IWSDS 2026

by Asli Celikyilmaz, Meta Fundamentals AI Research (FAIR)

Time: Friday, February 27, 9:45 – 10:45

Abstract: To be Announced

Bio: Asli Celikyilmaz is a Senior Staff Research Scientist/Manager at Meta Fundamentals AI Research (FAIR) and an Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on socially intelligent language agents: systems that remember, learn, and reason about beliefs, goals, and perspectives to collaborate with people and other AI. She works across reasoning, alignment, and evaluation to make these capabilities reliable in practice. She is serving on the editorial boards of Transactions of the ACL (TACL) as area editor and Open Journal of Signal Processing (OJSP) as Associate Editor. She has received several “best of” awards including NAFIPS 2007, Semantic Computing 2009, CVPR 2019, EMNLP 2023. 

by Gabriel Skantze, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Time: Saturday, February 28, 9:00 – 10:00

Abstract: To be Announced

Bio: Gabriel Skantze is a Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, where he leads several research projects related to speech communication, conversational AI, and human-robot interaction. His research is highly interdisciplinary, encompassing topics such as computational modelling of turn-taking, feedback and gaze in interaction, language learning, and language grounding. He is the former President of SIGDIAL, the ACL special interest group on Discourse and Dialogue. He is also co-founder and Chief Scientist of the company Furhat Robotics.

by Giulio Jacucci, University of Helsinki

Time: Sunday, March 1, 09:00 – 10:00

Abstract: To be Announced

Bio: Giulio Jacucci, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki. He was previously a Professor in the Department of Design at Aalto University (2009–2010). His research contributions span intent modeling and visualization for exploratory search, entity-based personal models derived from screen monitoring, end-user programming for ubiquitous computing, neuroadaptive and affective systems, and sensor-based behavior change. At the University of Helsinki, he currently serves as Vice Chair of the Faculty Council and Director of the Master’s Program in Data Science. His ongoing research focuses on affective interaction in extended reality. Prof. Jacucci is also a co-founder of several research spin-offs and co-inventor of two patents in the fields of information seeking and modular screen technology.