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Singapore HCI 2026 & HRI Workshop 2026

We cordially invite you to a one-day event—the Singapore HCI Meetup 2026 and HRI Workshop 2026—where HCI researchers across the island share ideas, celebrate achievements, and, most importantly, reconnect with old friends and meet new ones. This year's meetup will be hosted at the SMU campus on 18 June. RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=ynmKyZpakUeiQ_Bq_WdGTc1sA3niBzxOi60foZ8X931URFBFMUlFOTFaMzAxRlFHVEFJSEZPUFBNSy4u&origin=lprLink&route=shorturl. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Information Technology & Systems. Audience: Public. Academic Community. Current Student. Thursday, June 18, 2026, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM. School of Computing and Information Systems 2, Level 3, Classroom 3-1, Singapore Management University, 90 Stamford Road, 178903. For more info visit sghcimeetup26.notion.site.

SMU Postgraduate Fast Track

Public Events Hourly Sessions: Friday, 19 June 2026  10:00am - 8:00pm Saturday, 20 June 2026  10:00am - 2:30pm *Refer to the registration link for specific slots of each programme. RSVP: https://postgraduate2.smu.edu.sg/acton/media/24273/FT2. Event Details: We are conducting Fast-Track Admission for the abovementioned SMU Postgraduate Programmes! You will be able to expedite your application and be guided through the process by the Admissions Team. Eligible candidates* would be shortlisted for an interview with the admission committee. Application fee will be waived for all fast-track attendees. If you're ready to apply, register today! You ​are ​welcome ​to ​bring ​a ​friend ​with ​you. ​Simply ​forward ​them ​this ​link: https://postgraduate2.smu.edu.s… Type: Information Sessions. Subject: Economics. Finance & Financial Markets. Analytics for Business, Consumer & Social Insights. Operations Management. Social Sciences & Humanities. Accounting. Audience: Prospective Student. Public. Friday, June 19, 2026, 10:00 AM – Saturday, June 20, 2026, 2:30 PM. Hybrid Zoom details will be sent to you upon review of your profile.

Designing for “Just Enough”: How Elegance Drives Adoption and Innovation

In an environment saturated with information, products, and interfaces, users increasingly expect designs that are both simple and effective. Elegant Design: A Designer’s Guide to Harnessing Aesthetics examines how the tension between simplicity and complexity can be addressed by conceptualizing elegance as a form of ideal complexity: sufficiently rich to convey meaning, yet clear enough for immediate comprehension. Drawing on research at the intersection of cognitive science, information theory, and art, Luca Landoli demonstrates that aesthetic pleasure is not merely an optional enhancement, but a critical factor guiding decision-making in design, innovation, and product development. Utilizing over 100 visual examples and case studies, the book presents eight actionable strategies: four for enriching designs that lack engagement, and four for simplifying solutions that have become overly complex. This presentation is particularly relevant for scholars and students in information systems, human-computer inter… Subtitle: Research Seminar by Dr Luca Iandoli. Contact: scisseminars@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: , Luca Iandoli Distinguished Chair and Dean of the Lesley H. and William L. Collins College of Professional Studies St. John’s University, Luca Iandoli is Dean of the Collins College of Professional Studies at St. John’s University. A scholar of collective intelligence, interaction design, and product aesthetics, his work explores how people and organizations make sense of complexity through design. A former Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, he has also served as… RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=ynmKyZpakUeiQ_Bq_WdGTbOXO7ktpRtBsn62WuekYtpUN0wxN0pDNjcyMEFTSDZKVFY1VThMWVNWVS4u&route=shorturl. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Information Technology & Systems. Audience: Public. Current Student. Academic Community. Friday, June 19, 2026, 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM. Seminar Room 2-5, Level 2. SMU SCIS 2, Singapore 178903. For more info visit computing.smu.edu.sg.

