The talk “From Digital Media to Generative AI: The Augmented Environments Lab at Georgia Tech” will be presented by Prof. Jay Bolter on November the 20th, at 16:30, in room D101 (previously announced in room I-105) and will be moderated by Prof. António Coelho (DEI).

The talk will also be broadcast online:

DEI Talks | “From Digital Media to Generative AI: The Augmented Environments Lab at Georgia Tech” by Prof. Jay Bolter | Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams

Abstract:

“For more than 25 years, I have been working with students and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology on the history, theory, and practice of digital media. Highlights of that work include projects in our Augmented Environments Lab exploring virtual, augmented, and mixed reality—particularly in the contexts of cultural heritage, entertainment, and personal expression. My interest in the role of digital media within the broader history of media has led to papers and books such as Remediation: Understanding New Media (1999), co-authored with Richard Grusin, and Reality Media: Augmented and Virtual Reality (2021), co-authored by Blair MacIntyre and Maria Engberg. In my presentation, I will review this body of work and suggest how it connects to current research with students, with a particular focus on generative AI. In harvesting billions of words and images from the internet, generative AI performs an algorithmic remix—or remediation—of all the digitized and digital media of the past.”

About the Speaker:

Jay David Bolter is now Professor Emeritus at Georgia Tech. In 2025, he retired as the Wesley Chair of New Media and co-Director of the Augmented Environments Lab. He has lectured extensively in North America and Europe and served as a guest professor at Malmö University in Sweden. His books include Remediation (with Richard Grusin), Windows and Mirrors (with Diane Gromala), The Digital Plenitude, and Reality Media (with Blair MacIntyre and Maria Engberg). CV (PDF)

The talk “smtgcc: Using an SMT solver to find bugs in GCC” will be presented by Krister Walfridsson on December the 4th, at 16:00, online:

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Abstract:

“SMT solvers are increasingly effective for finding compiler bugs and validating optimizations. This talk presents smtgcc, a translation-validation tool for GCC. It is similar to Alive2 for LLVM, but smtgcc’s approach diverges from Alive2 because GCC and LLVM follow different design choices. I will explain how smtgcc works and discuss issues in formalizing the semantics of GIMPLE, GCC’s IR.”

About the Speaker:

Krister Walfridsson became involved with the GCC project while studying at university in the mid-1990s. Since completing his studies, he has worked with both compilers and operating systems in various embedded environments. Most recently, he spent 10 years at Arm as a principal compiler engineer in the Mali GPU team. He is currently taking a few years off to work on personal projects and to dance.

The talk entitled “Knowledge Graphs + AI: The Evolution of Automated GitHub Issue Resolution“, will be presented by Prof. He Ye on November 17th, at 14:30, in room B008, moderated by Prof. Alexandra Mendes (DEI).

Abstract:

“AI coding agents are becoming increasingly capable, achieving strong results on benchmarks such as SWE-bench. However, most still struggle with real-world challenges such as issue reproduction, precise context retrieval from large codebases, and the high cost of LLMs. In this talk, I will introduce our recent code agent, Prometheus — a knowledge graph-powered, multi-agent system designed to tackle GitHub issues in practice. Prometheus transforms entire repositories into a unified knowledge graph stored in Neo4j for scalable and structured reasoning. This enables precise, cross-language context retrieval, allowing large language models to generate accurate and efficient fixes. Prometheus delivers robust performance, resolving diverse issues across seven programming languages. I will show how combining LLMs with knowledge graphs can advance automated issue resolution beyond today’s benchmark-driven limits. We have recently transitioned this research into an off-the-shelf product that helps industry resolve software issues automatically.”

About the Speaker:

He Ye is an Assistant Professor at University College London. She previously worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Carnegie Mellon University and received her PhD from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Her research centers on developing the next generation of code agents to automate software engineering tasks, with a focus on codebase context retrieval, automated issue resolution, and code agent memory construction. Beyond academia, she is the co-founder of EuniAI, a startup committed to turning research into real-world solutions that help developers address practical software challenges.

The talk entitled “Energy-awareness in compute acceleration: The role of FPGAs“, will be presented by Prof. Shreejith Shanker on October 30, at 11:30, in room B012, and will be moderated by Prof. Tiago Carvalho (DEI).

Abstract:

“The talk will cover a set of projects that my team at TCD is working on, spanning embedded and distributed systems to high-performance media workflows, and how FPGAs are enabling an energy-performance trade-off in these applications.”

About the Speaker:

Dr. Shreejith Shanker is an Assistant Professor of Reconfigurable Computing at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and leads the research group on reconfigurable architectures, accelerators and workflows. His research interests include reconfigurable and adaptive computing architectures, in-network computing, post-production media workflows, design automation tools and distributed embedded systems, with a focus on performance-energy trade-off and hardware-software codesign approaches.

The talk “Declarative Programming” will be delivered by Steven Pemberton, a renowned researcher in Computer Science and Information Technology and an ACM Distinguished Speaker, on October 23rd at 10:00, in room B033, and will be moderated by Prof. João Ferreira (DEI). Admission is free.

