Honorary Chair

Jeff Cohn, University of Pittsburgh and Deliberate.AI

Jeff Cohn is a professor emeritus of Psychology and Intelligent Systems at the University of Pittsburgh, courtesy faculty at Carnegie Mellon University, and chiefscientist and co-founder of Deliberate.AI.  He has led interdisciplinary and inter-institutional efforts to develop computational approaches to analysis and synthesis of facial expression and prosody; co-developed and shared the widely used Cohn-Kanade, CK+, BP4D, Multi-PIE, UNBC Pain Archive, and other widely used databases; and has led computational research in adult and infant emotion, nonverbal communication, and biomedicine (Google h-index = 115). He chaired the FG Steering Committee from 2011-2021; served as General Chair of FG2020, FG2017, FG2015, and FG2008, and ACII 2009 and ACM2014; and is a Fellow of the Association for Advancement of Affective Computing.  His research has been supported by grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Autism Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency among other sponsors.

General Chairs

Itir Onal Ertugrul, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Itir Onal Ertugrul is an Assistant Professor in the Social and Affective Computing Group in the Department of Information and Computing Sciences at Utrecht University. Her research interests lie in computer vision, machine learning, and affective computing, with a particular focus on the automated analysis and synthesis of facial actions to understand human behavior, emotion, pain, and psychopathology. Before joining Utrecht University, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence at Tilburg University. She previously held postdoctoral research positions at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and the Affect Analysis Group at the University of Pittsburgh. She was also a visiting Ph.D. student at the Pattern Recognition and Bioinformatics Group at TU Delft. She received her B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University. She has been involved in several projects funded by NIH, NSF, and NWO. She is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. She has served as a Doctoral Consortium Chair at ACII 2024, Awards Chair at FG 2025 and FG 2026, and Special Sessions/Panel Chair at FG 2024.

Adam Czajka, University of Notre Dame, IN, USA

Adam Czajka (Senior Member, IEEE) is an Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA, where he co-directs the Computer Vision Research Lab, and directs the AI Trust and Reliability (AITAR) Lab. His research focuses on human biometrics, especially iris recognition and methods of detecting biometric presentation attacks. In general, Dr. Czajka is interested in a wide spectrum of research in computer vision, pattern recognition, and machine learning, and the non-obvious intersections with psychology, medical sciences, and art. His research has been funded by the US National Science Foundation (including NSF CAREER award), US Department of Defense, US National Institute of Justice, FBI Biometric Center of Excellence, NIST, IARPA, US Army, European Commission, Polish Ministry of Higher Education, and various companies. Dr. Czajka serves as the Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, the Vice Chair for Education of the IAPR Technical Committee on Biometrics (TC4), is past Senior Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, and past Associate Editor of the IEEE Access and the IEEE Biometrics Compendium.

Vitomir Štruc, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Dr. Vitomir Štruc is a Full Professor at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His research interests include problems related to biometrics, computer vision, image processing, and machine learning. Vitomir is a Deputy Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, a Subject Editor for Elsevier’s Signal Processing and an Associate Editor for Pattern Recognition. He received the Outstanding Editorial Member award for his work in IEEE TIFS in 2021, 2023 and 2024. He currently served as a Program Chair for IJCB 2020, WIFS 2024, FG 2025, IJCB 2025 and WACV 2025 and as the General Chair for IJCB 2023 and WACV 2026. Dr. Struc is a Senior member of the IEEE, a member of IAPR, EURASIP, Slovenia’s ambassador for the European Association for Biometrics (EAB) and the former president and current executive committee member of the Slovenian Pattern Recognition Society, the Slovenian member of IAPR. Vitomir is also the current VP Technical Activities for the IEEE Biometrics Council, the secretary of the IAPR Technical Committee on Biometrics (TC4) and a member of the Supervisory Board of the EAB.

