Distinguished Speaker Series

In the ELLIS Distinguished Speaker Series ELLIS Alicante invites top AI researchers from around the world to present their work to the team of ELLIS Alicante. In collaboration with the University of Alicante, the event is open to any student and researcher of the university.

Talks

  • Human-Centered AI: Designing for Urban AI Interactions and Literacy

    Abstract: Applications of Artificial Intelligence are entering all areas of society, including urban environments. While research and development of AI technologies have taken major leaps, understanding the human perspective of AI is still in its early stages. In my talk I will focus on how AI’s design qualities, such as proactivity, capability to learn, and embodiment, can be used to advance citizens’ experiences and sustainable living. I will present two cases of design research for urban AI interactions: Intelligent agents for residential community interactions in Nordic Superblocks, and advancing AI transparency and literacy in public urban spaces. In my talk I will also suggest future directions for research and practice of human-centred urban AI.

    Short bio: Kaisa Väänänen is a full professor of Human-Technology Interaction in Tampere University, Finland. Kaisa has over 25 years of experience of interdisciplinary research both in industry and academia. Kaisa is passionate about understanding how user needs and experiences can be supported by novel technologies. Currently, she focuses on Human-Centered AI design research and how AI-powered solutions can advance sustainability. Kaisa was the general co-chair of ACM CHI’23 conference, and in 2025, she is co-organising Intelligent User Interfaces, IUI’25. In 2022, Kaisa was selected as an ACM Distinguished Member for her long-standing contribution to the field of computing. https://research.tuni.fi/kaisa-vaananen/

    Presenter: Prof. Kaisa Väänänen, Human-Technology Interaction, Tampere University, (Tampere, Finland)

    Date: 2024-10-03 11:30 (CEST)

    Location: Oficinas ELLIS Alicante, Muelle Pte., 5 – Edificio A, Alicante 03001, Alicante ES

    Online: Meeting link

  • Breaking Bad Bias: Gender Stereotypes in Generative Models

    Abstract: Generating images from textual descriptions requires the generative model to make implicit assumptions about the output scene that are not explicitly instructed in the input prompt. These assumptions can reinforce unfair stereotypes related to gender, race, or socioeconomic status. However, measuring and quantifying these social biases in generated images is a big challenge. In this talk, we will explore methods for measuring gender bias in text-to-image models, particularly Stable Diffusion, and discuss how the generated images, when used to train future computer vision models, affect bias in downstream tasks.

    Short bio: Noa Garcia is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Advanced Co-Creation Studies, Osaka University, Japan. Originally from Barcelona, she moved to Japan in 2018, first as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a specially-appointed assistant professor at the Institute for Datability Science. She completed her Ph.D in multimodal retrieval and instance-level recognition at Aston University, United Kingdom, after earning her degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona. Her current research interests lie at the intersection of computer vision, natural language processing, fairness, and art. She is an active member of the computer vision community, having co-organized several workshops and international events, and regularly publishes at top conferences such as CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, or NeurIPS.

    Presenter: Asst. Prof. Noa García, Computer Vision, Osaka University (Osaka, Japan)

    Date: 2024-09-27 11:30 (CEST)

    Location: Distrito Digital 5, Muelle Pte., 5 – Edificio D, Alicante 03001, Alicante ES

    Online: Meeting link

  • Using AI bias for good: poverty and inequality mitigation

    Abstract: The talk is framed in the AI for Good interdisciplinary area of work, which seeks to direct AI research towards the advancement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, I will be presenting lines of research in AI-enabled tools that aim to open new paths for poverty reduction by acting on social discrimination. While bias mitigation in AI has generated an important body of publications, we argue that online bias can be useful to identify and measure shared beliefs that influence social policy making. In this talk, I will outline research directions that aim to generate a global index on discrimination against the poor (through NLP and LLMs), and to optimize poverty-mitigation policies via AI simulations (Agent-Based Modeling).

