Xipei Ren

Xipei Ren is an associate professor, doctoral supervisor, and PI of the Design Intelligence for Vitality (DIV) Lab at the University of Macau. He has been dedicated to advancing high-impact, interdisciplinary design research. He has led over 10 research projects, including General Programs of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Youth Programs of the National Social Science Fund of China (Art Studies), and Creative Industries Research Programs funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO-KIEM). He has published over 70 papers in SCI/SSCI/A&HCI/EI-indexed journals and conferences, and holds more than 10 invention patents and software copyrights. His design works have received iF Design Awards and have been exhibited at renowned international design events such as Dutch Design Week, CHI Interactivity, DIS Interactivity, and World Design Capital. He serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Human-Computer Interaction Special Interest Group of the China Computer Federation (CCF), an adjunct doctoral supervisor at Shanghai AI Academy, a peer reviewer for NSFC, the Program Chair of PervasiveHealth 2026, the Associate Chairs for CHI/DIS/TEI, and a Guest Associate Editor for international journals including the Journal of Engineering Design and Behaviour & Information Technology.

Jingya Li

Jingya Li is an associate professor and master’s supervisor at the School of Architecture and Design, Beijing Jiaotong University. She received master’s degrees from Peking University and the University of Twente, and her Ph.D. from Eindhoven University of Technology. Her research focuses on spatial intelligence and educational information technology, exploring innovative pathways in design, HCI, immersive media, and education through an interdisciplinary perspective. She has led multiple research projects, including grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Beijing Social Science Foundation, and has participated in national key research and development programs. She has published more than 30 papers in leading international conferences and academic journals, and has served as an organizer of international conferences and as an editorial board member of academic journals. Her design research has been exhibited at Dutch Design Week, where it received a nomination for the Social Talent Award, and has also been recognized with multiple major domestic and international honors, including the Red Dot Award.

Emilia Barakova

Emilia Barakova is an Associate Professor in Social Robots and Embodied Intelligent Agents. She is presently affiliated with the Industrial Design department of Eindhoven University of Technology. and serves as the Head of the Social Robotics Lab at the Eindhoven University of Technology and leads the Transdisciplinary Research & Design research cluster. She formerly worked at Riken Brain Science Institute, Wako-shi, Japan, the German-Japanese Robotics Research Lab, Kitakyushu, Japan, the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She specializes in embodied social interaction with and through technology and social and cognitive robotics.  She has expertise in modelling social behaviour by merging artificial intelligence, cognitive sciences, and robotics. Her present research focuses on the use of social robots for enhancing the well-being of people with visual impairments and intellectual disabilities, dementia, and also education and special education (i.e. social skills training of children with autism spectrum disorders. Barakova has served as the program and general chair for several conferences (including IJSR, IEEE RO-MAN, and IEEE Hybrid Intelligent Systems), and she is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Social Robotics, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Interaction Studies, and Transactions of Human-Machine Systems.

Kaiyun Li

Kaiyun Li is currently a Professor and Vice Dean of the School of Education and Psychology at the University of Jinan. Her research focuses on brain function assessment through hyperscanning and educational-neuromodulatory intervention for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as well as interdisciplinary studies at the intersection of psychology and computer science. She has presided over projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province, and the Social Science Planning Foundation of Shandong Province. Dr. Li has published more than 40 research papers in peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Brain Stimulation, Autism Research, and IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology.

Lingguo Bu

Lingguo Bu is a Professor, Doctoral Supervisor, and Qilu Young Scholar at Shandong University. His research focuses on brain-computer intelligence, AI-driven health assessment, multimodal data fusion, and intelligent product design. He has published over 50 papers in SCI-indexed journals and CCF conferences. He leads the Shandong Provincial Youth Innovation Team on Human Factors Engineering Data Mining and Brain-Computer Intelligence. Using multimodal fusion, he develops explainable AI to build dynamic assessment models for brain dysfunction rehabilitation and prognosis prediction. His intelligent rehabilitation products have been clinically validated at Qilu Hospital and Weizhong Rehabilitation Center, and his collaborative work with the National Research Center for Rehabilitation Technical Aids won the Second Prize of the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine. He built a multimodal AI-based full-lifecycle monitoring system enabling intelligent equipment sensing and early warning, demonstrated at CNNC, CSSC, CGN, and CRCHI. He holds 10+ granted patents (20+ filed), serves on the executive committees of CCF TCHCI and TCVRV, and has led over 20 projects funded by NSFC, the National Key R&D Program, and industry.

Zengrui Li

Zengrui Li is a research assistant of the DIV Lab at the University of Macau. He is currently a doctoral student in Industrial Product and Intelligent Innovation Design within the Design program. His research focuses on human-computer interaction, covering areas such as intelligent intervention for children with ASD, multimodal interaction, and intelligent interaction design. He has developed several intelligent hardware products, including an ASD robot intervention platform, conducted human-computer interaction experiments, and published high-level academic papers based on his research findings.