Keynote Speakers

Professor Lei Chen	Chair Professor & Director of HKUST Big Data Institute Department of Computer Science and Engineering Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Biography: Lei Chen is Chair Professor in the Data Science and Analytics Thrust at HKUST (Guangzhou), Fellow of the IEEE, and Distinguished Member of the ACM. He is Dean of the Information Hub and Director of the Big Data Institute at HKUST (GZ). His research interests span data-driven AI, big data analytics, metaverse, knowledge graphs, blockchains, data privacy, crowdsourcing, and spatio-temporal and probabilistic databases. He received degrees from Tianjin University (B.S.), Asian Institute of Technology (M.A.), and the University of Waterloo (Ph.D.). His honors include the SIGMOD Test-of-Time Award (2015), VLDB Best Paper (2022), and leadership roles including Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE).
Professor Dongrui Wu	Professor & Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Image Processing and Intelligent Control Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China Biography: Dongrui Wu (IEEE Fellow) is Professor and Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Image Processing and Intelligent Control at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. He received degrees from the University of Science and Technology of China (B.E., 2003), National University of Singapore (M.Eng., 2006), and the University of Southern California (Ph.D., 2009). His research spans brain-computer interfaces, machine learning, computational intelligence, and affective computing, with 200+ publications (15,000+ citations, h=65). His awards include IEEE, CAA, and MOE recognitions, and his team won China's national BCI competition (2021-2024). He is Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems (TFS).
Professor Anton van den Hengel	Professor & Chief Scientist at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML) and Director of the Centre for Augmented Reasoning University of Adelaide, Australia Biography: Anton van den Hengel is Chief Scientist at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML), Director of the Centre for Augmented Reasoning, and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Adelaide. He founded AIML, Australia’s largest machine learning research group, and has secured over $80m in funding from organisations including Google, Facebook, Canon, and the ARC. Formerly Director of Applied Science at Amazon, he has authored 460+ publications (39,500+ citations, h-index 91), commercialised 8 patents, and co-founded 5 start-ups. His research spans vision–language AI, image modelling, and semantic reconstruction.

Chair Professor & Director of HKUST Big Data Institute

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Biography: Lei Chen is Chair Professor in the Data Science and Analytics Thrust at HKUST (Guangzhou), Fellow of the IEEE, and Distinguished Member of the ACM. He is Dean of the Information Hub and Director of the Big Data Institute at HKUST (GZ). His research interests span data-driven AI, big data analytics, metaverse, knowledge graphs, blockchains, data privacy, crowdsourcing, and spatio-temporal and probabilistic databases. He received degrees from Tianjin University (B.S.), Asian Institute of Technology (M.A.), and the University of Waterloo (Ph.D.). His honors include the SIGMOD Test-of-Time Award (2015), VLDB Best Paper (2022), and leadership roles including Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE).

Professor & Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Image Processing and Intelligent Control

Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

Biography: Dongrui Wu (IEEE Fellow) is Professor and Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Image Processing and Intelligent Control at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. He received degrees from the University of Science and Technology of China (B.E., 2003), National University of Singapore (M.Eng., 2006), and the University of Southern California (Ph.D., 2009). His research spans brain-computer interfaces, machine learning, computational intelligence, and affective computing, with 200+ publications (15,000+ citations, h=65). His awards include IEEE, CAA, and MOE recognitions, and his team won China's national BCI competition (2021-2024). He is Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems (TFS).

Professor & Chief Scientist at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML) and Director of the Centre for Augmented Reasoning

University of Adelaide, Australia

Biography: Anton van den Hengel is Chief Scientist at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML), Director of the Centre for Augmented Reasoning, and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Adelaide. He founded AIML, Australia’s largest machine learning research group, and has secured over $80m in funding from organisations including Google, Facebook, Canon, and the ARC. Formerly Director of Applied Science at Amazon, he has authored 460+ publications (39,500+ citations, h-index 91), commercialised 8 patents, and co-founded 5 start-ups. His research spans vision–language AI, image modelling, and semantic reconstruction.