Program Chairs 

Ronald Poppe, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Ronald Poppe is an associate professor in the Information and Computing Sciences Department of Utrecht University. His research interests center around the analysis of human (interactive) behavior from videos and other sensors, with applications in media analysis and generation, and in the clinical domain. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Twente, The Netherlands (2009) and was a visiting researcher at the Delft University of Technology, Stanford University, and University of Lancaster. He is a senior member of the IEEE.

Marta Gomez-Barrero, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany

Marta Gomez-Barrero is Full Professor for machine learning at the Universität der Bundeswehr München and head of the BioML: Biometrics and Machine Learning research group. She is general chair of the BIOSIG conference, Deputy Chair of the European Association for Biometrics (EAB), Vice-Chair for Conferences of the IARP TC4 Conference Committee, Member of the IEEE Biometrics Council Security and Privacy Technical Committee, and the IEEE Information and Forensics Technical Committee, and represents the German DIN in ISO/IEC SC37 JTC1 SC37 on biometrics. She has co-authored more than 100 technical publications, and her current research focuses on security and privacy evaluations of biometric systems.

Lijun Yin,  Binghamton University – State University of New York, USA

Dr. Lijun Yin is a SUNY Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Director of research center for Imaging, Acoustics, and Perception Science (CIAPS), Director of Graphics and Image Computing Laboratory, and co-director of the Seymour Kunis Media Core of T. J Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science of Binghamton University, State University of New York.  His research contributes on development of computational methods in computer vision, graphics, human computer interaction for human behavior modeling, analysis, and understanding, with over 170 publications and 10 patents.  His 2D/3D/4D facial expression databases and multimodal data have been widely used in both academia and industry.  Dr. Yin received the Lois B. DeFleur Faculty Prize for Academic Achievement Award, James Watson Investigator Award of NYSTAR, and SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship & Creative Activities. He has served as a General Co-Chair of FG2025, and Program Co-Chair of FG2013 and FG2018, and on editorial board of journals of Image and Vision Computing and PRL.  He is a Fellow of IEEE.

Demo and Exhibit Chairs

Saurabh Hinduja

Saurabh Hinduja is an independent researcher working at the intersection of affective computing, computer vision, and artificial intelligence. His research focuses on the automated understanding of human emotion and behavior using multimodal data, including facial expressions, physiological signals, and language. He is particularly interested in contextual and self-reported emotion modeling, facial action coding, and the application of AI to real-world challenges in mental health, human-centered computing, and disaster resilience. Previously, Dr. Hinduja was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Affect Analysis Group at the University of Pittsburgh, where he worked on NIH- and NSF-funded projects focused on longitudinal analysis of affective behavior and psychological well-being. His work has included collaborations with institutions such as the Oregon Research Institute and Baylor College of Medicine. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers and contributed to the development of machine learning models used in healthcare, affective computing, and environmental risk modeling. Dr. Hinduja received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of South Florida, where his research emphasized multimodal approaches to emotion recognition and behavior prediction. He also holds an MBA from the Symbiosis Center for Management and Human Resource Development and a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology. He is a member of the IEEE and has served as a reviewer and committee member for conferences including ACII, ICMI, and FG. He served as the Demo Chair for FG 2025.

Special Session Chairs

Hamdi Dibeklioglu, Bilkent University, Turkey

Hamdi Dibeklioglu received the PhD degree from the University of Amsterdam, in 2014. He is an Assistant Professor with the Computer Engineering Department, Bilkent University. Before joining Bilkent University, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Delft University of Technology, a Visiting Researcher with Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on affective computing, computer vision, and machine learning. He is a member of Program and Organizing Committees for several top tier conferences in these areas, e.g. Local Arrangement co-Chair for the European Conference on Computer Vision 2016, Publication co-Chair for the European Conference on Computer Vision 2018 and 2020, co-Organizer for the eNTERFACE Workshop on Multimodal Interfaces 2019, Area Chair for the International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition 2020, 2023, 2024, 2025, Senior Program Committee member for the International Conference on Multimodal Interaction 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025, and Program co-Chair for the International Conference on Multimodal Interaction 2024. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. Earlier, he served as a Guest Editor for Springer Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces (2020).

