Prof. Adina Magda Florea

National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest

Romania

Adina Magda Florea is Professor at the Department of Computer Science of the National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest (UNSTB) and the Director of the International Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence of the university.

Her research interests are in multi-agent systems, machine learning, ambient intelligence, active and assistive living, social robots, and human-robot interaction. Prof. Florea founded and holds the chair of Artificial Intelligence at NUST POLITEHNICA Bucharest, was the director of over 25 national RDI grants and 6 international grants and coordinated the development of the PRECIS Research Center. Prof. Florea was an invited professor at several European universities and had a one-year invited professorship at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA, USA.

She is Senior Member of IEEE, Senior Member of ACM, President of the Romanian Association for Artificial Intelligence, and Chair of IEEE Romanian Section Chapter of Computational Intelligence. She was awarded 3 Best Paper Awards, 2 IBM Prizes for Excellence, and Ordre des Palmes Acadèmiques Grade de Chevalier.

Prof. Richard Siow

King’s College London

United Kingdom

Prof. Siow is a graduate of King’s College London (BSc Nutrition, PhD Cardiovascular Physiology) and following postdoctoral research in the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, he returned to the School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine & Sciences at KCL as a faculty member. He was previously the Vice-Dean (International), Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine at KCL and since 2015 he has been the Director of Ageing Research at King’s (ARK), a cross-university consortium of researchers taking a multidisciplinary approach to better understand the mechanisms of ageing, improving health-span and the social and economic impact of ageing.

He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford, Honorary Secretary General of the European Society for Preventive Medicine. and previously a visiting academic in the Healthy Longevity Centre at University of Zurich, Switzerland. Richard is the Chief Editor, Healthy Longevity Section of Frontiers in Ageing, an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Nutrition, member of the International Advisory Board of The Lancet Healthy Longevity and was a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Longevity.

Prof. Florin Leon

“Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iași, Romania

Romania

Prof. Florin Leon received a PhD degree in computer science from “Gheorghe Asachi” University of Iași in 2005, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship completed in 2007. In 2015, he defended his habilitation thesis. He has been a faculty member at the Department of Computers of the same university since 2005, where he became a full professor in 2015. He authored and co-authored over 200 journal articles, book chapters and conference papers, as well as 14 books.

He served on guest editorial boards for nine journal special issues and participated in 37 national and international research projects, four of which he led as principal investigator. Prof. Leon is currently a member of IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society: Computational Collective Intelligence Technical Community and the Romanian Association for Artificial Intelligence. His research interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning, multi-agent systems, and software design.

Prof. Ali Imran

University of Glasgow

United Kingdom

Ali Imran is a Professor in Cyber Physical Systems and Intelligent Systems at the University of Glasgow. He has over 15 years of distinguished project management and research and development experience across industry and academia. His research interests and expertise encompass advancing AI for Complex Dynamic Systems modelling and management and transforming "sick care" into healthcare. In these areas, he has successfully spearheaded numerous high-impact multinational projects, founded thriving startups for addressing critical global challenges, and secured over $7 million in highly competitive research grants and investor funding.

As the Founding Director of the AI4Networks Research Center Dr. Imran leads an exceptional team focused on exploring the frontiers of AI powered automation. At the AI4Networks Research Center, he has also overseen the development of the first-of-its-kind testbed TurboRAN, designed to enable experimental research on AI-based zero-touch network automation.

Dr. Imran's research has led to publication of more than 150 peer-reviewed research papers, numerous influential patents (both granted and pending), and groundbreaking work in AI-based zero-touch automation for mobile networks and AI-driven diagnostics using acoustic and non-intrusively measurable biomarker signals. His outstanding contributions have garnered international media attention from outlets such as Voice of America, IEEE Spectrum, Fox, and PTV Global.

Prof. Irina Mocanu

National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest

Romania

Irina Mocanu is Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of National University of Science and Technology Politehnica Bucharest and member of the Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems Laboratory. She received her B.Sc., M.Sc., and PhD degree from Politehnica Bucharest.

