Keynote Speakers

Monday, August 17

Prof. Guo Freeman

Dean’s Associate Professor in Human-Centered Computing
Clemson University

"Envisioning and Co-Creating the Future of Safe Immersive Online Spaces: Challenges, Solutions, and Directions"

Over the past decade, we have witnessed how online social spaces continue to move beyond traditional screen-based 2D or 3D platforms and evolve toward more immersive and embodied experiences. In these new spaces, including commercial social VR platforms such as VR Chat, one’s social interactions are no longer mediated by a screen but through a combination of VR head-mounted displays, partial- or full-body-tracked avatars that mirror real-time movements, synchronous voice conversations, and simulated touch and grab features. However, a growing concern is that these novel characteristics have also led to various safety issues, including intensified and more “embodied” forms of online harassment. In this talk, Professor Guo Freeman will reflect on her 15+ years of research on designing safe and supportive immersive online spaces, ranging from multiplayer online games and live streaming to, more recently, social VR spaces. She will particularly discuss the evolvement of embodied harassment in immersive social VR spaces, existing challenges and ongoing efforts to develop nuanced sociotechnical solutions with social VR users to address such harassment, and directions for the HCI community to envision and co-create the future of safe immersive online spaces before these harms become a pervasive aspect of our virtual society.

Dr. Guo Freeman is a Dean’s Associate Professor in Human-Centered Computing at Clemson University in the USA. At Clemson, she directs the Gaming and Mediated Experience Lab (CUGAME). Her work focuses on how interactive technologies such as multiplayer online games, live streaming, social VR, and generative AI shape interpersonal relationships and group behavior. She has authored over 130 peer-reviewed publications and won 16 Best Paper or Honorable Mention Awards (top 1%-5%). She has secured $30 million in external grant funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the US Army, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and was awarded Clemson University College of Engineering, Computing, and Applied Sciences (CECAS) Junior Researcher of the Year in 2023. She has served numerous leadership roles in the international HCI research community, including: ACM CSCW 2026 General Chair; ACM CHI 2025 and 2026 Games and Play Subcommittee Chair; CHI Peer Review Working Group member; ACM GROUP 2025 General Chair; ACM CHI PLAY 2024 General Chair; ACM CHI PLAY and ACM GROUP Steering Committee member; ACM CHI PLAY 2022 and 2023 Papers Chair; and ACM IMX 2021 Technical Program/Papers Chair.

Tuesday, August 18

Prof. Aditya Johri

Professor of Information Sciences & Technology
George Mason University

"Designing the Future of Learning: Cognition as Responsible HCI in the AI Era and Beyond"

Human beings are unique among species in having developed formal systems for educating one another. Schooling is the primary mechanism through which societies cultivate cognition, preserve culture, and accumulate collective intelligence. At its core, learning has long depended on a stable triad consisting of a learner, a more knowledgeable other (teacher or mentor), and a source of knowledge. Viewed through this lens, the history of educational technology is the history of redistributing cognitive work and performance across these three vertices. Writing, print, libraries, computers, and the Internet each transformed learning by shifting cognitive work while leaving the overall architecture of the triad intact. Generative AI represents a fundamental departure. For the first time, a single computational artifact simultaneously reshapes all three vertices by serving as a source of knowledge, assuming instructional roles, and actively participating in learners' reasoning, writing, creativity, and decision making. This raises a fundamental question: if intelligent artifacts increasingly perform human cognitive work, what cognitive work must remain with people, and why should they continue to learn? I argue that this question places cognition at the center of responsible HCI for the future, especially within academia. While responsible computing has emphasized fairness, privacy, transparency, accountability, and safety, these concerns remain incomplete without understanding how AI redistributes cognitive work and reshapes human cognition and the meaning humans must make within the human-artifact ecosystem that inhabit. The central challenge for HCI is therefore not simply designing interactions with intelligent systems but designing cognitive ecosystems that preserve the human capacities essential for learning, agency, innovation, and democratic society.

Aditya Johri is Professor of Information Sciences & Technology and Dr. Lawrence Cranberg Endowed Research Fellow in the College of Engineering & Computing at George Mason University, USA. He studies how technology shapes learning across formal and informal settings and the ethical implications of using technology. He publishes broadly in the fields of engineering and computing education, and educational technology. His research has been recognized with several best paper awards and his edited volumes Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research (CHEER) and International Handbook of Engineering Education Research (IHEER) received the Best Book Awards from Division I of AERA in 2015 and 2024, respectively. He served as a Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair in ICT at Aalto University, Finland (2021) and he is a past recipient of the NSF Early Career Award (2009), the University Teaching Excellence Award (2002) and the Mentoring Excellence Award (2022) for undergraduate research at George Mason University. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Learning Sciences & Technology Design (2007) from Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. More information is available at: http://mason.gmu.edu/~johri