Publication Chairs

Rachael E. Jack, University of Glasgow, UK

Professor Rachael E. Jack is an expert in computational social cognition. Her interdisciplinary research blends psychophysics, social psychology, 3D computer graphics, and communication theory to study how people from different cultures communicate emotions through facial expressions. Challenging the long-held belief in six universal facial expressions, Jack’s research reveals that only four are common across cultures and that facial expressions convey meaning through a dynamic, hierarchical process over time. These findings underpin a new theoretical framework for facial expression communication, now being used to develop culturally adaptive avatars and social robots. Jack currently leads the European Research Council-funded project Computing the Face Syntax of Social Communication, which formalizes models of facial signaling for use in social robotics. Her work is widely published in top journals including Current Biology, Psychological Science, and PNAS. Professor Jack has received several prestigious awards, such as the APA New Investigator Award, the BPS Spearman Medal, and the SANS Innovation Award. She serves as Action Editor for journals including Journal of Experimental Psychology: General and Affective Science. She is Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Psychological Science Open, serves as President of the Society for Affective Science, is an European Research Council Advanced Grant panel member, and has several roles in the organization of the IEEE FG conference, including Area Chair, Program Committee Chair, and Publications Chair.

Carlos Busso, Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

Carlos Busso is an IEEE Fellow and an ISCA Fellow. He is a professor at the Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, and the director of the Multimodal Speech Processing (MSP) Laboratory. His research interest is in human-centered multimodal machine intelligence and application, focusing on the broad areas of speech processing, affective computing, and machine learning methods for multimodal processing. He received the 2023 ACM ICMI Community Service Award. He is currently a Senior Area Editor for IEEE/ACM Speech and Language Processing.  He is also serving as a member of the IEEE Speech and Language Processing Technical Committee (2024-2027) and president of the Steering Committee of ICMI (Jan. 2025-present). He serves in prominent roles in organizing committees, including program chair for Interspeech 2026. In the part, he has served as general chair of AAAC ACII 2017 and ACM ICMI 2021, program chair of IEEE ASRU 2021, IEEE VCIP 2017, and ACM ICMI 2016, Blue Sky paper chair of ACM ICMI 2023, publication chair of ACM ICMI 2022 and AAAC ACII 2019, workshop chair of FG 2020, ACM ICMI 2019, IEEE FG 2017, AAAC ACII 2015, and ACM ICMI 2014, doctoral consortium chair for ACM ICMI 2015, IEEE FG 2015, ACM ICMI 2013, and ACM ICMI 2012, and publicity chair of Interspeech 2016, and IEEE ICME 2014. He is a member of AAAC and a senior member of ACM.

Competition Chairs

Umur Aybars Ciftci,  Binghamton University – State University of New York, USA

Umur Aybars Ciftci is a Research Assistant Professor at the Binghamton University, State University of New York. His research focuses on deepfake detection, human AI collaboration on generative AI, multimodal biological and physiological signals, and adversarial protection within security and privacy domain. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Binghamton University. His publications, inventions, and service work received numerous honors such as Teaching Assistant Excellence Award, EnTech Emerging Tech Finalist, Fast Company’s Brands That Matter recognition, multiple Cannes Lions awards, and PR Week Purpose Award honorable mention. His work has been recognized in CNN, BBC, The Independent, The Economist, and other global news outlets. He has served on several committees of reputable academic venues, such as CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, SIGGRAPH, WACV, FG, and more. He stimulates curiosity within his collaborative and educational environments while fostering a diverse and inclusive community.

Workshop/Tutorial Chairs

Shaun Canavan, University of South Florida, USA

Shaun Canavan is an Associate Professor and director of collaborative programs in the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and Computing at the University of South Florida. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Binghamton University. His research focuses broadly on Biometrics, Affective Computing and Human-Computer Interaction. He has over 60 publications in top conferences and journals such as CVPR, ICPR, ICMI, ACII, BTAS, IJCB, EMBC, FG, Pattern Recognition Letters, IEEE JBHI, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, and IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction. He is currently a general chair of Face and Gesture Recognition, 2025 and program chair for Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction, 2025. He was the demo chair for Face and Gesture 2019, and for Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction, 2021, program chair of Face and Gesture Recognition, 2024 and publications chair of Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction, 2023 He has organized multiple workshops on topics related to applied affect recognition, medical applications of affective computing, and ubiquitous emotion recognition. His work is and has been supported by the DOD, NSF, and Amazon. He is a senior member of the IEEE.