She obtained the post-doctoral diploma from the same university, with the ambient assisted living project: AmIHomCare: Ambiental Intelligent System for Home Medical Assistance. Her research interests are in image processing, machine learning, human-robot interaction, applications of ambient intelligence and computer games.

She has published over 150 research papers in journals and international conferences. She coordinated 6 projects (national and international) in the domain of active and assisting living. She was also a MC Member for 2 Cost Action.

Dr. Florin Condrea

Romanian Academy, Siemens

Romania

Dr. Condrea is currently a PhD student at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, and a machine learning research engineer at Siemens, focusing on computer vision and deep learning applied in medical imaging. He received his BSc degree in Computer Science from University of Bucharest and has a MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the same institution. His research interests include approaches for: machine learning applied in the medical domain, computer vision, self-supervised learning, weakly supervised learning.

Svitlana Surodina

Skein / Kings College London

United Kingdom

Svitlana Surodina is the Managing Director of Skein Group with over 20 years of industry experience in digital innovation including senior roles with enterprises as well as scale-ups.

She holds an MBA from the University of Oxford and currently combines PhD research in Ethical AI Decision Support at King's College London with managing EU supported projects in AI and digital health technologies as well as working with clinical researchers and health organisations on co-design and implementation of AI-enabled data systems.

Svitlana is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Ageing Research at Kings and member of King's AI Institute.

Prof. Phillip Morgan

Cardiff University

United Kingdom

Phillip Morgan is a Professor of Human Factors and Cognitive Science at the School of Psychology in Cardiff University. He holds a Personal Chair within the School of Psychology at Cardiff University. He is Director of the Cardiff University Human Factors Excellence (HuFEx) Group, Director of Research within the Centre for AI, Robotics, and Human-Machine Systems (IROHMS), Transportation and Human Factors and Cognitive Science Lead within the Digital Transformation Innovation institute (DTII), Director of the Airbus – Cardiff University Academic Centre of Excellence in Human-Centric Cyber Security (H2CS) and Co-Academic Lead of a partnership between Airbus and Cardiff University. Prof Morgan is also Visiting Professor at Luleå University of Technology - Psychology, Division of Health, Medicine & Rehabilitation, Sweden.

Prof Morgan is an international expert in human aspects of AI and automation, trust in new/disruptive technologies, Cyberpsychology, transportation human factors, HMI design, HCI, interruption and distraction effects, and adaptive cognition and has published extensively (>100 outputs) across these areas. With >50 grants (>£37million, e.g. Airbus, CREST, ERDF, ESRC, EPSRC, HSSRC, IUK, NCSC, SOS Alarm, Wellcome); often as Principal Investigator / Institution Lead, he has significant project management experience. He currently supervises >10 PhD students in areas including human aspects of AI, automation and cyber security.

Prof Morgan was a Human Factors lead on the IUK (~£5m, 2015-18) Venturer AVs for UK Roads project, Co-I and Human Factors lead on the IUK (~£5.5m, 2016-19) Flourish CAVs project, PI on an ESRC-JST (~750k, 2020-2023, with universities in Japan – e.g. Kyoto and Osaka) project Rule of Law in the Age of AI: Distributive Liability for Multi-Agent Societies. Amongst other current projects, Prof Morgan is Co-Leading a cross cutting Human-Centred Design Work Package within an EPSRC (~£12m, 2024-2028) AI for Collective Intelligence (AI4CI) hub.

Dr. Bilal Mateen

Digital Square at PATH, University College London

United Kingdom

Dr. Bilal Mateen is the Executive Director of Digital Square, a global initiative that supports digital health transformation in low- and middle-income countries. He is also a physician by training with an academic background in health-related applications of data science. Prior to joining Digital Square, he served as the Clinical Technology Lead and Senior Manager for Digital Technology at the Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s largest philanthropic foundations supporting science and health research.

