Speakers

LECTURERS

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  Angelo Cangelosi

  Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester (UK)

  Angelo Cangelosi is Professor of Machine Learning and Robotics at the University of Manchester (UK) and co-director and founder of the Manchester Cent...re for Robotics and AI. He was awarded a European Research Council (ERC Advanced) project in 2023. Cangelosi also is Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute London, and Visiting Professor at Universita' Cattolica Milano and Hohai University. His research interests are in cognitive and developmental robotics, neural networks, language grounding, human robot-interaction and trust, and robot companions for health and social care. Overall, he has secured over £38m of research grants as coordinator/PI, with currently many UKRI/Horizon/US grants active (e.g. ERC Advanced, UKRI TAS Trust Node and CRADLE Prosperity, Horizon RIA PRIMI, MUSAE and TRAINCREASE, the Horizon MSCA TRAIL, PERSEO, eLADDA, and the US AFRL THRIVE++). Cangelosi has produced more than 300 scientific publications. He also has projects funding collaboration with industries such as Honda, BAE Systems and Jacobs. Cangelosi is Editor-in-Chief of the journals Interaction Studies and IET Cognitive Computation and Systems, and in 2015 was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Development. He has chaired numerous international conferences, including ICANN2022 Bristol, and ICDL2021 Beijing. His book “Developmental Robotics: From Babies to Robots” (MIT Press) was published in January 2015, and translated in Chinese and Japanese. His latest book “Cognitive Robotics” (MIT Press), coedited with Minoru Asada, was recently published in 2022.

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  Josie Hughes

  Institute of Mechanical Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland

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  Karinne Ramirez-Amaro

  Department of Electrical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

  Dr. Karinne Ramirez-Amaro is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Chalmers University of Technology since 2022. I...n 2019, she became an Assistant Professor at Chalmers in the research group of Mechatronics. Previously, she was a post-doctoral researcher at the Chair for Cognitive Systems at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). She completed her PhD (summa cum laude) at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the TUM, Germany in 2015. She received the Laura Bassi award granted by TUM and the Bavarian government in 2015, also in that year she received the prize of excellent Doctoral degree for female engineering students, granted by the state of Bavaria, Germany. In 2011, she received the Google Anita Borg scholarship. In 2009, she was granted a scholarship for a PhD research by DAAD – CONACYT grant. In 2022, Karinne was elected as a member of the Administrative Committee (AdCom) from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and she is the chair of the IEEE RAS Women in Engineering (WiE). Her research interests include Semantic Representations, Interpretable methods, and Human Activity Recognition and Understanding.

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  Miguel Torres Torriti

  Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile

  Miguel Torres-Torriti is Associate Professor at Department of Electrical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, teaching control syste...ms, sensors, actuators and robotics. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 1996 and 1998, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in systems and control from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, in 2003. Between 1998-2003 his research at McGill’s Center for Intelligent Machines focused on the stabilization of strongly nonlinear underactuated systems. During 2000-2001 he was also a research assistant for Lockheed Martin Canada in SAR imagery classification. From 2004 to 2005, he was Senior Applications Engineer with General Electric Chile in the implementation of the multivariable process controllers for the ENAP Bío Bío and Magallanes refineries. In 2005 he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering of the School of Engineering of PUC Chile, where he is currently Associate Professor. Dr. Torres-Torriti has been the Director of the undergraduate program in Robotics Engineering (2013-2022), Associate Dean of Social Responsibility (2014-2016), Associate Dean of Technology (2016-2022), and is currently the Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Engineering of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His fields of experience comprise systems modeling and control, estimation, machine learning, robot dynamics, mechatronic design, sensors and perception. His current research projects include the development of sensing, motion planning and control strategies for mobile manipulators

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  Javier Ruíz Del Solar San Martín

  Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Universidad de Chile, Chile

  Dr. Javier Ruiz del Solar is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Universidad de Chile and Executive Director of the Advanced Mining Technology ...Center. He is interested on robots, autonomous systems and learning. His research focuses on two areas, fundamental research in perception and learning, and applications of robotics technology in the real-world, mainly in mining. In the last years his has focused on the application of deep reinforcement learning to mobile robot applications.

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  Javier Preciozzi

  Universidad de la República & DigitalSense, Uruguay

  Javier Preciozzi is co-founder of Digital Sense Technologies, a company specialized on image processing and computer vision. In 2016 he obtained his P...hD degree at Facultad de Ingeniería of Universidad de la República (Uruguay), with specialization on satellite image processing. In this context, he worked on projects for the CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales, France) and CESBIO (Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la BIOsphere, France). His main research interests are satellite image processing and biometrics.

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  J. Matias Di Martino

  Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Uruguay and Duke University, USA

  Full Professor of Informatics and Computer Science at UCU (Uruguay) and an Adjunct Research Professor at Duke University (USA). He has extensive exper...ience researching, educating, and providing professional consulting. Matias loves working on AI projects that intersect industry and academia; in particular, his interests include image processing, machine learning, time series analysis, remote sensing, and computer vision. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the university level, led large-scale research projects, and published over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers in top journals and conferences.

