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mehoque AT {gmail. dot com}

Twitter: @ehsan_hoque

I am a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Rochester. I co-lead the Rochester Human-Computer Interaction (ROC HCI) Group. I am part of the newly formed Institute for Human Health and the Environment. I received my PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013.

Research Statement: My research program aims to use techniques from artificial intelligence to amplify human ability. I model and capture the dynamics of human behavior and their relationships using machine learning, computer vision, and network sciences, and design interactive systems to promote equity and access in health care and education.

Applications: Our algorithmic intuitions have positively  impacted the lives of disadvantaged, ill, disabled and other individuals who struggle with socio-emotional communication, such as those with autism, severe anxiety, neurodegenerative disease, PTSD, Aging and terminal illness. Other applications include public speaking, job interviews, music training, negotiations, collaborations, and credibility.  Check out the projects page for more details.

Real-world impact: Our research in 2012 resulted in a patent introducing the idea of a computer being a conversation coach. Building on this patent, Microsoft released 'Speaker Coach' now available in PowerPoint.

In 2009, As part of a team at Disney Imagineering, we introduced Autonomatronics, debuting "Otto", the first interactive figure that can see, hear and engage with a live audience. 

• ACM UbiComp 10 year impact award 2023 Press release
• ACM Distinguished Member 2022

• Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine 2020. Press release by UofR

• Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (ECASE-ARMY) 2019.  

• NSF CAREER Award 2018 (builds on NSF CRII 2015). Press release by UofR

• 10 Scientists to Watch (The SN 10) by Science News 2017. Press release by UofR

• Penn State University Alumni Achievement Award 2017 (Acceptance speech)

• MIT Top 35 Innovators under 35 (TR35) 2016 (3 Minute Speech at EmTech, Press release by UofR)

• Google Faculty Research Award (2014, 2016, 2020)

News and Announcements

2024

• (December 5-6) Invited workshop at the US National Academies on Climate Change and Health Policy
• (November 29) Invited Speaker at the 1st International Conference on Innnovations in Parkinson's Disease 2024, organized by King Faisal Hospital And Research Center.
• November ( 18-21) -- invited to attend the annual board meeting of Macy Foundation
• Full Professorship effective July of 2024. I'm honored to have spent my best years advancing UR's mission.
• I am now part of a bilateral policy project between the UK Academy of Medical Sciences and the US National Academy of Medicine to develop future climate and health leaders.
• Happy to help organize a workshop on "Exploring the Bidirectional Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience" to take place in March at the National Academies.
• NSF highlighted our work PARK project as an innovative use case of AI.
• Sangwu Lee and Alex Martin wins honorable mention award at the 2023-2024 Computing Research Assocuation's Outstanding Researcher Award
• Invited panel speaker on AI and Machine Learning in Health organized by KAUST at the winter Enrichment Program.

2023

• Our poster on "Unmasking Parkinson's disease using smiles: An AI-enabled Screening Framework," received "The Best Abstract in Clinical Research" award at the future of Parkinson's idsease conference.
• Happy to have received a 10-year-impact award by ACM UbiComp.
• Proud of my PhD student, Saiful Islam, for receiving a Google PhD fellowship.
• Our latest paper on Nature Digital Medicine on quantifying tremors in movement disorders gets featured by UR press. 
• So happy for Caleb Wohn ('22) recieving the NSF CSGrad4US graduate fellowship. It was wonderful to supervise Caleb in my lab for 3 years.
• Survived IRONMAN Lake Placid.
• An invited perspective exploring the connection among climate, computing and cognition at the National Academy of Engineering.
• Excited to serve as a board member of the National Academies Health Sciences Policy (2023-2025)
• APPLE Lecture at the Teachers College, Columbia University. Recorded video
• A nice feature by UR news highlighting our undergraduate research assistants
• Great to visit King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) and speak in their smart-health initiative seminar series.
• Got selected as a senior member of AAAI.
• Happy to serve in the editorial board of IEEE Pervasive Computing (do contribute articles).
• Serving as one of the General Chairs of ACII 2023. 

2022

• Best paper nominations at ACII 2022 and ACM MM. Both papers were written by undergrads in collaboration w/ graduate students.
• I am officially an IRONMAN! :-)  video
• Yearly retreat of our lab celebrating students accomplishments and graduations. 
• Keynote at the International Workshop on Human Behavior Understanding at ICPR 2022
• Grateful to have received $700K from Army Research Lab to redesign and maximize human productivity through self-organized social networks.
• Congrats to Kamrul Hasan and Raiyan Abdul Baten for successfully defending their PhDs.
• Graduated PhD #5. Congrats to Samiha Samrose.
• April is Parkinson's awareness month. NIH created a video highlighting the Udall Centers of Excellence at UR.
• A nice shoutout by Healio on our end-of-life communication research. 

