Ping Li is Sin Wai Kin Professor in Humanities and Technology, Chair Professor of Neurolinguistics and Bilingual Studies, and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Li’s research is focused on investigating the neurocognitive and computational bases of language acquisition, bilingualism, and reading comprehension in both children and adults. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Brain and Language and Senior Editor of Cognitive Science. Li is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advance of Science (AAAS).

With the global population ageing rapidly, a key health concern lies in Neurocognitive Disorders (NCD) – a common form being Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). NCDs are particularly prominent in older adults, which has an insidious onset followed by gradual, irreversible deterioration in memory, communication, thinking and other cognitive functions. Thus the detection of Alzheimer’s disease is crucial for timely intervention to slow down disease progression. This talk presents the background that motivated our interdisciplinary team (with researchers in engineering, geriatrics, linguistics, neurology, psychology and public health) to embark on this meaningful research topic. We will also present our recent research and development of spoken language technologies to analyze English and Chinese recordings from neuropsychological assessments for discriminating between healthy controls and participants with NCD. Encouraging experimental results support the viability of fully automatic screening. We will also describe ongoing research on naturalistic data collection and spoken language interface development for older adult users.

Helen Meng is Patrick Huen Wing Ming Professor of Systems Engineering & Engineering Management at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She received all her degrees from MIT and joined CUHK in 1998. She is the Founding Director of the Microsoft-CUHK Joint Laboratory for Human-Centric Computing and Interface Technologies in 2005, which has been recognized as a Ministry of Education of China (MoE) Key Laboratory since 2008. In 2006, she founded the Tsinghua-CUHK Joint Research Centre for Media Sciences, Technologies and Systems and has served as its Director. In 2013, she helped establish the CUHK Stanley Ho Big Data Decision Analytics Research Center and serves as its Founding Director. She served as former Associate Dean (Research) of Engineering (2006-2010), and former Chairman of the Department (2012-2018).
Helen’s professional services include former Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing, and a member of the IEEE Board of Governors. She has served or is serving as a member of the Advisory Panel of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park Corporation, the review panels of the Swedish Research Council European Research Infrastructure Initiative, and the National Centres of Competence in Research of the Swiss National Science Foundation. She is a member of the HKSAR Government’s Steering Committee on eHealth Record Sharing, Convenor of the Engineering Panel HKSAR Government’s Competitive Research Funding Schemes for the Self-financing Degree Sector, member of the Hong Kong/Guangdong ICT Expert Committee and Coordinator of the Working Group on Big Data Research and Applications, Council membership of the Open University of Hong Kong, member of the Research Grants Council, former Council Member of the Hong Kong Productivity Council, former member of the HKSAR Government’s Digital 21 Strategy Advisory Committee, and Chairlady of the Working Party of the Manpower Survey of the Information Technology Sector (undertaken by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department) for 2014-2017.
Helen is a recognized scholar in her field. She leads the interdisciplinary research team that received the first Theme-based Research Scheme Project in Artificial Intelligence in 2019. Her recent awards include 2019 IEEE Signal Processing Society Leo L Beranek Meritorious Service Award, 2018 CogInfoComm Best Paper Award, 2017 Outstanding Women Professional Award (one of 20 since 1999), 2016 Microsoft Research Outstanding Collaborator Award (one of 32 academics worldwide), 2016 IBM Faculty Award, 2016 IEEE ICME Best Paper Award, 2015 ISCA Distinguished Lecturer, 2015 HKCS inaugural Outstanding ICT Women Professional Award and 2012 Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association (APSIPA) inaugural Distinguished Lecturer. Prior to that, she has also received such awards as the CUHK Faculty of Engineering Exemplary Teaching Award, Young Researcher Award and Service Award; APSIPA Best Oral Paper Award, and 2009 Ministry of Education Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output Award in Technological Advancements. She has delivered numerous invited and keynote talks, such as IEEE SIDAS 2016, ASTRI-HPE Conference 2016, Internet Economy Summit 2017, GMIC 2017, INTERSPEECH 2018 Plenary, SIGDIAL 2019 Keynote, etc. She is a Fellow of the Hong Kong Computer Society, Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, International Speech Communication Association and IEEE.

