Phil Sunico Aycardo, Chinese-Filipino) died when she was one; mother (Hermelina) moved to US
• Identity: Openly lesbian
• Princeton: Originally premed student; graduated with English degree

Media Coverage:

Featured in: New York Times, CBS, PBS, Financial Times, BBC, Princeton Alumni publications, Harvard Gazette, MIT Sloan, Nobel Prize Foundation

#HoldTheLine Coalition:

• Co-founder: Coalition of 80+ global groups defending press freedom
• #CourageON: Human rights coalition member organisations
• Created support networks for journalists under threat

• Nobel Prize Foundation official pages
• Princeton University Alumni
• Columbia University
• Rappler official site
• MIT Sloan Management
• Harvard Kennedy School
• Wikipedia (verified January 2026)
• BBC, Time Magazine

Significance: Ressa represents the intersection of traditional investigative journalism, digital media innovation, and AI governance concerns. Her selection for the UN Panel brings crucial perspective on information integrity, platform accountability, and the societal impacts of AI-powered disinformation systems.

34. Lior Rokach

Current Position:

• Professor, Stein Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
• Member, Institute for Applied AI Research, BGU
• Former Chair, Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering

Education:

• PhD Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, 2005
• MSc (cum laude), Tel Aviv University
• BSc (summa cum laude), Tel Aviv University

Research Focus:

• Machine learning algorithms design and analysis
• Data mining and big data analytics
• Cybersecurity and malware detection
• Recommender systems
• Biomedical data science

Citations & Impact:

• Google Scholar Citations: 60,420
• ResearchGate Citations: 37,437
• Publications: 496+ peer-reviewed papers
• Area Editor, Information Fusion journal

Major Contributions:

• Founded Machine Learning Research Laboratory at BGU
• Co-editor \”Machine Learning for Data Science Handbook\” (2023) – 3rd edition of highly successful data mining handbook
• Book: \”Data Mining with Decision Trees\”
• Co-founded Center for Computational Criminology with Israel Police (2018)
• Pioneering work in ensemble learning methods
• Advanced ML techniques for cybersecurity applications

Industry & Entrepreneurship:

• Co-founder of 4 AI companies
• 20+ patents in AI and information technology
• 15+ years in IT entrepreneurship
• Technology licences deployed in large-scale e-commerce sites serving millions

Professional Recognition:

• Described by BGU President as \”one of the most cited researchers in his field\”
• Native of Holon, Israel
• Sole Israeli representative on UN AI Panel
• Selected from 2,600+ candidates, 140 countries

Key Research Areas:

• Intelligent information systems
• Cyber analytics and security
• ML for autonomous vehicles (CAN bus data)
• ML for drug discovery
• ML for healthcare (haematology, leukaemia research)

Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Academia.edu, BGU official profiles (multiple departments), JNS.org, YNetNews, Cleveland Jewish News, Cyber@BGU, BGU Research Portal

35. Piotr Sankowski

Current Positions:

• Professor, Institute of Informatics, University of Warsaw
• President/CEO, IDEAS NCBR (Research Institute for AI and Digital Economy)
• Co-founder & CEO, MIM Solutions (ML/algorithms company)
• ELLIS Fellow (2024)
• Member, ELLIS Unit Warsaw

Education:

• PhD Computer Science, University of Warsaw, 2005
• Habilitation, Computer Science, University of Warsaw, 2009
• PhD Physics (Solid State Theory), Polish Academy of Sciences, 2009
• Visiting Scientist, Simons Institute, Berkeley (Fall 2023)

Research Focus:

• Practical applications of algorithms
• Algebraic methods in algorithms
• Dynamic algorithms
• Stochastic algorithms
• Planar graphs and approximation algorithms
• Learning data structures
• Economic aspects of algorithms
• Machine learning applications

Citations & Funding:

• Google Scholar Citations: 3,548
• ERC Starting Grant (2010) – \”PAAl: Practical Approximation Algorithms\”
• ERC Proof of Concept Grant (2015) – led to MIM Solutions spin-off
• ERC Consolidator Grant (2017) – algorithm unification research
• ERC Proof of Concept Grant (2023) – \”EXALT: EXplainable ALgorithmic Tools\”

Major Achievements:

• Crystal Brussels Sprouts 2018 – Best Polish Scientist
• NCN Prize 2018 – Natural and technical sciences category
• Founded IDEAS NCBR – national AI research centre
• Co-founded MIM Solutions – successful ML company from UW Algorithms Group

MIM Solutions:

• Originated from University of Warsaw Algorithms Group
• Specialises in hard algorithmic problems and ML solutions
• Services: Recommendation systems, NLP, image processing, behavioural segmentation
• Notable clients: Gemius S.A. (ad categorisation), Showroom.pl/de (behavioural segmentation)
• 2nd place RecSys Challenge 2016
• Won KaggleDays Competition 2018

ELLIS Unit Warsaw:

• Co-Director with Tomasz Trzciński
• ELLIS Fellow since 2024
• Focus areas: Sustainable ML, efficient algorithms, responsible AI
• Research on explainable AI, zero-waste ML, data privacy
• Hosting ELLIS Doctoral Symposium 2025 on Robust AI
• PreNeurIPS Conferences 2023, 2024
• IDEAHACK hackathon series

Leadership:

• President, IDEAS NCBR
• Founded Interest Group on Algorithmic Foundations of IT (IGAFIT) – promotes algorithms in Europe
• Austrian Council Research/Science/Innovation/Technology (FORWIT) member

Research Projects:

• EXALT: Explainable algorithmic tools for better understanding AI pathways
• Work on IVF trigger day recommendations using AI
• Embryo selection algorithms
• Algorithm unification (\”one to rule them all\” for core problems)

University of Warsaw, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, MIM Solutions website, IDEAS NCBR, ELLIS Unit Warsaw, Simons Institute, Polonium Foundation, Emerging Europe article

36. Silvio Savarese

Current Position:

• Executive Vice President & Chief Scientist, Salesforce AI Research (2021-)
• Adjunct Faculty, Computer Science, Stanford University (2021-)

Previous Academic Career:

• Associate Professor (Tenured), Computer Science, Stanford University (2013-2021)

• Inaugural Mindtree Faculty Scholar, Stanford (2018)

• Director, SAIL-Toyota Center for AI Research, Stanford (2016-2018)

• Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2008-2013)

• Directed Computer Vision Group

• Beckman Institute Fellow, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2005-2008)

Education:

• PhD Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), 2005
• Degree, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

Research Focus:

• Computer vision and scene understanding
• 3D object recognition and scene interpretation
• Machine learning and deep learning
• Natural language processing
• Robotics and autonomous systems
• Generative AI and large language models
• AI agents and agentic AI

Citations & Impact:

• Google Scholar Citations: 106,622
• 350+ publications in top-tier journals and conferences
• Program Chair, CVPR 2020
• General Chair, 4th International Conference on 3D Vision (3DV)
• Associate Editor, IEEE TPAMI (2016-2019)

Major Awards:

• TIME 100 Most Influential People in AI (2024)
• Best Paper Award, IEEE ICRA 2019
• Best Paper Award, CVPR 2018
• Best Student Paper Award, CVPR 2016
• James R. Croes Medal (2013)
• NSF CAREER Award (2011)
• Two Google Research Awards (2010, 2020)

Key Publications & Contributions:

• Book: \”Representations and Techniques for 3D Object Recognition & Scene Interpretation\” (2011, with Derek Hoiem)
• JR-2 Robot (2018): Socially aware robot reading human intentions through neural networks
• CodeGen: Open-source large-scale language model for conversational AI programming
• Einstein GPT: Led development at Salesforce
• Agentforce: Leading development of agentic AI platforms for enterprise

Salesforce AI Research Leadership:

• Shapes scientific direction and long-term AI strategy

• Leads AI Research organisation including:

• AI for C360 and CRM
• AI for Trust
• AI for developer productivity
• Operational efficiency

• Develops generative AI platforms for customer relationship management

• Focus on agentic AI, synthetic data, reinforcement learning

Recent Research Areas (2024-2025):

• MoiraiAgent: Forecasting systems for enterprise decision-making
• MCP-Universe: Framework for AI agent development and testing
• ProVision: System for transforming images into verified instruction data for multimodal LLMs
• Time series forecasting across domains
• AI agent capability optimisation through synthetic data

Unique Background:

• Video Game Designer: Co-developed with father:

• \”A Quiet Weekend in Capri\” (2003 Italy, 2004 North America)
• \”AnaCapri: The Dream\” (2007)
• Games distributed internationally: US, France, Russia, Italy

Media Coverage:

Featured in: NYT, CBS, PBS, Financial Times, Quartz, ABC, BBC, Corriere Della Sera, La Repubblica

Professional Philosophy:

• Focus on \”huge leaps\” in AI rather than incremental improvements
• Bridge between academic research and practical enterprise applications
• From teaching robots \”mundane tasks\” to enterprise AI transformation

Wikipedia, Google Scholar, Stanford profiles, Salesforce official pages (multiple), Medium, LinkedIn, SAIL-Toyota Center, Multiple Salesforce AI Research blog posts

37. Bernhard Schölkopf

Current Positions:

• Director, Department of Empirical Inference, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen
• President and Co-founder, ELLIS (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems)
• Scientific Director, ELLIS Institute Tübingen (founded 2023)
• Affiliated Professor, ETH Zürich
• Honorary Professor, University of Tübingen
• Honorary Professor, Technical University (TU) Berlin

Education:

• PhD Computer Science, Technical University Berlin, 1997

• Thesis: \”Support Vector Learning\” (supervised by Vladimir Vapnik and Stefan Jähnichen)
• Won annual award of German Informatics Association

• Diplom Physics

• MSc Mathematics, University of London, 1992

• Won Lionel Cooper Memorial Prize for best MSc in Mathematics

• Studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy in Tübingen and London

• Supported by Studienstiftung (German Academic Scholarship Foundation)

Career Progression:

• 2023-present: Founded and became Scientific Director, ELLIS Institute Tübingen
• 2011-present: Founding Director, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
• 2001-2011: Founded Department of Empirical Inference, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics
• Before 2001: Positions in Berlin, Cambridge, and New York
• Industrial Research: AT&T Bell Labs, New Jersey (worked with Vladimir Vapnik); Microsoft Research; Biowulf Technologies

Research Focus:

• Machine Learning: Kernel methods, statistical learning theory
• Causal Inference: Developing methods to recognize causal structures from observational data
• Support Vector Machines (SVMs): Achieved world record performance on MNIST benchmark
• Kernel PCA: Extended dimensionality reduction methods
• Applications across: biomedical problems, computational photography, astronomy, computer vision, robotics, neuroscience

Major Achievements & Awards:

Prestigious Research Prizes:

• Leibniz Prize (2018) – Most prestigious German research award (€2.5 million)
• ACM-AAAI Allen Newell Award (2022) – One of most important AI prizes globally
• Körber European Science Prize (2019)
• BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2019, 2021) – Information and Communication Technologies (shared with Isabelle Guyon and Vladimir Vapnik)
• Royal Society Milner Award
• German AI Award (2020)
• Academy Prize, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
• Research Award of the State of Baden-Württemberg (2019)
• Hector Science Prize (2019)
• J.K. Aggarwal Prize
• Max Planck Research Prize

Professional Recognition:

• #KI50 Award (2019): Named one of ten most influential minds in history of German AI
• Member, German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), 2016
• Fellow, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2017
• Fellow, CIFAR Program \”Learning in Machines and Brains\”
• Among world’s most cited computer scientists
• Most cited German researcher in machine learning field

Citations & Impact:

• Google Scholar Citations: 275,753
• ResearchGate Citations: 144,382
• Publications: 984+ research publications
• Co-Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Machine Learning Research (founding role)
• Program Chair, CVPR 2020
• Associate Editor, IEEE TPAMI (2016-2019)

Foundational Contributions:

• Co-founder, Machine Learning Summer Schools (MLSS series)
• Co-founder, Cyber Valley research consortium (2016)
• Co-founder and President, ELLIS Society (launched April 2018)
• Co-founder, Cambridge-Tübingen PhD Programme
• Co-founder, Max Planck-ETH Center for Learning Systems
• Co-founder, Journal of Machine Learning Research (mass resignation from Machine Learning journal editorial board)
• Member, LIGO scientific collaboration to detect gravitational waves

Key Scientific Contributions:

• Kernel Methods: Showed SVMs are special case of much larger class of methods; demonstrated algorithms expressible in dot products can be generalized to nonlinear settings via reproducing kernels
• Kernel PCA: Extended to extract invariant features, design invariant kernels; showed how to view LLE and Isomap as special cases
• Representer Theorem: Proved that SVMs, kernel PCA, and most kernel algorithms have solutions as kernel expansions on training data
• Kernel Embeddings: Co-developed methods to represent probability distributions in Hilbert Spaces
• Causal Discovery: Addressed two-variable causal discovery problem; connected causality to Kolmogorov complexity
• Causal Learning for ML: Exploited independence of mechanisms and invariance assumptions

Notable Alumni:

• Ulrike von Luxburg
• Carl Rasmussen
• Matthias Hein
• Arthur Gretton
• Gunnar Rätsch
• Matthias Bethge
• Stefanie Jegelka
• Jason Weston
• Olivier Bousquet
• Olivier Chapelle
• Joaquin Quinonero-Candela
• Sebastian Nowozin

Public Engagement & Ethics:

• Open letter signatory: Against autonomous AI weapons
• Open letter signatory: Against military collaboration of KAIST (with positive outcome)
• Participant: IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems
• Public stance: Does not engage in military research; believes AI/ML should not be used for aggressive military purposes
• Media articles: German newspapers FAZ (2015) and SZ (2018) on AI implications

• Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems official pages
• Wikipedia (verified December 2025)
• Google Scholar
• ResearchGate
• ACM, ACM-AAAI announcements
• Hector Fellow Academy
• ELLIS official pages
• Cyber Valley
• Körber Foundation
• German Informatics Society #KI50 initiative
• Multiple Max Planck Society press releases

38. Haitao Song

Current Position:

• Professor, Complex Systems Research Center, Shanxi University, Taiyuan

Education:

• PhD Mathematics, Harbin Institute of Technology
• Postdoctoral Fellow, York University, Canada

Research Focus:

• Mathematical Epidemiology: Disease modeling and dynamics
• Delay Differential Equations: Mathematical modeling with time delays
• Dynamical Systems: Bifurcation theory and applications
• Infectious Disease Modeling: Particularly mosquito-borne diseases
• COVID-19 Modeling: Extensive work on pandemic modeling and analysis
• Relapse Phenomena: General relapse phenomenon in infectious diseases including herpes

Research Specializations:

• Integro-differential equations with infinite-distributed delay
• Uniform persistence theory
• Heterogeneity of susceptible populations
• Non-exponential distribution infectious periods
• Spatial-temporal disease dynamics
• Mathematical modeling of public health interventions

Citations & Impact:

• Google Scholar: Cited extensively in epidemiological modeling literature
• ResearchGate Citations: 435
• Publications: 33+ peer-reviewed papers
• ResearchGate Reads: 9,167

Key Research Areas:

• COVID-19 Analysis:

• Mechanisms behind severity disparity across European countries
• Vaccine coverage patterns
• Variant replacement patterns
• First-level response to public health emergencies (FLRPHE) in China
• Second wave impact analysis in South and Southeast Asia

• Mathematical Techniques:

• General relapse phenomenon modeling
• Nonlinear incidence rate analysis
• Multiple susceptible compartments in epidemic models
• Exponential and non-exponential distribution for disease stages

Key Collaborations:

Research network includes collaboration with:

• Zhen Jin, Complex Systems Research Center, Shanxi University
• Daihai He, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• Guihong Fan, Columbus State University
• Huaiping Zhu, Professor of Mathematics, York University
• Yongzeng Lai, Wilfrid Laurier University
• Lin Wang, Professor of Mathematics, University of New Brunswick
• Ben Cowling, Chair Professor of Epidemiology, University of Hong Kong
• Michael Y Li, Professor of Mathematics, University of Alberta
• Gui-Quan Sun, Complex Systems Research Center, Shanxi University

Institutional Affiliation:

Shanxi University – Selected into Double First Class University Plan (February 2022)

Research Philosophy:

• Focus on heterogeneity in disease modeling
• Integration of mathematical rigor with practical public health applications
• Emphasis on non-standard mathematical approaches (non-exponential distributions)

• ResearchGate profile
• Google Scholar
• ZoomInfo
• Shanxi University official records

Note: Professor Song’s work demonstrates strong mathematical foundations applied to critical public health challenges, particularly his extensive COVID-19 modeling contributions during the pandemic.