Abstract:

“In the 50s, when the first programming languages were designed, computers cost millions, and relatively, programmers were almost free. Those programming languages therefore reflected that relationship: it didn’t matter if it took a long time to program, as long as the resulting program ran as fast as possible.
Now, that relationship has been reversed, which I call Moore’s Switch: compare to the cost of programmers, computers are almost free.
And yet we are still programming in descendants of the programming languages from the 50s: we are still telling the computers step by step how to solve the program.
Declarative programming is a new approach to applications: rather than describing exactly how to reach the solution, it describe what the solution should look like, and leaves more of the administrative parts of the program to the computer.
One of the few declarative languages available is XForms, an XML-based language that despite what its name might suggest is not only about form. Large projects, at large companies such as the National Health Service, the BBC and Xerox, have shown that by using XFoms, programming time and cost of application can be reduced to a tenth and sometimes even much more.”

About the Speaker:

“Steven Pemberton is a distinguished researcher in the field of computer science and information technology, with a long and rich history of contributions to the development of the internet and the web. He is affiliated with the Dutch national research centre Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he conducts research on interaction, declarative programming, and web technologies.
At university he was tutored by Dick Grimsdale who built the world’s first transistorised computer, and who was himself a tutee of Alan Turing. After university, Pemberton — coincidentally — worked in Turing’s old department in Manchester, writing software for the 5th computer in the line of computers Turing had worked on.
Pemberton was the first user of the open internet in Europe when the CWI created the first connection in 1988, and has been involved with the web from its inception, co-designing several web standards, including HTML, CSS, XHTML, XForms, and RDFa. He chairs two groups at W3C.
In addition to his work on the web, Pemberton has also made significant contributions to other areas of computer science, such as the design of programming languages, having co-designed the language that Python is based on, and the study of human-computer interaction. His involvement with ACM includes being editor in chief of The SIGCHI Bulletin, and then ACM interactions for a decade; he has chaired the CHI Conference and he co-founded the Netherlands local SIGCHI group, and chaired several local CHI conferences there.
He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work, including the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award and the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Practice Award.
As a speaker, Pemberton is known for his engaging and informative presentations, which draw on his deep knowledge of computer science and his passion for technology, and cover both social and technological aspects of computing. His talks are always thought-provoking and entertaining, and he has been invited to speak at numerous conferences and events around the world. In 2023 he became an ACM Distinguished Speaker. He is bi-lingual in English and Dutch.
A fuller bio, videos, and a full list of talks is available on his website: https://www.cwi.nl/~steven”

The talk “Software process modeling and test automation: Introducing the Reliable Software Architectures Research Group” will be presented October the 9th, at 15:30, room B031, and will be moderated by Prof. Ana Paiva (DEI).

Abstract:

“In this talk, I will give an overview of research done by the Reliable Software Architectures Research Group at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czechia. The focus will be on analysing software process data to detect project management (anti-)patterns, where we’ll discuss the challenges in modeling software process elements in a way that is conducive to mapping onto the information gathered in project management tools. We’ll also touch the topic of analyzing software implementations to perform advanced verification and testing.”

About the Speaker:

Přemek Brada is an Associate Professor in Software Engineering at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czechia.  His research has covered the areas of software architecture consistency, interactive methods of architecture visualization, and software development methodologies including analysis of related process data.  He teaches bachelor and master level courses on object-oriented design and modeling, advanced software engineering practices, and also knowledge management. Currently he serves as the head of department, and is a member of the Board of Informatics Europe, the association of European informatics faculties and departments.

The talk ‘Networks, networks, and more networks: applications in humanities, data science, and machine learning’ will be presented on October 1st, at 14:45, in room B004, moderated by Prof. Rosaldo Rossetti (DEI).

Abstract:

“It is known that networks or graphs can be used in machine learning and data science to represent and analyze data that has complex relationships. Besides these uses, networks are also relevant to the overall AI agenda in at least two aspects. First, it relates to automated data gathering and language models in the semantic web, since the actual data have to be acquired in some manner in order to form the graphs. Second, it can be used to accelerate learning tasks, as in the case of reinforcement learning. In this talk I present examples of how data is acquired and used in applications in the Humanities (history, storytelling) in order to discover patterns and/or to investigate assumptions. Then, I discuss applications on data science and machine learning, as for instance the use of networks in reinforcement learning, with examples from urban mobility and car to infrastructure communication.”

About the Speaker:

Ana Bazzan is a Full Professor of Computer Science at the Institute of Informatics, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Her research focuses on multiagent systems, in particular on agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS), and multiagent learning for the transportation domain. Since 1996, she has collaborated with various researchers in the application of ABMS and game theory to social science domains, such as the emergence of cooperation, the prisoner’s dilemma and public goods games. In recent years, she has contributed to different topics regarding smart cities, focusing on transportation, as well as on the synergies between multiagent systems, machine learning, and complex systems. In 2014, Bazzan was General Co-chair of AAMAS (the premier conference in the area of autonomous agents and multiagent systems).