Monica Perusquia Hernandez, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

Monica Perusqua-Hernandez is an assistant professor of HCI and Affective Science at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan. She specializes in Affective Computing and User Experience Quantification to improve Human-Computer Interaction. Her work relies on Computer Vision, EMG, EEG, ECG, and EDA for congruence estimation between facial expressions and emotions. She is a member of the IEEE, ACM, AAAC, ISRE, SAS, JSRE, and IFESS academic associations and an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. She has served as FG General Chair 2026, FG Publication Chair 2024, ACII virtual and social media chair 2021, SUI Program chair 2025, CHIWORK Publication Chair 2025, and AIxVR Workshop Chair 2026. She also has extensive experience organizing workshops and symposia, stand-alone or at venues like ACM CHI and ACII.

Publicity Chairs

Marwa Mahmoud, University of Glasgow, UK

Marwa Mahmoud is an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Socially Intelligent Technologies at the School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow. Prior to joining the University of Glasgow, she spent 10 years at the University of Cambridge, where she obtained her PhD in 2015, held a postdoctoral researcher position from 2015–2016, and was awarded the King’s College Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) from 2016–2021. Dr Mahmoud’s research is at the intersection of computer vision, social signal processing, and multimodal perception, with a particular focus on affective computing, behaviour analytics, and human and animal behaviour understanding. As the Director of the Behavioural AI Lab at University of Glasgow, she leads efforts to develop cutting-edge technologies aimed at ‘AI for Social Good,’ integrating computer vision and multimodal machine learning to enhance human well-being and animal welfare. She is the President of the Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing (AAAC), and has served on multiple conference organisation committees in the field, most notably as a General Chair for ACII 2024,  Area Chair for ICMI 2022-2025 and Competition chair for FG2024.

Finance Chairs

Raghavendra Ramachandra, NTNU, Norway

Raghavendra Ramachandra (Senior Member, IEEE) is currently a full professor at the Institute of Information Security and Communication Technology (IIK), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Gjøvik, Norway. He is also working as R&D chief at MOBAI AS. He was a researcher with the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genoa, Italy, where he worked on video surveillance and social signal processing. His main research interests include deep learning, machine learning, data fusion schemes, and image/video processing, with applications to biometrics, multi-modal biometric fusion, human behaviour analysis, and crowd behaviour analysis. He has authored several papers and is a reviewer for several international conferences and journals. He also holds several patents for the biometric presentation attack detection and morphing attack detection, respectively. He has also been involved in various conference organising and program committees, and serving as an associate editor for various journals. He has participated (as a PI, co-PI or contributor) in several EU projects, IARPA USA, and other national projects. He is serving as an editor of the ISO/IEC 24722 standards on multi-modal biometrics and an active contributor to the ISO/IEC SC 37 standards for biometrics. He has received several best paper awards. He is also a senior member of the IEEE and VP of Finance at the IEEE Biometric Council.

Alex Stergiou, University of Twente, the Netherlands

Alex Stergiou is an Assistant Professor at the DMB group at University of Twente’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS). He obtained his PhD from Utrecht University in 2021. He was a Research Associate at the Machine Vision group at the University of Bristol from 2021 to 2022, and a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel from 2022 to 2023. His research focuses on video understanding and exploring video models beyond task-relevant metrics to gain insights as to what these models learn. His leading research lines aim to understand actions in videos and interpret features of video models. He is an ELLIS and Computer Vision Foundation member. He serves as a reviewer for year-round computer vision conferences including CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, BMVC, and WACV for which he was outstanding reviewer for ECCV 2022.