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  Yinoussa Adagolodjo

  Defrost team, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique (INRIA)

  As an Assistant Professor at the University of Lille and a full member of the DEFROST team since 2019, He has actively contributed to advancing resear...ch in robotics and augmented reality applications in healthcare. Throughout his academic career, he has been deeply involved in pioneering projects that reflect a commitment to cutting-edge exploration and impactful innovation. Among these, the CONECT project—his doctoral thesis—stands out as a cornerstone of his work. In this project, he focused on integrating robotic technology within the operating room to enhance precision in needle insertion procedures. His contributions included developing methodologies that leverage finite element simulations to assist surgeons during complex operations and using augmented reality to provide intuitive, real-time guidance. In addition to CONECT, he has collaborated on several interdisciplinary projects to bridge the gap between technology and healthcare. He continually seeks ways to improve surgical outcomes and optimize medical workflows through advanced simulation and robotic solutions. Notably, the ROBOCOP project focuses on the fascinating field of cochlear implant robotization, exploring new avenues to improve hearing technologies. In parallel, his involvement in the COSSEROOTS project focused on applying Cosserat's theory to advance the control of slender deformation robots, contributing to advances in the field.

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  Alice Smith

  Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Auburn University, USA

  ALICE E. SMITH is the Joe W. Forehand, Jr. Distinguished Professor of the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at Auburn University, where sh...e served as Department Chair from 1999-2011. She also has a joint appointment with the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering. Previously, she was on the faculty of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh from 1991-99, which she joined after industrial experience with Southwestern Bell Corporation. Dr. Smith has degrees from Rice University (BSCE), Saint Louis University (MBA), and Missouri University of Science and Technology (PhD) along with a recent BA in Spanish from Auburn University. Dr. Smith's research focus is analysis, modeling, and optimization of complex systems with emphasis on computation inspired by natural systems integrated with traditional operations research and statistical approaches. She holds one U.S. patent and several international patents and has authored publications which have garnered over 17,500 citations, an H Index of 50, and an i10 Index of 126 (Google Scholar). Dr. Smith is on the top half of the List of Top 2% of Scientific Researchers worldwide recently compiled by Stanford University based on publishing impact. Her books include Women in Computational Intelligence: Key Advances and Perspectives on Emerging Topics and Women in Industrial and Systems Engineering: Key Advances and Perspectives on Emerging Topics, both published by Springer. Several of her papers are among the most highly cited in their respective journals including the most cited paper of Reliability Engineering & System Safety and the 4th most cited paper of IEEE Transactions on Reliability. Dr. Smith has been a principal investigator on over $10 million of sponsored research with funding by Department of Homeland Security, NASA, U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency, National Security Agency, NIST, U.S. Department of Transportation, Frontier Technologies Inc., Lockheed Martin, Adtranz (now Bombardier Transportation), the Ben Franklin Technology Center of Western Pennsylvania, and U.S. National Science Foundation, from which she has been awarded 18 distinct grants including a CAREER grant and an ADVANCE Leadership grant. She is a four-time Fulbright Scholar (2013, 2016, 2017, 2020) with residencies in Turkey, Chile, and Colombia. For accomplishments in research, education, and service she was named the Joe W. Forehand, Jr. Distinguished Professor in 2023 and previously she was the Joe W. Forehand / Accenture Distinguished Professor, the H. Allen and Martha Reed Professor, and the Philpott‐ WestPoint Stevens Professor, all at Auburn University. Dr. Smith is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) and of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), and a senior member of the Society of Women Engineers, a member of Tau Beta Pi, and a Registered Professional Engineer. She is a current IEEE Distinguished Lecturer and has given numerous keynote/plenary talks at international conferences. Dr. Smith is a current IEEE CIS Ad Com member and her leadership roles in conferences sponsored by IEEE are numerous.

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  Taihú Pire

  CIFASIS, Rosario, Argentina

  Taihú Pire received the licentiate degree in Computer Science (2010) at the National University of Rosario and the PhD in Computer Science (2017) at t...he University of Buenos Aires. Currently, he is a research scientist and Head of the Robotics Laboratory belonging to the Centro Internacional Franco Argentino de Ciencias de la Información y de Sistemas (CIFASIS, CONICET-UNR). In addition, he is an Adjunct Professor at the National University of Rosario. His research interests focus on the development of new SLAM algorithms and autonomous navigation systems for mobile robots.

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  Rohit Singla

  Postdoctoral Researcher, Universidad de O'Higgins, Chile

  Dr. Rohit Singla is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Universidad de O'Higgins, Chile, specializing in robotics, autonomous systems, and human-robot in...teraction. His research focuses on advanced control strategies for teleoperated systems, adaptive robotic mechanisms, and real-time navigation in dynamic environments. With over seven years of teaching experience and numerous publications in high-impact journals, Dr. Singla has contributed to healthcare robotics, agricultural automation, and collaborative robotic systems projects. He actively engages in interdisciplinary research to develop innovative solutions to modern engineering challenges

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  Robert Guamán-Rivera

  Instituto de Ciencias de la Ingeniería, Universidad de O'Higgins, Chile