    Short bio: Georgina Curto is an Assistant Research Professor at the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society, University of Notre Dame. She chairs the IJCAI Symposia in the Global South and co-chairs the AI & Social Good Special Track at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI'23). Focusing on issues of poverty mitigation, fairness and inclusion, she works on the design and use of AI socio-technical systems (including NLP, Agent-Based Modeling, Social Networks, Machine Learning and GenAI) to advance interdisciplinary research towards the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

    Presenter: Asst. Res. Prof. Giorgina Curto Rex, Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, University of Notre Dame, (Notre Dame, United States)

    Date: 2024-07-11 12:00 (CEST)

    Location: Distrito Digital 5, Muelle Pte., 5 – Edificio D, Alicante 03001, Alicante ES

    Online: Meeting link

  • The search for personality markers in text: Challenges for contemporary psychological science

    Abstract: The lecture will introduce the field of psychology of language and word use, both in terms of its goals, methods, and results. The primary focus will be on the method of computational psychological-linguistic text analysis, which has dominated the field for the last three decades. Attention will be paid to the elaboration of main psycho-linguistic projects, which examined relations between the use of linguistic categories in written/oral texts and personality characteristics of the author. Different levels of the text will be discussed, especially linguistic morphology, syntax and stylistics. We focus on comparison of the studies, summarize available results, provides their interpretations in a cross-linguistic and cross-situational perspective. We conclude the lecture by presenting key challenges for contemporary (not only) psychological science.

    Short bio: Dalibor Kučera is a teacher and researcher in the field of general, social and educational psychology. His long-term professional focus is research in the field of methods based on communication analysis and their application in psychology. The key topic he has been working on since 2012 is the field of psychology of language use. In 2016-2018, he was the principal investigator of a three-year CPACT research project, “Computational Psycholinguistic Analysis of Czech Text”, supported by Czech Science Foundation (16-19087S). In 2020, he was awarded a J. W. Fulbright-Masaryk Senior Fulbright Scholarship with the project “Personality Processes and Oral Communication” (2020-28-11) at the University of Arizona (Tucson). He holds a Ph.D. degree in general psychology and a doctorate in psychology at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University, and an associate professorship in psychology at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. Dalibor Kučera is the author of several professional publications, including the books “Personality Markers in Text”, devoted to the application of quantitative psychological-linguistic analysis of text in the description of personality and “Modern Psychology: The Main Fields and Topics of Contemporary Psychological Science”

    Presenter: Assoc. Prof. Dalibor Kučera, General, Social and Educational Psychology, University of South Bohemia, (České Budějovice, Czech Republic)

    Date: 2024-07-11 11:15 (CEST)

    Location: Distrito Digital 5, Muelle Pte., 5 – Edificio D, Alicante 03001, Alicante ES

    Online: Meeting link

  • Exploring NLP Advancements: Addressing Biases and Human Values in Large Language Models

    Abstract: This talk will introduce the Natural Language and Text Processing Lab (NLTP) at Utrecht University (https://nlp.sites.uu.nl/), highlighting its focus on applications of NLP and large language models. The lab conducts cutting-edge research, exploring various domains where NLP can be transformative. An overview of selected ongoing projects will be given, showing how advanced NLP techniques are used to solve real-world problems. The second part of the talk will focus on a recent study investigating the sensitivity of large language models to human values and biases. These models often reflect societal and cultural biases present in their training data. While previous research has shown that monolingual models can exhibit moral biases, there is a gap in understanding how these biases manifest in different cultural contexts. This study investigates the extent to which monolingual and multilingual models encode knowledge of moral norms from different countries. Explainable NLP tools are used to interpret the inferences made by these models, providing insights into how they incorporate and reflect moral variation across cultures.

    Short bio: Dr. Ayoub Bagheri is Associate Professor of NLP and Data Science at the Department of Methods and Statistics at Utrecht University. He leads the NLTP lab, which focuses on NLP and AI methods applied to textual data. His main interests include fundamental research in text mining and NLP, with particular emphasis on areas such as bias and personality detection, explainable AI, large language models, and practical applications of language models in computational social sciences and health research. Dr. Bagheri is a board member of the Utrecht Young Academy (UYA) and the Centre for Unusual Collaborations in the Netherlands. He is one of the general chairs of BNAIC/BeNeLearn 2024 and a regular committee member in various NLP conferences, including ACL, LREC-COLING, ECAI and EMNLP.