Local Chairs

Chirag Raman, TU Delft, the Netherlands

Chirag Raman an Assistant Professor at TU Delft, where he leads the Tapri Lab within the Department of Intelligent Systems. His work explores the foundations of intelligence by developing multimodal generative models that enable AI systems to perceive, reason, and act in dynamic environments. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Socially Perceptive Computing and Pattern Recognition Labs at TUDelft, during which he also spent time at Microsoft Research Cambridge within the Mixed Reality & AI Lab.  Prior to commencing his Ph.D., he worked as a Senior Research Engineer in the Multimodal Machine Learning lab at Carnegie Mellon University. Before then, he worked as a lead iOS dev and UX designer at ProductionPro, building a collaborative platform for TV, Film, and Theater, and as a research associate at Disney Research working on object recognition and detecting giraffe feeding behavior. He received a Masters in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon in 2013, and a Bachelors in Information Technology from the University of Mumbai in 2010.

Metehan Doyran, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Metehan Doyran is an assistant professor in the Information and Computing Sciences Department of Utrecht University. His research interests are the analysis of human-human interaction from videos. He specializes in the analysis of parent-child interactions. He received a Ph.D. from Utrecht University, The Netherlands in 2025.

Awards Chairs

Babak Taati, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, UHN and the University of Toronto, Canada

Babak Taati, PhD, PEng, is the Barbara G. Stymiest Chair in Rehabilitation Technology Research at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, UHN and the University of Toronto, and a Senior Scientist at the KITE Research Institute, UHN, where he leads the KITE Aging Team. He holds an Associate Professor appointment in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto and is a Faculty Affiliate at the Vector Institute. His research integrates computer vision and machine learning to address challenges in aging and rehabilitation. He has authored over 110 peer-reviewed papers. He serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics and has been a guest editor for special issues in BioMedical Engineering OnLine.

Abhinav Dhall, Monash University, Australia

Abhinav Dhall is an Associate Professor in the Department of Data Science & Artificial Intelligence at Monash University, Australia. He has earlier led data science at Indian Institute of Technology Ropar. He received a PhD in Computer Science from the Australian National University. His research in affective computing and deepfakes analysis domain has garnered significant recognition, including the Best Student Paper Award at ACM Multimedia 2024, a Best Student Paper Nomination at IEEE FG 2024, the Ten-Year Technical Impact Runner-Up Award at ACM ICMI 2023 and Best Doctoral Consortium Paper at ACM ICMR 2013 and a Best Paper Nomination at IEEE FG 2013. He has served as Workshop Co-Chair for ACM ICMI 2025, Finance Chair for ACII 2025, Workshop Co-Chair for IEEE FG 2024, Demo Co-Chair for ACM Multimedia 2024 and Program Co-Chair for ACM ICMI 2022.

Sponsorship Chairs

László A. Jeni, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

László A. Jeni is an Assistant Research Professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where he leads the CUBE Lab. His research lies at the intersection of computer vision and behavioral science, focusing on modeling, understanding, and synthesizing human motion and behavior through advanced sensor technologies. He earned his master’s degree in Computer Science from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary and his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 2012. Dr. Jeni has been recognized with several Best Paper awards, including honors at the IEEE Conference on Human System Interaction (HSI’2011) and the IEEE Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG’2015). Additionally, he has received Outstanding Reviewer awards at conferences such as NeurIPS 2019, CVPR 2017, and IEEE FG 2015. With a portfolio of over 80 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications, his research contributions span a wide range of applications. His work has been supported by leading funding agencies, including the NIH, NSF, DoD, and DARPA, as well as industry giants like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Fujitsu.

Deniz Iren, Open Universiteit, the Netherlands

Deniz Iren is an Associate Professor at the Open Universiteit in the Netherlands, with 20 years of experience at the intersection of science and entrepreneurship. His research focuses on developing computational systems capable of perceiving and responding to human emotions, bridging affective computing, AI, and education. His interdisciplinary work has been recognized with honors such as the Robert Johnston Highly Commended Award and the Literati Award. In the field of AI in education, he was awarded a Comenius Teaching Fellowship (2023) and the Education Product of the Year Award (2024). Deniz also serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing.