Variational Speculative Decoding: Rethinking Draft Training from Token Likelihood to Sequence AcceptancE

Speculative decoding accelerates inference for (M)LLMs, yet a training-decoding discrepancy persists: while existing methods optimize single greedy trajectories, decoding involves verifying and ranking multiple sampled draft paths. We propose Variational Speculative Decoding (VSD), formulating draft training as variational inference over latent proposals (draft paths). VSD maximizes the marginal probability of target-model acceptance, yielding an ELBO that promotes high-quality latent proposals while minimizing divergence from the target distribution. To enhance quality and reduce variance, we incorporate a path-level utility and optimize via an Expectation-Maximization procedure. The E-step draws Monte Carlo samples from an oracle-filtered posterior, while the M-step maximizes weighted likelihood using Adaptive Rejection Weighting (ARW) and Confidence-Aware Regularization (CAR). Theoretical analysis confirms that VSD increases expected acceptance length and speedup. Extensive experiments across LLMs and MLLM… Subtitle: Pre-Conference Talk by ZOU Xiandong. Contact: scisseminar@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: , ZOU Xiandong PhD Candidate School of Computing and Information Systems Singapore Management University, Xiandong ZOU is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the School of Computing and Information Systems, Singapore Management University, under the supervision of Professor Pan Zhou. He is a member of the Language and Vision Lab (LV-Lab), directed by Professor Shuicheng Yan and Professor Pan Zhou. His research interests include AIGC, generative models, and machine learning. RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=ynmKyZpakUeiQ_Bq_WdGTejbEKPlArBJhZomj91naG9UNlg4UzlTUDNWWURSSUZVUlFSSzE1TjZNQS4u. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Information Technology & Systems. Audience: Public. Tuesday, June 23, 2026, 10:30 AM – 11:00 AM. Meeting room 4.4, Level 4. School of Computing and Information Systems 1, Singapore Management University, 80 Stamford Road, Singapore 178902. For more info visit computing.smu.edu.sg.

The Future of Design with AI

As innovation evolves into a highly complex, multi-disciplinary systems challenge, traditional design thinking and methodologies are increasingly falling short. AI is now catalyzing a necessary paradigm shift in the design process. This talk explores the frontier of "Intelligent Design 4.0," charting the transition from conventional design workflows to the era of Agentic AI. By synthesizing design science with AI, we demonstrate how multi-agent frameworks enable end-to-end design process automation, expanding the boundaries of creativity and feasibility. Crucially, this automated frontier does not diminish the human role in design; rather, it necessitates higher-order, higher-dimensional human creativity. Designers of the future must adeptly harness creative AI, systems design thinking, and entrepreneurial leadership in collaboration with AI to ensure human-centered design for a better future. Subtitle: Research Seminar by Dr Jianxi Luo. Contact: scisseminars@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: , Jianxi Luo Professor Department of Systems Engineering City University of Hong Kong, Jianxi Luo is a Professor of Systems Engineering at the City University of Hong Kong and the Founding Director of the MSc in AI-Driven Innovation. Professor Luo serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Research in Engineering Design and is the author of the new book, Design Science: Driving Innovation with Unified Principles. He is ranked 1st in East Asia and 17th globally in the field of Design Practice and Management on the… RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=ynmKyZpakUeiQ_Bq_WdGTbOXO7ktpRtBsn62WuekYtpUMkVTRTBZU09CVlZIR0VLSVFXQjNPTDRDMi4u&route=shorturl. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Information Technology & Systems. Audience: Public. Current Student. Academic Community. Friday, June 26, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM. Seminar Room 4-2, Level 4. SMU SCIS 2, Singapore 178903. For more info visit computing.smu.edu.sg.

Trajectory as Creative Intent: Rethinking Drag-Based Interaction in Generative Visual Editing

