PhD Candidate at Cornell University
Email: mb2554@cornell.edu
Short bio: Maria Teresa Parreira is a PhD candidate at the Information Science Department at Cornell University, supervised by Professors Wendy Ju and Malte Jung. Her research focuses on building tools for socially competent agents through direct interaction with the environment, leveraging multimodality and human‑in‑the‑loop sensing. She was an organizer of the 2024 and 2025 ERR@HRI challenges.
Assistant Professor, DEIB, Politecnico di Milano - Visiting Affiliated Researcher, Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge
Email: micol.spitale@polimi.it
Short bio: Micol Spitale is an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering at the Politecnico di Milano. In recent years, her research has been focused on the field of Social Signal Processing, Human-Robot Interaction, and Affective Computing, exploring ways to develop robots that are socio-emotionally adaptive in different contexts with the goal of having a positive impact on the society. She was an organizer of the 2024 and 2025 ERR@HRI challenges.
Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research, USA
Email: maiastiber@microsoft.com
Short bio: Maia Stiber is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research. Her research focuses on leveraging multimodal behavioral signals to develop robots that are human-aware to assist human and support well-being. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University. She was an organizer of the 2024 and 2025 ERR@HRI challenges.
PhD Candidate at Johns Hopkins University, USA
Email: shiyecao@cs.jhu.edu
Short bio: Shiye Cao is a PhD candidate in the Intuitive Computing Lab at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on enhancing the social capabilities of robots to more closely emulate natural human-human interactions and empower stakeholders to co-design personalized and meaningful interactions. She was an organizer of the 2025 ERR@HRI challenge.
Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, USA
Email: amama.mahmood@jhu.edu
Short bio: Amama Mahmood is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on the design, development, evaluation, and integration of AI assistants that support health and well-being. She has been awarded Malone Postdoctoral Fellowship, JHU Computer Science Department Fellowship, and Creel Family Fellowship. She is a Fulbright Scholar. She was an organizer of the 2025 ERR@HRI challenge.
Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, USA
Email: chienming.huang@jhu.edu
Short bio: Chien-Ming Huang is the John C. Malone Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses on designing interactive AI aimed to assist and collaborate with people. His research has received media coverage from MIT Technology Review, Tech Insider, and Science Nation. Huang completed his postdoctoral training at Yale University and received his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award. He was an organizer of the 2024 ERR@HRI and 2025 ERR@HRI challenges.
Full Professor of Affective Intelligence & Robotics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Email: hatice.gunes@cl.cam.ac.uk
Short bio: Hatice Gunes is a Full Professor at the University of Cambridge's Department of Computer Science and Technology, where she directs the Cambridge Affective Intelligence and Robotics Lab (AFAR Lab) and leads award-winning research on multimodal, social, and affective intelligence for AI systems. Her work spans Machine Learning, Affective Computing, Social Signal Processing, and Robotics. She has received numerous awards, including best paper awards at prestigious conferences such as IEEE ACII and IEEE FG. She has also played key and leading roles on such events. Her research on creating robotic coaches for assessing/promoting mental wellbeing received extensive media coverage with >1,700 global reports in The Guardian, BBC News, Medical News Today, Science Daily, Telegraph, Sky News, ITV News, Bloomberg, New York Post etc. Most recently, she was named a Finalist for Sony Women in Tech. Award with Nature 2025. She was an organizer of the 2024 and 2025 ERR@HRI challenges.
Associate Professor of Information Science at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech
Email: wendyju@cornell.edu
Short bio: Wendy Ju is an Associate Professor of Information Science at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and inaugural faculty in Cornell’s new multi-college Design Tech department. Prof. Ju has innovated numerous methods for early-stage prototyping of automated systems to understand how people will respond to systems before the systems are built. In her research, Prof. Ju has worked closely with industrial partners such as Toyota, Spotify, Intel, Ford, Bosch, Renault, Fiat Chrysler, Panasonic, Volvo, Nissan and Mitsubishi. She has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford, and a Master’s in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT. Her monograph on The Design of Implicit Interactions was published in 2015. She was an organizer of the 2024 and 2025 ERR@HRI challenges.