2021

• Offering a brand new class on Technology and climate change.
• A press release by UofR on our end of life communication work.
• Keynote at the workshop on Applied Multimodal Affect Recognition,  co-located with ACII 2021
• Graduated three PhD students. Congrats Rafayet Ali, Taylan Sen and Anis Zaman.
• Congratulations to class the 2021!
• My PhD student, Raiyan Abdul Baten gets featured by ResearchGate as inspiring research story. 
• A nice feature by UofR on our work -- Can Social Networks help us be more creative?

2020

• Keynote at ACM ICMI workshops: Face and Gesture Analysis for Health Informatics, Social Affective Multimodal Interaction for Health.
• PI of Google exploreCSR grant to improve representation and diversity in Computer Science.
• The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine did a feature on our ongoing work on digital health contributing to equity and access. 
• I am offering a new class called Living during a pandemic: can AI help mitigate?  supported by the Wadsworth C. Sykes Faculty Engineering Award,
• Glad to be invited to speak at the dialogue on Trustworthy AI in pandemic response by G20. Listening to the delegates and their commitment to responsible AI was heartening.
• Congrats to the class of 2020!
• Along with Sandy Pentland, and Jon Gratch, I moderated a panel on the role of AI in reshaping the field of negotiation organized by the Program on Negotiation by Harvard U. The entire program is online now.
• Fortunate to have received a Google faculty award proposing to do early diagnosis of Parkinson's.
• A series of conversation at the Connections of WXXI on AI and its impact in our society. 1)Will AI enhance or replace human activity? 2) Can AI help us become more fair as a society?

2019

• Wonderful to speak at the Transforming Education Conference for Humanity (TECH) organized by the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) at the beautiful coastal city of Vizag, India.
• Ashely Tenesaca and Jianyuan Zhong won CRA outstanding undergraduate researcher award - honorable mentions.
• Wonderful articles on the brilliant undergrads (Melissa Wen, Shagun Bose, Sangwu Lee) that I have had the opportunity to supervise.
• Invited to attend the EU-US Frontiers of Engineering Symposium organized by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) at Stockholm in November.
• $1.2M NSF grant in collaboration with colleagues from Georgia Tech and Emory in designing a prolonged exposure collective sensing system for PTSD.
• Taylan Sen & Kurtis Haut won the 1st place at the Credibility Assessment Standardized Evaluation (CASE) by IARPA.
• I moderated a panel called 'Workforce of the Future' at the Microsoft Faculty Summit.
• Graduated my first PhD student. Congratulations to Iftekhar Tanveer.
• Keynote speaker at the Annual Parkinson's Symposium organized by Parkinson's Foundation.
• Invited talk at NSF CISE CAREER proposal writing workshop. View the webcast.

2018

• ROC HCI has been featured by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) under "Great Innovative Ideas".
• Co-PI in a $9.2M NIH grant towards establishing a Morris K. Udall Center of Excellence in Parkinson's disease.
• Our research on deception gets a shoutout by Newsweek, Dailymail, WXXI, The Times and UofR news.
• Vivian Li receives a CRA undergraduate research award honorable mention. Vivian worked in the ROC HCI Lab for two years and helped publish two UbiComp Papers.

2017

• Two papers in Affective Computing and Intelligence Interaction (ACII) conference. One of them gets a best paper nomination.
• My Ph.D. thesis has resulted in a US patent titled Methods and apparatus for conversation coach
• I have been selected as a member of the ACM Future of Computing Academy (FCA). Press release by UofR
• Done with teaching in Spring of 2017. Here is what the students were up to.
• National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF REU) Computational Methods for Understanding Music, Media, and Minds
• I have opening for two  postdoc positions in the general area of affective computing, network science, and language.  Link to postdoc1, postdoc2

2016 and before

• Our ROC Speak system (UbiComp 2015) has been highlighted by Microsoft as an innovative use of cloud computing.
• Co-PI on NSF's inaugural Research Traineeship Award. Press release by NSF
• PI for $2.5 M DARPA grant called Communicating w/ Computers (CwC). Press release by UofR
• one of the winners of NSF's inaugural CRII award.  
• One of the most influential Articles for IEEE Transactions for Affective Computing 2015. Press release by MIT
• Provost's Multidisciplinary Award 2015 in collaboration with University of Rochester Medical Center.
• Speaker at the Rochester Science Cafe.
• Best Paper Award at ACM Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) 2013. Press release by MIT

Services

• General chair: ACII 2023, Area chair for FG 2017, FG 2018, CHI 2019, Program Chair for IEEE International Conference on Identity, Security and Behavior Analysis (ISBA) 2017
• Editorial Board: IEEE Pervasive Computing (2023-current)
• Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing (2015-2019), PACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT) (2017-2020), Digital Biomarkers (2018-current),
• Program Committee Member: UbiComp 2016, UbiComp 2015, IUI 2017, ACII 2019, AAAI 2020, ACII 2021
• Demo Chair for ACII 2017, FG 2018
• Special Session Chair for ACII 2015, FG 2020