The talk “Immersive Media and the Colombian Armed Conflict: Rethinking Journalism Through 360º Storytelling” will be presented July the 10th, at 16:30, na in room B010, and will be moderated by António Baía Reis (Assistant Professor and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow – Department of Sociology and Communication, University of Salamanca, Spain).

Abstract:

This talk presents research on the use of immersive media, specifically 360º video technology, as a journalistic tool for covering the Colombian armed conflict and promoting narratives of peacebuilding. Drawing on a qualitative multiple-case study, the speaker explores four immersive projects that document post-conflict experiences from the perspectives of victims and former combatants.The presentation will examine the motivations behind the adoption of immersive technologies in these contexts and critically reflect on their potential, limitations, and ethical implications. Particular attention will be given to the emotional and narrative impact of immersive storytelling, as well as concerns regarding image manipulation and journalistic independence. By highlighting good practices and identifying key challenges, this talk contributes to a broader understanding of the role immersive media can play in conflict reporting and peace communication, offering valuable insights for journalists, media professionals, and scholars interested in emerging storytelling formats. In an increasingly polarized and crisis-driven world, this research invites reflection on how immersive journalism can foster deeper engagement with complex realities.

About the Speaker:

Andrés David Castro Lotero is a teacher of Spanish language with a focus on Culture and Economics and a Ph.D. candidate in Communication Sciences at the University of Passau since 2019. He has previously studied Communication and Journalism in Colombia and did a master’s degree in Development Studies at the University of Passau. His research interest is mainly the use of new media in the development of vulnerable communities and peacebuilding, especially in Latin American contexts.

Tha talk “How to hack the Turing trap with Trustworthy AI?” will be presented June the 12th, at 18:00, in room B008, moderated by João Mendes Moreira (DEI).

Abstract:

In this talk, in addition to technical aspects (i.e., fundamentals and tools for developing and validating human-centric self-explaining technologies that are aimed at assisting in all phases of the design, analysis and evaluation of trustworthy intelligent systems), we will discuss Ethical, Legal, Socio-Economic and Cultural (ELSEC) implications of Artificial Intelligence. Special emphasis will be placed on how to certify if intelligent systems comply with European values.

About the Speaker:

José María Alonso Moral holds a M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Telecommunication Engineering, both from the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), Spain, in 2003 and 2007, respectively. He is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Electronics and Computation of the CiTIUS-USC, Vice-Chair of the Task Force on “Explainable Fuzzy Systems” in the Fuzzy Systems Technical Committee of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (IEEE-CIS), Associate Editor of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine (ISSN: 1556-603X) and the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning (ISSN:0888-613X), member of the IEEE-CIS Task Force on Fuzzy Systems Software, member of the IEEECIS SHIELD Technical Committee which is aimed at researching on Ethical, Legal, Social, Environmental and Human Dimensions of AI. He has published more than 190 papers in international journals, book chapters and conferences. His research interests include explainable and trustworthy artificial intelligence, computational intelligence, interpretable fuzzy systems, natural language generation, and the development of free software tools, etc.

The talk has free entrance, no need to register.

The talk “Designing New Interfaces for Musical Expression: Opportunities and Challenges” will be presented on the 4th of June, at 16:00, in room B018, moderated by Gilberto Bernardes de Almeida (DEI).

Abstract:

“Computer music has a compelling history, with initial attempts to perform computer-generated music live dating back several decades. Performing sounds generated by computers presents numerous opportunities and challenges for musical expression. Though virtually any sound can be synthesized and performed arbitrarily without the inherent physical constraints of strings, membranes, and columns of air, this freedom poses unprecedented challenges to instrument designers, composers, musicians, and concertgoers.
In this talk, I will discuss the design and use of several new interfaces developed at the Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory at McGill University, ranging from self-contained digital musical instruments and prosthetic interfaces for dance performances to fMRI-compatible electronic instruments used in neuroscience studies. I will highlight the unique context and challenges of each development, showcasing the critical importance of interdisciplinary research in this field. Finally, I will present an overview of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (www.cirmmt.org), a leading research centre established 25 years ago, focusing on sound and music, based in Montreal, QC, Canada. CIRMMT’s mandate is to eliminate the barriers between disciplines and research domains by supporting researchers and artists from various backgrounds to interact in ways not possible in traditional academic environments.”

About the Speaker:

Marcelo M. Wanderley is Professor of Music Technology at McGill University, Canada, where he directs the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT). His research interests include the design and evaluation of digital musical instruments and the analysis of performer movements. He co-edited the electronic book “Trends in Gestural Control of Music” in 2000, co-authored the textbook “New Digital Musical Instruments: Control and Interaction Beyond the Keyboard” in 2006, and chaired the 2003 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME03). He held invited research chairs in several European and American institutions, including Inria Lille, France, the University of Mons, Belgium, and the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. He is a member of the Computer Music Journal’s Editorial Advisory Board and a senior member of the ACM and the IEEE.