39. Leslie TEO

Current Positions:

• Senior Director, AI Products, AI Singapore (AISG)
• Smart Nation Fellow, GovTech Singapore
• Independent Board Member, Coinbase Singapore
• Independent Board Member, IPOS International
• Independent Board Member, Sofina AG (global investor listed in Belgium)

Education:

• PhD Economics and Finance, University of Rochester
• Master’s Information and Data Science, University of California, Berkeley (2016-2018)
• Bachelor’s Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Chicago

Professional Certifications:

• Certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM)
• CFA Charter Holder

Career Progression:

Current Role – AI Singapore (AISG):

• Senior Director of AI Products
• Leading team that built SEA-LION (Southeast Asian Large Language Model)
• One of two national LLMs under Singapore’s S\$70M National Multimodal Large Language Model Programme (NMLP)
• Supported by Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and National Research Foundation (NRF)
• Catalysing AI adoption in businesses across Singapore and Southeast Asia
• Building enabling AI products to support critical business use cases

Previous Senior Roles:

• Managing Director, Data and Strategic Transformation, Great Eastern Life Insurance

• Enabled data analytics and data science across organization
• Fostered business transformation capabilities

• Head of Data Science, Policy, and Data Initiatives, Grab (2019)

• Advisor to CEO (continuing role)
• Laid foundation for data science and analytics at Grab
• Helped establish foundation for Grab x Singtel digital bank (GXS)
• Built products providing insights on congestion patterns, safer bike paths
• Answered critical business and social questions using data

• Head, Financial Surveillance Division, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)

• Regulatory oversight role at Singapore’s central bank

Major Initiatives & Products:

SEA-LION Development:

• Part of core team developing family of open-sourced LLMs focused on Southeast Asia
• Models designed for cultural relevance and resource efficiency
• Deployable on edge devices (collaboration with Dell Technologies)
• Multilingual capabilities including Tamil and other Southeast Asian languages

Strategic Partnerships Led:

• Thoughtworks: Joint research on reliable GenAI evaluation methods, tools, and best practices
• Sony Research: Collaborative research on LLMs for Southeast Asian languages
• Dell Technologies: Democratising AI access through edge deployment
• AWS: Public Sector AI initiatives

Education & Community Leadership:

Board Roles:

• Board Member, National University of Singapore (NUS)
• Board Member, Pacific Pension and Investment Institute
• Vice President, Economic Society of Singapore
• Chair, Advisory Board for NUS Faculty of Arts and Sciences
• Advisor, NUS Investment Committee
• Advisor, NUS Business School

Research & Development Focus:

• Multimodal LLMs: Developing models for Southeast Asian context
• Edge AI Deployment: Resource-efficient AI solutions
• Responsible AI: Evaluation methods for GenAI applications
• AI for Business: Practical AI adoption by SMEs and enterprises
• Data Science Applications: Social impact through data-driven insights

Career Pivot & Philosophy:

• 2019: Major career pivot from economics/finance to AI and data science
• Passionate about democratising AI and data science
• Focus on practical, deployable AI solutions
• Commitment to Southeast Asian AI ecosystem development
• Emphasis on culturally relevant, resource-efficient AI

Global Leadership:

• Co-chair, Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) project on Broad Adoption of AI by SMEs
• Leading international efforts to empower businesses with AI
• Making AI accessible beyond Singapore’s borders

• AI Singapore official pages
• NSCC (National Supercomputing Centre Singapore)
• AI for Good ITU profile
• RocketReach
• Business Wire press releases
• PR Newswire
• The Manila Times
• Thoughtworks announcements
• Sony AI announcements
• Dell Technologies announcements

Note: Dr. Teo represents a unique bridge between traditional finance/economics expertise and modern AI/data science, with strong emphasis on practical implementation and Southeast Asian context.

