Abdallah El Ali

Hi! My name is Abdallah (or Abdo for short). I am a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researcher with a background in Cognitive Science. I am a (tenured) research scientist at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), within the Distributed & Interactive Systems (DIS) group. I am also on the executive board (adjunct treasurer) for CHI Nederland (CHI NL), where I handle events, web, and social comms.

I lead research efforts within the area of Affective Interactive Systems (AIS). Previously, I did my Postdoc at the HCI Oldenburg lab, part of the Media Informatics and Multimedia Systems group at the University of Oldenburg / OFFIS (Germany). I received my PhD in Computer Science from the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), working at the (former) Information and Language Processing Systems (ILPS) group.

My research combines advances in Human-Computer Interaction, eXtended Reality, and Artificial Intelligence to measure, infer, and augment human cognitive, affective, and social interactions. Focus areas:

  • Data Acquisition: Systems for acquiring affective and behavioral data and labels across real and virtual environments
  • Machine Intelligence: Systems that can sense, recognize, and react to our affective and behavioral states
  • Augmentation: Systems that can enhance or modify our physical / virtual bodies and sensory perception across human-machine and human-human interactions

M.Sc. student at a Dutch university interested in HCI, AI, and/or IxD? Contact me.


NEWS

   - Will serve as SIG Co-Chair for CHI 2024
   - Gave HCI guest lecture to Innovations in Journalism students at Leiden Univeristy
   - Will attend the Assistive Augmentation WS at Augmented Humans 2023
   - Two CHI 2023 LBWs accepted: BreathWithMe and FeelTheNews
   - Will have a CHIWORK conversation on Affective Augmentation Systems with Andrew Kun
   - Interactions blog piece accepted on the future of hybrid work
   - CHI 2023 SIG accepted on reflecting on hybrid events
   - Giving a research talk on Affective Augmentation Systems at Digital Interactions Lab at UvA
   - Giving guest lectue on "Human-Machine Interaction" for the Biomimicry course at UvA
   - 3rd MEEC WS at ACII 2022 was a great workshop!
   - Co-organizer of the Post-CHI 2023 Adjunct HCI Summer School program
   - Will serve as Social Comms Co-chair for CHI 2023