Bilal is deeply passionate about advancing ethical and inclusive applications of artificial intelligence. Alongside his role at PATH, he continues to hold an honorary professorial appointment at University College London and a fellowship at the Alan Turing Institute (the UK’s National Institute for Data Science and AI).

Prof. Dr. Darian Onchis

West University of Timisoara

Romania

Darian M. Onchis is professor of computer science, specialized in machine learning and explainable artificial intelligence, active member of the European Lab for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) and the recipient of the 1st prize in artificial intelligence (AI) category for the most innovative research-oriented course material, awarded in 2018 by the Employers Association of the Software and Services Industry (ANIS), with a dual evaluation, both industrial and academic. He has a long-standing international research experience: Habilitation (HDR) in France, Principal Investigator (PI) in Austria, Doctorate (PhD) in Spain and Master (MSc) in Romania.

He led a research team, and he successfully coordinated a large research project in Austria at the University of Vienna, before coming back to Romania to create SIMT (Signal, Image and Machine Learning Team) at the West University of Timisoara. Most recently, he coordinates the TRAIN (Timisoara Research in Artificial Intelligence Network, train.uvt.ro) initiative, which is an AI research network from Timisoara. Since 2016, he is also responsible for the Machine Learning discipline at the Master in Computer Science programs, organized by the West University of Timișoara. He created the only web portal in Romania dedicated exclusively to Explainable AI competitions, see xaion.uvt.ro.

Dr. Erin Lorelie Young

The Alan Turing Institute

United Kingdom

Dr. Erin Young is a Research Fellow and Project Co-Lead in the Public Policy Programme at The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s National Institute for Data Science and AI.

She has a PhD from the University of Oxford, where she studied the socio-technical practices of interdisciplinary R&D projects. Erin has also held positions as a Consultant at the United Nations in Paris, Kantar/WPP in London, Thomson Reuters in New York City, and Stanford University. She has a PGC in International Business Practice, Finance and Organisational Behaviour, and has earned scholarships to study at the British Schools of Athens and Rome. She holds an MSc (Distinction) from the University of Oxford in Education (Learning and Technology), and a BA in Classics from the University of Cambridge. Erin regularly lectures, advises and collaborates across institutions including European Parliament, GCHQ, the Cabinet Office, Bank of England and British Embassies/Consulates globally.

Prof. Alan Winfield

University of the West of England

United Kingdom

Alan Winfield is a Professor of Robot Ethics at the Department of Engineering, Design and Mathematics at the University of the West of England (UWE) and Visiting Professor at the Department of Electronics, University of York.

His work at UWE spans Research and Public Engagement. I conduct research in Cognitive Robotics within the Bristol Robotics Lab. He is a member of the Science Communication Unit, and undertake public engagement work centred upon robotics. Robot ethics is a significant focus of my current work, including the development of new standards. Prof Winfield’s area of expertise include robotics, intelligent autonomous systems, swarm intelligence, artificial intelligence and cognitive systems, complex systems, robot ethics, public engagement, open science.

Prof. Dr. Eng. Ștefan Trăușan-Matu

NUST POLITEHNICA Bucharest

Romania

Stefan Trausan-Matu started over 40 years ago as a pioneer in Romania AI research and since 1994 he also has been teaching AI at the Computer Science Departement of University Politehnica Bucharest, where he also conducted many hundreds of AI graduation and master thesis and almost 30 PhD students. He was a Fulbright post-doc at Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA and visiting professor at Universities of Nantes, Lyon, Toulouse, and Grenoble in France.

He is doing research in AI for Computational Linguistics, Expert Systems, e-Learning, Collaborative Knowledge Construction, with also interdisciplinary AI studies including Philosophy, Ethics, Sociology, and Music. He has an outstanding publication record, was the Director of many research projects, and was awarded the Romanian Academy Award.