    Presenter: Assoc. Prof. Ayoub Bagheri, NLP and Data science, Utrecht University (Utrecht, Netherlands)

    Date: 2024-07-11 10:15 (CEST)

    Location: Distrito Digital 5, Muelle Pte., 5 – Edificio D, Alicante 03001, Alicante ES

    Online: Meeting link

  • AI-Driven Personalization to Support Human-AI Collaboration

    Abstract: At the Human-AI Interaction group at the University of British Columbia, we investigate how to support Human-AI collaboration via AI artifacts that can understand relevant properties of their users (e.g., states, skills, needs) and personalize the interaction accordingly in a manner that preserves transparency, user control and trust. In this talk, I will illustrate examples of our research in AI-drive personalization spanning areas such as User Adaptive Visualizations, intelligent Tutoring Systems, and Personalized Explainable AI.

    Short bio: Dr. Conati is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She received a M.Sc. in Computer Science at the University of Milan, as well as a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Intelligent Systems at the University of Pittsburgh. Cristina has been researching human-centered and AI-driven personalization for over 25 years, with contributions in the areas of Intelligent Tutoring Systems, User Modeling, Affective Computing, Information Visualization and Explainable AI.
    Cristina's research has received 10 Best Paper Awards from a variety of venues, as well as the Test of Time Time Award 2022 from the educational data mining society. She is a Fellow of AAAI (Association for the Advancement of AI) and of AAIA ( Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association ), an ACM Distinguished Member, and an associate editor for UMUAI (Journal od User Modeling and User Adapted Interaction), ACM Transactions on Intelligent Interactive Systems and the Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education. She served as President of AAAC, (Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing), as well as Program or Conference Chair for several international conferences, including UMAP, ACM IUI, and AI in Education.

    Presenter: Prof. Cristina Conati, Computer Science, University of British Columbia, (Vancouver, Canada)

    Date: 2024-07-11 09:30 (CEST)

    Location: Distrito Digital 5, Muelle Pte., 5 – Edificio D, Alicante 03001, Alicante ES

    Online: Meeting link

  • AI for social impact

    Abstract: How can data science and AI make a positive impact in our society and our planet? Scientific work across disciplines can have methodological, operational and policy impacts. I´ll share projects and lessons learned through my journey in academia, international organizations and as an entrepreneur where data science, complex systems and AI tools have been used in challenges from many different disciplines including basic biology research, personalized medicine, infodemics, human rights, or humanitarian response. I´ll also discuss in detail the work of Spotlab.ai developing and deploying AI for diagnostics and clinical research in applications from neglected tropical diseases to onco- hematological diseases.

    Short bio: Scientist, entrepreneur, policy advisor and engineering professor passionate about imagining, building and sharing responsible AI for humanity and the planet. Dr. Miguel Luengo-Oroz is the founder and CEO of Spotlab.ai, an AI platform for clinical research and universal diagnosis. Miguel is the former first Chief Data Scientist at the United Nations and has been the head of the data science teams across the network of UN Global Pulse labs. He has worked in many domains including global public health, infodemics, poverty, food security, refugees & migrants, conflict prevention, human rights, privacy, gender, hate speech, and climate. He is also a Professor at the doctoral school and board member at the Telecommunications School of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Miguel serves on multiple international advisory boards around responsible AI and advises leadership on the impact of macro trends and frontier technologies for their organizations and society. Miguel has been awarded as an Obama Foundation Leader, Ashoka fellow, MIT TR35, EU Responsible Research & Innovation award, FRSA-UK, Red Cross Innovation award and La Caixa fellow. He holds a Ph.D. and MSc.Eng from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and a MSc from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales de Paris.

    Presenter: Dr. Miguel Luengo, Chief Data Scientist, Spotlab, (Madrid, Spain)

    Date: 2024-01-31 14:00 (CET)

    Location: Distrito Digital 5, Muelle Pte., 5 – Edificio D, Alicante 03001, Alicante ES

  • Towards vision based Emotion AI

    Abstract: Emotions play a key role in human-human interactions and become one key focus in future Artificial Intelligence. There is a growing need to develop emotionally intelligent interfaces, which are able to read the emotions of the users and adapt their operations accordingly. Among the areas of application are human-robot interaction, emotional chatpots, health and medicine, on-line learning, user or customer analysis, and security and safety. This talk will provide an introduction to the emotional interfaces, and overviews our progress in related research. The research topics to be covered include facial (micro)-expression recognition, emotional gestures, remote heart rate measurement from videos and potential applications. Finally, some future challenges are outlined.