Doctoral Consortium Chairs

Cigdem Beyan, University of Verona, Italy

Cigdem Beyan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Verona, Italy, where she co-leads the VIPS (Vision, Image Processing & Sound) research line. Her research interests include computer vision, machine learning, social signal processing, affective computing, and human/animal behaviour analysis. She has served as an Area Chair for several major conferences, including ECCV 2024, ICRA 2024–2025, BMVC 2021–2025, ACII 2024, and ICMI 2022-2025. Her organizational contributions span a range of roles: she is the Doctoral Consortium Co-Chair for ECCV 2024 and ECCV 2026, Social Media Co-Chair for RO-MAN 2024, Publicity Co-Chair for IEEE ARSO 2024, Proceedings Co-Chair for AVI 2024, and Demos and Exhibition Chair for FG 2024. She has also co-organized workshops at conferences such as BMVC, ICPR, and IROS, and has led special issues in various journals. Cigdem currently serves as an Associate Editor for ICES Marine Science, handling submissions in machine learning and computer vision. She is actively involved in the program and technical committees of international conferences, including ACM MM and ACM ICMI, and has served as a reviewer for leading conferences such as CVPR, ICCV, ACM MM, ICML, and ICLR. She was recognized as an Outstanding Reviewer at CVPR in both 2022 and 2025. Cigdem is a member of IEEE, ACM, and ELLIS.

Mohammad Soleymani, University of Southern California, USA

Mohammad Soleymani is a Research Associate Professor of Computer Science at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). His research focuses on multimodal machine learning for nonverbal behavior recognition and generation. He received his PhD in computer science from the University of Geneva in 2011. From 2012 to 2014, he was a Marie Curie fellow at Imperial College London. Prior to joining USC, he was a research scientist at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences. He is a recipient of the Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione young investigator grant and the EU Marie Curie fellowship. He has served/serves on multiple conference organization committees and editorial roles, most notably as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing (2015-2021), general chair for ICMI 2024 and ACII 2021 and technical program chair for IEEE FG 2026, ACM ICMI 2018 and ACII 2017. He was the president of the Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing (AAAC) (2019-2021).

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Chairs

Oya Celiktutan, King’s College London, United Kingdom 

Dr Oya Celiktutan is a Reader at the Centre for Robotics Research in the Department of Engineering and leads the Social AI & Robotics Laboratory.She received a BSc degree in Electronics Engineering from Uludag University, and an MSc and PhD degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bogazici University, Turkey. During her doctoral studies, she was a visiting researcher at the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Lyon, France. After completing her PhD, she moved to the United Kingdom and worked on several projects as a postdoctoral researcher at Queen Mary University London, the University of Cambridge, and Imperial College London, respectively. Dr Celiktutan’s research focuses on multimodal machine learning to develop autonomous agents, such as robots and virtual agents, capable of seamlessly interacting with humans. Her work has been supported by EPSRC, The Royal Society, and the EU Horizon, as well as through industrial collaborations. She received the EPSRC New Investigator Award in 2020. Her team’s research has been recognised with several awards, including the Best Paper Award at IEEE Ro-Man 2022, NVIDIA CCS Best Student Paper Award Runner Up at IEEE FG 2021, First Place Award and Honourable Mention Award at ICCV UDIVA Challenge 2021. Finally, Dr Celiktutan has a strong track record of professional activities. Recent activities include: Program Chair (ACM ICMI 2025), General Chair (ACII 2024), Publication Chair (ACM ICMI 2024), Doctoral Consortium Chair (IEEE FG 2024), and Workshop Chair (ICSR 2024); Associate Editor (e.g., ACM THRI, and Intelligent Service Robotics); and Area Chair for technical programs (e.g., ACM ICMI 2022-2023, ACM MM 2019-2024, BMVC 2021-2024, RSJ/IEEE IROS 2024-2025).