Event Chairs

Kadi Bouatouch IRISA, University of Rennes 1 France http://people.irisa.fr/Kadi.Bouatouch

Brief Bio
Professor Kadi Bouatouch is an electronics and automatic systems engineer (ENSEM 1974). He was awarded a PhD in 1977 (University of Nancy 1, France) and a higher doctorate on computer science in the field of computer graphics in 1989 (University of Rennes 1, France). He is/was working on global illumination, lighting simulation for complex environments, GPU based rendering, HDR imaging and computer vision. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the university of Rennes 1 (France) and researcher at IRISA Rennes (Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires). He was the head of the FRVSense team with in IRISA. He was/is member of the program committee of several conferences and workshops and reviewer for several Computer Graphics journals such as: The Visual Computer, ACM Trans. On Graphics, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, IEEE Trans. On Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Trans. On image processing, etc. He also acted as a reviewer for many conferences and workshops. He has reported for several PhD theses or higher doctorates in France and abroad (USA, UK, Belgium, Cyprus, The Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Algeria, etc.). He was an associate editor for the Visual Computer Journal. ... More >>

A. Augusto Sousa FEUP/INESC TEC Portugal

Brief Bio
Augusto Sousa (m) got his PhD in 1996 in FEUP (Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto, Portugal), in the area of Computer Graphics/Image Synthesis and Parallel Computing. He has been teaching in the same Faculty since 1983, in areas related to Computer Architectures and Computer Graphics.
He was member of the Executive Board of FEUP, being the Vice-President of the Academic Affairs Council, from 2014 to 2022. Between 2008 and 2014, he was the director of MIEIC - Master in Informatics Engineering and Computing (a 5 years master program). Since 1985, he has been a researcher in INESC/INESC Porto, where he was the Coordinator of the Information Systems and Computer Graphics Unit. He has been supervisor of several doctoral and masters' theses, in various areas of Computer Graphics, Virtual Reality and Geographical Information Systems.
A. Augusto de Sousa has been the main researcher of several R&D projects related to Advanced/Intuitive Interaction, Image Synthesis, Virtual Reality and Multisensory Virtual Environments.
As a member of the Executive Board of the Portuguese EUROGRAPHICS Chapter, he was, in two different periods of time, President, Vice-President and Treasurer, as well as a member of the Executive Committee of the EUROGRAPHICS Association itself. ... More >>

Mehdi Ammi University of Paris 8 France

Brief Bio
Mehdi Ammi is Professor at the University of Paris 8. He is engineer in electronics (2000), PhD in robotics (2005) and habilitaded to supervise research (HDR) in computer science since 2013. His research focuses on the study of pervasive environments and their societal and industrial applications (e-health, smart building, factory of the future, etc.). He addresses this field with a multidisciplinary approach combining, Human–Computer Interaction (plastic interaction, 3D interaction, AR/VR, etc.), Artificial Intelligence (machine learning, neurosciences, etc.), mechatronic technologies (organic electronics, smart textiles, etc.) and human factors (psychology, behavioral analysis, etc.). Mehdi Ammi was the leader or coleader of several international working groups (IEEE TCH, EuroVR Haptic SIG, etc.), and was involved in more than 30 national & international projects and industrial collaborations. ... More >>

Mounia Ziat Bentley University United States

Brief Bio
Relying on her multidisciplinary background, Dr. Ziat's approach to science is holistic; her goals are to better understand perception and human interaction with the natural and artificial environment. For the last eighteen years, she have been studying haptic and multimodal perception by combining engineering, cognitive psychology, human-computer interaction (HCI), and neuroscience to understand all aspects of human touch. From the moment fingers contact a surface to the time information reaches the brain, her research focusses on making sense of sensations that lead to a stable perception of the world. Dr. Ziat holds an Electronic Engineering degree and a Master and Ph.D. in Cognitive Science. Dr. Ziat is an Associate Professor at Bentley University. ... More >>

Area: Agents and Human Interaction Ahmed Farooq University of Tampere Finland

Brief Bio
Ahmed Farooq has over 20 years of experience working in Multimodal system Technologies, Human Computer Interaction, and Computational System Engineering. He has a master’s in computer science, PhD in Interactive Technologies and postdoc in Haptic Communication. His focus is developing novel methods for Human-Machine Interaction ranging from augmenting food items for XR/MR to multimodal interaction in semi-autonomous vehicles. For the last four years he has been developing interaction techniques for olfactory and haptic interfaces expanding on the concept of "Intelligent Haptic Mediation". These techniques include Constructive Wave Interference (CWI), Liquid and Solid Mediation, and Embedded Haptic Waveguides (EHWs) for mobile and hand-held devices. ... More >>

Area: Haptic and Multimodal Interaction Bob-Antoine Jerry Menelas Université du Québec à Chicoutimi Canada

Brief Bio
Dr. Bob-Antoine Jerry Menelas is Professor of Computer Science at University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, Canada. He holds a M. Sc. (2006) from University of Angers, France and a Ph.D. (2010) from University of Paris Sud XI, France in computer science. Before joining University of Quebec at Chicoutimi in 2011, from October 2010 to July 2011, Dr. Menelas was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Calgary, Canada. His research interests include Virtual Reality, Haptics, Serious Games and Mobile Interaction Design.

Area: Theories, Models and User Evaluation Victor-Adriel De-Jesus-oliveira St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences Austria https://sites.google.com/view/victoroliveira

Brief Bio
Victor Adriel De Jesus Oliveira is a lecturer and researcher at St. Poelten University of Applied Sciences. He holds an M.Sc. (2014) and a Ph.D. in Computer Science (2018) from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Additionally, he worked as a Fellow Ph.D. at the Robotics Brain and Cognitive Sciences Group at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia - Genova between 2015 and 2016. Victor primarily focuses on Human-Computer Interaction, specializing in Haptic Interaction, Virtual Reality, Mobile, UX Design, Web Accessibility, and Data Visualization.

Area: Interaction Techniques and Devices Zhanat Kappassov Nazarbayev University Kazakhstan http://tact.nu.edu.kz/

Brief Bio
Zhanat Kappassov (Senior Member, IEEE) received the Specialist degree in radioengineering from the Tomsk State of Control Systems and Radioelectronics, Russia, and the Ph.D. degree in robotics from the Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics (ISIR), Sorbonne Université (formerly Université Pierre et Marie Curie), Paris, France, in 2017. His Ph.D. thesis was nominated as the Best Ph.D. Thesis 2017 by the GDR Robotique Association in France. He has worked with the Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan and Bentley University, USA. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Robotics with Nazarbayev Un iversity, Kazakhstan. His current research interests include tactile sensing for robot physical interaction, dexterous manipulation, and haptic interfaces. ... More >>