OPEN CELEBRATORY PANEL

• “Ten years of ASLERD: supporting the development of smart learning ecosystems and smart societies while looking to the future”.

June 12th – h: 14:00 – 16:00 CET 

Panelists 

Mihai Dascalu – ASLERD & University Politehnica of Bucharest

is a full professor at University Politehnica and a former Senior Fulbrighter at Arizona State University. Mihai holds a double PhD with the highest distinctions in Computer Science and Educational Sciences, with his thesis published as book in Springer, Studies in Computational Intelligence. He has extensive experience in national and international research projects with more than 200 published papers, including 20+ articles at top-tier conferences (AAAI, CogSci, AIED, ITS, CSCL), 55 papers indexed ISI at renowned international conferences (ICALT, EC-TEL, ICWL, ISPDC, AIMSA), and 10 Q1 journal papers.

Raffaele Di Fuccio – Pegaso University

is Associate Professor of Pedagogy and Special Education (PAED-02/A) at the Pegaso Telematic University. He is a biomedical engineer with a PhD in Human Mind and Gender Studies centred in Educational Psychology from the University of Naples – Federico II. His research interests focus on improving learning through the application of innovative technologies, in particular in the use of a multisensory approach to teaching, enhanced by digital tools, exploiting the potential of Mixed Reality systems and, in particular, the Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) paradigm. Another area of research concerns the application and evaluation of serious games in education and training.

Blaženka Divjak – SoLAR & University of Zagreb

PhD, is a Full Professor of Mathematics and Scientific Advisor in Information Science at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics. She leads the Laboratory for Learning Analytics and Academic Analytics. Her research interests, besides mathematics, include learning analytics, learning design, e-learning, assessment, AI in education, and strategic decision-making in higher education. She has participated in more than 40 national and international projects, and currently coordinates the Erasmus+ project Innovating Learning Design in Higher Education and the Croatian Science Foundation project Trustworthy Learning Analytics and Artificial Intelligence for Meaningful Learning Design. She led the development of the BDP concept and tool (see: learning-design.eu). Professor Divjak served as Vice-Rector of the University of Zagreb (2010–2014) and as the Croatian Minister of Science and Education (2017–2020). During Croatia’s 2020 EU Council Presidency, she chaired the Council of Ministers for Education, Research, and Space. She is currently Vice-President of the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR). She has authored eight books and over 150 scientific and professional publications and is a frequent invited speaker at international conferences.

Carlo Giovannella – ASLERD & University of Roma Tor Vergata

graduated in Physics, he worked long time in solid state physics as an expert of complex systems. Nowadays can be considered a ‘Designer for the experience’: expert in the technology-enhanced learning, interaction design, computer-mediated communication, design and management of processes, process and product innovation. He is the Scientific Editor of IXD&A Journal. For more than 20 years it has been the chair of the ISIM_garage (Interfaces and Multimodal Interactive Systems Lab) at the the Univ. of Rome Tor Vergata; Between the 2013 and 2016 he has been the Scientific Director of the Creative Industries Area at the Consorzio Roma Ricerche.

Seiji Isotani – AIED & University of Sao Paulo

Professor of Computer Science and Learning Technology at the University of Sao Paulo, where he leads the Applied Computing in Education Laboratory. Since 2022, he holds the position of Visiting Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Faculty Associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
His scientific and social mission involves transforming research findings into social impact through the conception of educational practices, AI technologies, and policies. These aim to accelerate the benefits, adoption, and impact of evidence-based approaches on education, particularly in resource-constrained environments typically found in low- and middle-income communities.
To accomplish that, he focuses on advancing the science concerning how people learn with interactive/intelligent educational technologies and on untangling potential mechanisms for ensuring that every student receives the personalized support that they need to engage in fulfilling and meaningful educational experiences.

Patrizia Marti – ASLERD & University of Siena

is Associate Professor at the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Science, University of Siena where she teaches Human-Computer Interaction, Experience Design, and Design Thinking. She is Rector’s delegate and director of Santa Chiara Fab Lab of the University of Siena, a laboratory of design and innovation particularly focused on inclusion, health, food and cultural heritage. From 2013 until 2017 she was appointed part time Full Professor at the Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology. From 2017 until 2021 she was Visiting Professor at the same university. In August 2013, she received an honorary professorship at the Seogang College University, Seoul, Korea. She has an interdisciplinary background in philosophy, design and computing and a Ph.D. in Aesthetics of Interaction. In 2014 and 2015, she was Visiting Professor at the Advanced PhD “The Center for Advanced Studies – the development of interdisciplinary doctoral studies” at the Gdansk University of Technology (Poland) in the key areas of the Europe 2020 Strategy. Her research interests range over a broad range of topics including tangible and embodied interaction, experience design and societal impacts of new technologies. She has been a Principal Investigator on numerous EU funded projects. She has been expert advisor to many EU and international bodies, including EU Commission. She is a Member of the Italian SigCHI chapter and ACM. She has served Scientific and Organizing Committees in various areas of HCI, ID and Information Systems, including ACM CHI, ACM DIS, ACM IDC, ACM DIS, IEEE ICRA, IEEE IROS, IEEE ICORR, ECCE, EACE, SLERD.

Antonio Teixeira – Universidade Aberta

is an Associate Professor at Universidade Aberta (UAb), the Portuguese Open University, since 1991, and a researcher at the University of Lisbon. He also collaborates with the Università Degli Studi Roma Tre and the Laboratory for Distance Learning and E-learning. From 2013 to 2016, he was President of EDEN – the European Distance and E-learning Network (2013-16). At UAb, he was Pro-rector for innovation in Distance Learning at UAb (2006-09) and headed the Department of Education and Distance Learning (2016-20). He was also a member of the Portuguese Rectors Council specialized committees on Scientific Research and Knowledge Transfer, and on Evaluation, Quality and Innovation. Currently, he’s a consultant and evaluator for the AQU Cataluña (Spain), the APCUA (Spain) and the A3ES (Portugal) quality assurance agencies. He’s an EDEN Senior Fellow.

Chair: Gabriella Dodero (ASLERD)

till 2017 has been Full Professor in Computer Science at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Faculty of Computer Science, and Vice-Rector for Studies of UniBZ. Her recent research work was devoted to technology enhanced learning for university and schools,  with a focus on computer science education.