Dr. Cindy Bethel Program Director with the National Science Foundation. Dr. Bethel is a Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department and holds the Billie J. Ball Endowed Professorship in Engineering at Mississippi State University (MSU). She was a 2019 U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar to Australia sponsored by the University of Technology Sydney. She is the Director of the Social, Therapeutic, and Robotic Systems (STaRS) lab. Dr. Bethel has managed over $12 million dollars in grant funding since starting at Mississippi State University in August 2011. She has published over 100 peer reviewed journal articles, conference papers, and workshop papers in prestigious venues. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Computing Research Association (2020-2023) and is a member of the CRA Government Affairs Committee (2021-2024). She also serves as a Co-Chair of the Socially Responsible Computing Working Group for the CRA. She has been active in her professional research community serving on the Steering Committee for the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and the ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (2015-2019). She was an NSF/CRA/CCC Computing Innovation Postdoctoral Fellow in the Social Robotics Laboratory at Yale University. From 2005 – 2008, she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and was the recipient of the 2008 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Graduate Fellowship. She graduated in August 2009 with her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of South Florida with doctoral minors in Psychology and in Applied Statistics. Her research interests include human-robot interaction, human-computer interaction, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Her research focuses on applications associated with robotic therapeutic support, information gathering from children, and the use of robots for law enforcement, search and rescue, and military.

Dr. Hassnaa Moustafa is a Principal Engineer with Intel Corporation, working on edge computing and AI solutions across IoT segments and network edge infrastructure. Previously at Intel, she led car-to[1]cloud solutions for connected/autonomous vehicles and connectivity technologies across IoT segments. Before joining Intel, Dr. Hassnaa was a Senior Research and Development Engineer with Orange, France. She contributed to wireless network solutions for the EMEA region and led engineering efforts on optimizing video and multimedia services over wireless networks, and she contributed to their related IETF standards. Dr. Hassnaa is a Senior Member of IEEE, and she has over 80 publications in international conferences, journals, and books and over 300 filed patents (over 100 granted). Dr. Hassnaa received the master’s degree in distributed systems from the University of Paris XI, and the Ph.D. degree in wireless and mobile networks from Telecom Paris Tech. She also holds a Research Director Qualification from the University of Paris XI

Dr. Mihaela Cardei is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). From 2018 to 2024, she served as the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at FAU. During her tenure, Dr. Cardei led the development and launching of new graduate programs including a MS in Artificial Intelligence (first in Florida), MS in Data Science and Analytics, and professional MS and PhD in Computer Science at FAU. Her efforts also contributed to a notable increase in graduate student enrollment and graduate degrees awarded. Dr. Cardei's research focuses on algorithm design, combinatorial optimization, and resource management, with applications in UAS path planning, wireless networking, and wireless sensor networks. She has authored over 100 publications, which have garnered more than 9,000 citations on Google Scholar, and has received three Best Paper awards. Dr. Cardei is a recipient of the prestigious NSF CAREER award, the Engineers’ Council 2024 Outstanding STEM Educator Award, and the 2007 Researcher of the Year Award at FAU.

Dr. Maria Kyrarini is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and David Packard Jr. Faculty Fellow at Santa Clara University (SCU). She also leads the Human-Machine Interaction & Innovation (HMI2) Lab, supported by federal (NSF) and SCU internal grants. Her primary research interests are in the fields of Robot Learning from Human Demonstrations, Human-Robot Interaction, and Assistive Robotics with a special focus on enhancing Human Performance.

Before SCU, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Texas at Arlington and the assistant director of the Heracleia Human-Centered Computing Lab. In 2019, Dr. Kyrarini received her Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Bremen under the supervision of Professor Axel Gräser. The title of her Ph.D. thesis is: “Robot Learning from human demonstrations for Human-robot Synergy”. Before that, she received a master’s in electrical and computer engineering and a master’s in automation systems, both from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 2012 and 2014, respectively.

Dr. Tamara Dinev is a professor and Chair, Dean’s Distinguished Research Fellow at the Department of Information Technology and Operations Management (ITOM), College of Business, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida. She received her Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics in 1997. Following several senior positions in information technology companies, her interests migrated to management information systems research, and in 2000 she joined the Florida Atlantic University ITOM faculty.
Widely recognized as an international authority on computer and information security and privacy, Dr. Dinev’s expertise has shaped the landscape of this crucial domain, as evidenced by her numerous Best Paper awards and by MIS Quarterly 2020 award for the most impactful paper of the decade. The recognition of her work is evident by high citation indices as measured by Google Scholar and Web of Science. She is ranked among the World’s top 2 percent of most cited researchers by the Stanford University database of the World’s most cited researchers across 22 scientific fields of study. The prestigious list, compiled by Stanford University faculty, is considered to be one of the best ways to measure faculty research productivity and impact.
Dr. Dinev has published in premier and top journals in the field of Information Systems, including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Decision Sciences, Journal of the AIS, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, Communications of the ACM, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Journal of Global Information Management, e-Service Journal, Behaviour and Information Technology, Electronic Government, and others. She has received numerous best paper awards and nominations at major Information System conferences. Dr. Dinev served as Associate Editor of European Journal of Information Systems and as Guest Associate Editor of MIS Quarterly on multiple occasions. She also has served as Track Chair of International Conference of Information Systems (ICIS) and European Conference of Information Systems (ECIS).
Dr. Dinev has taught many classes in Information Systems, including Advanced Accounting Information Systems (AIS 6475); Management Information Systems and Technology (ISM 6026); Data Mining and Data Warehousing (ISM 4117); Research Methods I for Ph.D. students (QMB 7565); Quantitative Methods in Business (QMB 3600); Computer Forensics (ISM 4324); Information Security Management (ISM 4323); Business Programming with JAVA (ISM 4234); Internet Application Programming (ISM 4052 with HTML, JavaScript, ASP); Systems Web Development Project (ISM 4243 with Client technologies incl. HTML, JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, Flash; Server technologies incl. JSP and servlets, ASP, 3 tier database driven web applications, MySQL/Oracle/Access/SQL server, XML, XSL etc.); University Physics - I and II.