With the global population ageing rapidly, a key health concern lies in Neurocognitive Disorders (NCD) – a common form being Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). NCDs are particularly prominent in older adults, which has an insidious onset followed by gradual, irreversible deterioration in memory, communication, thinking and other cognitive functions. Thus the detection of Alzheimer’s disease is crucial for timely intervention to slow down disease progression. This talk presents the background that motivated our interdisciplinary team (with researchers in engineering, geriatrics, linguistics, neurology, psychology and public health) to embark on this meaningful research topic. We will also present our recent research and development of spoken language technologies to analyze English and Chinese recordings from neuropsychological assessments for discriminating between healthy controls and participants with NCD. Encouraging experimental results support the viability of fully automatic screening. We will also describe ongoing research on naturalistic data collection and spoken language interface development for older adult users.

Rachel Edita Oñate Roxas is a fellow of Ideacorp, "an independent, non-profit organization that is devoted to research, training and advocacy on development issues, particularly on the use of ICT for development (ICT4D)"

Dr. Roxas is the former Vice President for Research and Development of National University (Philippines) national-u.edu.ph until June 2022. She has been the Vice President for Academic Affairs from Academic Year 2014 to 2019. Top-level achievement: Development of a University research culture where the University is being true to its vision and mission statement to be an institution of higher learning where knowledge is not only transmitted from teachers to students, but an environment where knowledge is produced and generated by members of the University community. University administrators and faculty members should be at the forefront of knowledge generation in this new knowledge society and knowledge economy. Dr. Roxas institutionalized programs, offices, policies and guidelines, towards achieving international recognition.

Dr Roxas is a former Dean and Associate Professor of Computer Science of the De La Salle University-Manila, and an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of the Philippines at Los Banos both for 14 years in each university. While at UPLB, she has been instrumental in the opening of Computer Science degree programs at UP Manila, UP Cebu, UP Visayas Miag-ao, and UP Mindanao, through the Regional Units and Outreach Division of the Institute of Computer Science, College of Arts and Sciences, UPLB.

Dr Roxas obtained her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Australian National University, with Professor Malcolm Newey as supervisor with PhD dissertation on Proving the Correctness of Program Transformations using Higher Order Logic. She obtained her Graduate Diploma in Computer Science also from the Australian National University, and her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science cum laude from the University of the Philippines at Los Banos.

Her research interests lie in understanding (1) how new technologies can be used to represent and process natural languages, and (2) how daily use of computers can be enhanced through the use of natural language interfaces.

Dr Roxas pioneered Natural Language Processing (NLP) Research in the country since 1993, about some decades ago, and has been instrumental in the NLP development in the country. Through Artificial Intelligence methodologies, Dr. Roxas and her network of NLP researchers are at the forefront of the development of technologies for participatory governance in the areas of health, disaster risk reduction management, to name a few.

Dr. Roxas also functions as a Technical Panel expert for Computer Science for PCIEERD, Department of Science and Technology (DOST) from around 1990s to present. Dr. Roxas is also active in leading Higher Educational Institutions in the country in the development of computing curricular offerings by her involvement with the CHED Technical Panel for IT Education as a member and with the Technical Committee for Computer Science as Chair. She is also active in the Board of their computing professional organization, Computing Society of the Philippines, as President from 2017 to 2022, and has been instrumental in the establishment of the Special Interest Group on NLP and Special Interest Group on Women in Computing. She is also an active member of the ACM Women in Computing Asian Pacific region chapter as a Philippine representative and as the celebrations chair.

Dr Roxas also completed her Ph.D. in Education major in Educational Leadership and Management in 2013 from the De La Salle University. She also gained top #7 (among 57,723 examinees) in the Licensure Examination for Teachers (or LET) conducted by the Philippine Regulatory Commission which was released last October 2007.

TBA