Dr. Atoosa Kasirzadeh

University of Edinburgh, Alan Turing Institute

United Kingdom

Dr. Kasirzadeh is a Chancellor’s Fellow (tenure-track assistant professor) in philosophy department and Edinburgh’s Futures Institute at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to this, she was a visiting research scientist at Google DeepMind (London, UK) and a philosophy postdoctoral fellow for the Humanizing Machine Intelligence Grand Challenge at the Australian National University. Atoosa holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, specialising in philosophy of science and technology from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal and the Group for Research in Decision Analysis (GERAD) where she worked on developing mathematical models and computational algorithms for large-scale, data-driven decision problems. Before that she studied engineering and mathematics in Switzerland, Sweden, and Iran.

Atoosa writes and teaches about issues such as ethics and philosophy of AI and computing, the roles of mathematics in empirical sciences and normative inquiry, the epistemological and social implications of mathematical and computational modelling in the socio-economic world, values in sciences and decision making, and modelling of morality.

Dr. Cristina Voinea

University of Bucharest

Romania

Cristina is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, and a researcher at the Center for Research in Applied Ethics, University of Bucharest.

Her research revolves around understanding the impact of digital technologies on both individual and societal well-being. Cristina's work delves into a range of critical themes within this domain, including responsibility in the realm of artificial intelligence, the influence of persuasive technologies, and the potential use of technology for cognitive and moral enhancement.

Matthew Wemys

Cambridge School of Bucharest

With over 11 years of experience driving educational advancements, Matthew Wemyss serves as Assistant School Director at the Cambridge School of Bucharest. With over 11 years of experience driving educational advancements, Matthew Wemyss serves as Assistant School Director at the Cambridge School of Bucharest.

He leverages technology strategically, exploring AI and other emerging tools, to create dynamic learning experiences that empower students to become independent critical thinkers. His passion lies in fostering a culture of innovation that prepares students for the future.

Prof. Bo Liu

University of Glasgow

United Kingdom

Bo Liu received the B.Eng. degree from Tsinghua University, China, in 2008 and the Ph.D. degree from University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium, in 2012. Currently, he is a Professor of Electronic Design Automation at University of Glasgow. He is a Fellow of IET and a Senior Member of IEEE.

His research focuses on novel data-driven optimization and machine learning algorithms for electronic (analog ICs and systems, microwave devices, and micro-electromechanical systems) design and their real-world applications.

Prof. Sergiu Nedevschi

Technical University of Cluj-Napoca

Romania

Sergiu Nedevschi is a Professor at the Computer Science Department, Faculty of Automation and Computer Science of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, and Director of Image Processing and Pattern Recognition Research Center.

His main research areas include Image Processing and Pattern Recognition, Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning based Perception, 2D Sensors Based Perception (grey and colour cameras), 2D and 3D Sensors Based Perception (Stereo, LiDAR, RADAR), Geometry and Semantic fusion, Object and Pedestrian Detection Tracking and Recognition, Environment Representation, Risk Assessment, Intelligent Vehicles, Driving Assistance Systems, Autonomous Mobile Systems, Medical Image Processing.

Prof. Nedevschi is involved in more than 80 research projects, being the coordinator, local coordinator or manager of 62 of them. He coordinated or manage 29 international projects from which 6 FP7, 1 Horizon 2020, 19 with companies and 3 bilateral projects. The research activity carried out in the Image Processing and Pattern Recognition Research Lab established in 1998 and upgraded to Research Center in 2010.

Prof. Marius Leordeanu

NUST POLITEHNICA Bucharest

Romania

Marius is a Professor at the Politehnica University of Bucharest as well as a scientific researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy.

In 2009, he obtained his PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University (USA) and his BA in Mathematics and Computer Science from the City University of New York (2003). At the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Marius Leordeanu introduced in 2015, for the first time, the Computational Vision and Robotics courses, within the AI Master's Program at the Computer Department. He leads a research group in Artificial Intelligence, Computational Vision and Robotics with numerous internationally leading published papers.