    Short bio: Guoying Zhao received the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, in 2005. She is currently an Academy Professor and full Professor (tenured in 2017) with University of Oulu. She is/was also a visiting professor with Aalto University and Stanford University. She is a member of Academia Europaea, a member of Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Fellow of IEEE, IAPR and ELLIS. She was panel chair for IEEE conference on Automatic Face and Gesture (FG 2023), publicity chair of 22nd Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis (SCIA 2023), co-program chair for ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2021), co-publicity chair for FG2018, and has served as associate editor for IEEE Trans. on Multimedia, Pattern Recognition, IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, Image and Vision Computing and Frontiers in Psychology Journals. Her current research interests include image and video descriptors, facial-expression and micro-expression recognition, emotional gesture analysis, affective computing, and biometrics. Her research has been reported by Finnish TV programs, newspapers and MIT Technology Review.

    Presenter: Prof. Guoying Zhao, Computer Science and Engineering, University of Oulu,(Oulu, Finland)

    Date: 2023-11-23 11:30 (CET)

    Location: Salón de Grados del Edificio de Óptica, Carretera San Vicente del Raspeig s/n, San Vicente del Raspeig 03690, Alicante ES

    Online: Meeting link

  • Towards Unbiased LLMs from the Roots: Exploring Biases in Language Corpora

    Abstract: In the rapidly advancing field of Natural Language Processing (NLP), driven by the widespread adoption of Large Language Models (LLMs), biases inherent in these models mirror the broader societal biases present in the textual data they are trained on. One of the typical examples is the gender bias. For instance, LLMs inadvertently perpetuate stereotypes by linking certain professions or characteristics more strongly with a particular gender. This talk will examine the entire pipeline associated with biases in textual data sets (language corpora). We will discuss the most prevalent types of biases, investigate the methods to measure them and suggest techniques for debiasing the data. The talk will present relevant related work and provide useful insights into practical strategies for identifying and mitigating biases in textual data.

    Short bio: Erik Derner received his Ph.D. in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence from the Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic, in 2022. Currently, he is an ELLIS postdoctoral researcher at ELLIS Alicante, working on human-centric AI research in the team of Dr. Nuria Oliver. The main objective of his research is to contribute to the development of fair and safe language models, specifically focusing on low-resource languages. His areas of interest comprise human-centric AI, large language models, robotics, computer vision, reinforcement learning, and genetic algorithms. He is a member of the ELLIS network.

    Presenter: Dr. Erik Derner

    Date: 2023-11-08 11:30 (CET)

    Location: Salon de Actos Politecnica IV, Carretera San Vicente del Raspeig s/n, San Vicente del Raspeig 03690, Alicante ES

  • Fast approximate matrix multiplication – theory and practice in AI hardware

    Abstract: Multiplying large, dense matrices is a key ingredient of deep networks, and state of the art architectures may spend more than 99% of time and energy consumption on matrix multiplication. Although fast matrix multiplication algorithms in time o(n^3) are known in the theoretical literature, they are impractical, and not used in the AI hardware and software ecosystem today. In this talk I will survey algorithms and heuristics for faster approximate matrix multiplication, and show the possible impact, as well as limitations, of such approaches on the future of deep learning. The results I will present will cover both academic research, as well as my more recent experience with cutting edge AI industry at deci.ai, where I have discovered a huge gap between the academic research and practical AI.

    Short bio: Nir Ailon is a Computer Science professor at Technion in Haifa Israel. He completed his PhD in 2006 at Princeton University, and then continued as a postdoc at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He has served as faculty at Technion since 2011, and also spent time at Google Research, Yahoo! Research, as well as at other industrial research labs. He is a recipient of an ERC Consolidator Grant. His research spans theory of algorithms, mathematical foundations of big data and machine learning. He is currently involved in research on AI acceleration at deci.ai

    Presenter: Assoc. Prof. Nir Ailon, Computer Science, Technion Israel Institute of Technology, (Haifa, Israel)

    Date: 2022-04-07 11:30 (CEST)

    Location: Salon de Actos Politecnica IV, Carretera San Vicente del Raspeig s/n, San Vicente del Raspeig 03690, Alicante ES

  • AI Ethics: a challenging task

    Abstract: -

    Presenter: Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Director of Research, Institute for Experiential AI of Northeastern University (San Jose, CA, United States)

    Date: 2021-11-08 11:30 (CET)

    Location: University of Alicante, Carretera San Vicente del Raspeig s/n, San Vicente del Raspeig 03690, Alicante ES