40. Jian Wang (wang Jian)

Current Positions:

• Director/President, Zhejiang Lab (Zhijiang Laboratory)
• Academician, Chinese Academy of Engineering (elected November 2019)
• Chairman, Alibaba Group Technology Committee
• Founder, Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun)

Education:

• PhD Engineering, Zhejiang University, 1990

• Bachelor’s Psychology, Hangzhou University, 1984

• Original interest in healthcare (mother was doctor, father worked for Zhejiang province hospital bureau)
• Shifted to computer science in graduate school

• Professor, Zhejiang University (promoted 1992)

Career Progression:

Alibaba Group (2008-present):

• 2008: Joined as Chief Architect (September)
• Former: Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Alibaba Group
• Current: Chairman of Technology Committee

Pre-Alibaba:

• Executive Vice President, Microsoft Research Asia (9 years)

• Researcher and programmer on advanced projects
• User interfaces, machine learning, large-scale data processing

• Professor, Zhejiang University (multiple years after PhD)

Major Achievements & Contributions:

Alibaba Cloud (Founded September 2009):

• Global Ranking: 3rd largest public cloud provider globally
• Asia Ranking: #1 public cloud provider in Asia
• Pioneered industrial model of computing as public service
• Led development of over 1,200 employees for cloud initiatives

Feitian/Apsara Operating System:

• Chief Architect of Apsara computing foundation
• China’s only self-developed cloud operating system
• Basis for his election as Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering
• Foundation of all Alibaba Cloud services

Aliyun OS (2011):

• First operating system built by Chinese developers for Chinese consumers
• First OS anywhere designed specifically for cloud-based applications on mobile devices
• Based on Linux open-source platform
• Led team of 1,200 Alibaba Cloud Computing employees over 3 years
• Revolutionary approach: devices as gateways to cloud computing rather than isolated islands

Smart Cities & Public Benefit Initiatives:

City Brain Initiative (Founded 2016):

• Pioneer and Lead: Nonprofit initiative as personal effort

• Developed new digital infrastructure for sustainable \”smart cities\”

• Architect: Hangzhou City Brain (first implementation)

• Uses AI and big data for urban management

• President, City Brain Industrial Alliance

• 309 government departments, institutions, companies across 11 cities in Zhejiang
• Vice-presidents include Zhejiang University, Zhijiang Lab, Huawei

Yunqi Academy of Engineering:

• Founder: Private nonprofit research institute
• Focus on scientific research for City Brain
• Advancing smart city technologies

Yunqi Science and Technology Innovation Foundation:

• Founder: Philanthropic private foundation
• Operates free 2050 Museum: Envisions future through technology
• Organizes annual 2050 Event (every April)
• Promotes vision of science and technology bringing people together

Professional Recognition:

Chinese Academy of Engineering (2019):

• One of only two fellows from private companies in 2019 election
• First private sector technologist focused on cloud computing
• Academician status: \”Stars and elite among Chinese scientists\”

Industry Leadership:

• Named \”Founding Father of Alibaba Cloud\”
• Visionary in cloud computing as public utility
• Pioneer in mobile cloud operating systems
• Leader in smart city digital transformation

Research & Innovation Philosophy:

• Vision of computing as fundamental public infrastructure
• Integration of cloud computing with IoT for smart cities
• Focus on practical social impact through technology
• Bridging research, industry, and public benefit
• Emphasis on Chinese indigenous technology development

Personal Background:

• Born: October 1962
• Native of: Hangzhou, China (Alibaba headquarters city)
• Early Aspiration: Healthcare career (influenced by mother’s medical profession)
• Career Philosophy: Confidence in execution even when success uncertain
• Known internally as \”crazy guy\” for ambitious proposals (e.g., mobile OS)
• Reputation for visionary thinking that pushes boundaries

Key Projects & Technologies:

• Feitian/Apsara: Cloud operating system
• Aliyun OS: Mobile cloud operating system
• Alibaba Cloud Computing: Global cloud infrastructure
• City Brain: Smart city platform
• Large-scale data processing systems
• Machine learning infrastructure

Global Recognition:

• Speaker at major technology conferences including BEYOND Expo, AI for Good Summit
• Recognition for both technical innovation and social impact through technology
• Model for combining commercial success with public benefit initiatives

• Wikipedia (verified January 2026)
• AI for Good ITU profile
• Chinese Academy of Engineering announcements
• Yicai Global articles (multiple)
• Alizila (Alibaba official publication)
• BEYOND Expo
• FBAS (Belt and Road AI Summit)
• China Daily
• E-Hangzhou government website

Note: Dr. Wang represents unique combination of academic excellence, industrial innovation, and public benefit focus. His work on Alibaba Cloud established China’s position in global cloud computing, while City Brain initiative demonstrates commitment to using technology for social good.