Prof. Leordeanu has obtained numerous research grants and won awards at the national and international level, including the prestigious "Grigore Moisil" Prize in Mathematics, awarded by the Romanian Academy in 2014.

Dr. Matthew Forshaw

The Alan Turing Institute

United Kingdom

Dr. Matthew Forshaw is Reader in Data Science at Newcastle University and Senior Advisor for Skills to The Alan Turing Institute. His work in data and AI skills includes working with the Government on the skills pillar of the National Data Strategy, leadership of skills policy initiatives through the Data Skills Taskforce, and as Expert Advisor to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Matthew’s work on professionalisation of the data science occupation with the Alliance of Data Science Professionals is having a major impact on public and professional policy and practice, setting professional values and ethical standards for the use of data science and AI for the UK’s accreditation and certification processes across several major professional bodies. Matthew is passionate about democratising access to, and widening participation into, data and AI skills training at all levels. His areas of expertise include data science, stream processing, energy efficiency, distributed computing.

Prof. Mihai Dascalu

NUST POLITEHNICA Bucharest

Romania

Mihai Dascalu, professor at the National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest (UPB), was head of his class in 2009 (i.e., GPA 10/10; ranked 1st across specialization and university) at UPB and holds a double Ph.D. with the highest distinctions in Computer Science and Educational Sciences.

He has extensive experience in national and international research projects with more than 300 published papers, including 40 articles at top-tier conferences. Complementary to his competencies in ML/NLP, AI in education, and discourse analysis, Mihai holds a multitude of professional certifications (e.g., PMP, PMI-RMP, PMI-ACP, CISA, C|EH, and CISSP).

Moreover, Mihai received the award “Mihai Draganescu” from the Romanian Academy, obtained a Senior Fulbright scholarship in 2015, and holds a US patent. Mihai is also a corresponding member of the Academy of Romanian Scientists.

Prof. Themis Prodromakis

University of Edinburgh

United Kingdom

Themis holds the Regius Chair of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh and is Director of the Centre for Electronics Frontiers. His work focuses on developing metal-oxide Resistive Random-Access Memory technologies and related applications and is leading an interdisciplinary team comprising 30 researchers with expertise ranging from materias process development to electron devices and circuits and systems for embedded applications. He holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies and a Royal Society Industry Fellowship.

He is an Adjunct Professor at UTS Australia, visiting Professor at the Department of Microelectronics and Nanoelectronics at Tsinghua University, and Honorary Fellow at Imperial College London. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the British Computer Society, the IET and the Institute of Physics and is also Senior Member of the IEEE.

He served as the Director of the Lloyds Register Foundation International Consortium for Nanotechnology and Co-Director of the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Machine Intelligence for Nano- Electronic Devices and Systems (MINDS). In 2015, he established ArC Instruments Ltd that delivers high-performance testing infrastructure for automating characterisation of novel nanodevices in over 21 countries and in 2019 he founded SoneT.ai that is building new power-efficient AI hardware solutions. His contributions in memristive technologies and applications have brought this emerging technology one step closer to the electronics industry for which he was recognised as a 2021 Blavatnik Award UK Honoree in Physical Sciences and Engineering.

Prof. Daniela Zaharie

West University of Timisoara

Romania

Daniela Zaharie is Professor at the Department of Computer Science from the West University of Timisoara (Romania) with a PhD degree on stochastic modelling of neural networks and a habilitation thesis on analysis of the behaviour of differential evolution algorithms.

Her current research interests include analysis and applications of metaheuristic algorithms, machine learning models and data mining with applications in scheduling, resource allocation and biomedical data analysis. She participated to 6 international projects and 13 national projects.

Daniela is teaching Data Mining, Metaheuristic Algorithms and Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence for MSc students and Topics of Machine Learning for PhD students. She is member of the Editorial Board of Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Pattern Analysis and Applications, Swarm and Evolutionary Computing, Soft Computing.