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.

Currently: I am a (tenured) research scientist at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), within the Distributed & Interactive Systems (DIS) group. I am also an Assistant Professor (part-time) at Utrecht University, within the Multimedia group. At CWI DIS, I lead the research area on Affective Interactive Systems (AIS). I am also affiliated with the AI, Media, and Democracy Lab, where I lead Human-AI Interaction research focusing on AI transparency in media. I am also currently Chair of CHI Nederland (CHI NL), the local Dutch SIGCHI chapter which we reinstated in August, 2020.

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.

RESEARCH

  • Affective Interactive Systems: I combine advances in sensing and actuation, eXtended Reality, and Artificial Intelligence to augment human cognitive, affective, and social interactions.
  • Trustworthy Human-AI Interaction: Despite all the benefits AI brings, the surge in fake media poses serious threats to a well functioning democratic society. As such, within the AI, Media, and Democracy Lab, a current focus is on designing and building transparent and trustworthy AI, using the EU AI Act as a point of departure.

→ Check the Students page for master's thesis topics in HCI, Human-centered AI, and/or Design.

NEWS