Trajectory-based interaction, where users draw spatial paths to guide generative editing, has become a popular paradigm across 2D image editing, video generation, 3D scene editing, and human motion synthesis. We present a unified taxonomy of these methods along four dimensions: output modality, trajectory representation, trajectory grounding, and human-AI agency. A striking pattern emerges: across all methods and modalities, the AI operates strictly as a spatial command executor, with collaborative and model-initiated categories entirely vacant. We identify three systematic gaps: ambiguity is resolved by increasing user burden rather than developing interpretive capacity; pipelines are open-loop; and evaluation rewards geometric precision over creative quality. We discuss directions toward systems where trajectories serve as the starting point of creative dialogue rather than commands to be executed. This is a Pre-Conference talk for Forty-Third International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2026). Subtitle: Pre-Conference Talk by XU Chenshu. Contact: scisseminar@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: , XU Chengshu PhD Candidate School of Computing and Information Systems Singapore Management University, Chenshu XU is a PhD candidate in the School of Computing and Information Systems (SCIS) at Singapore Management University (SMU). She is a member of Visual Understanding and Generation Lab (VUG) @ SMU supervised by Prof. HE Shengfeng. Her research interests lie at the intersection of Computer Vision and Computer Graphics. RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=ynmKyZpakUeiQ_Bq_WdGTejbEKPlArBJhZomj91naG9UM0FJVlNIVkVNM1JMNDk4TzBPSVVFRDIxWi4u. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Information Technology & Systems. Audience: Public. Monday, June 29, 2026, 10:00 AM – 10:15 AM. Meeting room 5.1, Level 5. School of Computing and Information Systems 1, Singapore Management University, 80 Stamford Road, Singapore 178902. For more info visit computing.smu.edu.sg.

Usage-Aware Automated Visualization Systems

Automated visualization systems reduce the expertise required to create charts by generating visual representations from input data. Despite advances in recommendation accuracy and generation quality, these systems share an unexamined assumption: that the pipeline from input to output is usage agnostic, and that deployment context imposes no design constraints on output. This dissertation argues that assumption is wrong, and asks: how can we characterize the design constraints imposed by distinct usage scenarios and incorporate them into automated visualization generation? We demonstrate this across three scenarios, each representing a different input modality, user population, and physical context. In layperson analytical usage, users without visualization expertise rely on recommendation systems to analyze tabular data. AdaVis reframes recommendation as a one-to-many mapping using a knowledge graph with box embeddings, and generates natural language explanations for each candidate chart. Evaluations show i… Subtitle: PhD Dissertation Defense by YU Jiongchi. Contact: scisseminars@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: , ZHANG Songheng PhD Candidate School of Computing and Information Systems Singapore Management University, Songheng ZHANG is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the School of Computing and Information Systems at SMU, under the supervision of Associate Professor Tony TANG. His research primarily focuses on data visualization recommendation and mobile data visualization. RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=ynmKyZpakUeiQ_Bq_WdGTejbEKPlArBJhZomj91naG9URFdPUElWMDNRVEQ2SjdOVFI5QUw1SlBIRC4u. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Information Technology & Systems. Audience: Public. Current Student. Academic Community. Tuesday, June 30, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM. Meeting room 5.1, Level 5. SMU SCIS 1, Singapore 178902. For more info visit computing.smu.edu.sg.

SMU Doctor of Engineering (EngD) Virtual Information Session

Infosessions . RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://scispg.smu.edu.sg/acton/media/44865/engdis0726. Type: Information Sessions. Webinar & Online Learning. Subject: Business. Leadership. Operations Management. Organisational Behaviour. Strategic Management. Information Technology & Systems. Analytics for Business, Consumer & Social Insights. Audience: Professionals. Prospective Student. Thursday, July 2, 2026, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM. Virtual via Zoom Details will be provided via email upon registration.

Self-optimizing Static Program Analysis

Software systems pervade our personal and professional lives, yet their insecurity threaten our society. To assure that software systems are dependable and secure, one must reason about their code. Static program analysis enables such reasoning. It can be applied to individual software components, and it can show not only the presence but also prove the absence of bugs and vulnerabilities. Yet, to be useful to software developers, static analyses must be adapted to the context in which they are used. Studies show that poorly adapted analyses slow down rather than assist development. They report large sets of false warnings that distract developers from actual bugs, which the analyses often miss. They often run so long that results are reported when they are already outdated.   In this talk I report on my ERC Advanced Grant on Self-optimizing Static Program Analysis (SOSA). Its research hypothesis is that one can generate precise and efficient static analyses of software systems by making static analysis self-… Subtitle: Research Seminar by Dr Eric Bodden. Contact: scisseminars@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: , Eric Bodden Professor Heinz Nixdorf Institute Paderborn University, Eric Bodden is a leading expert on secure software engineering, especially in building highly precise tools for automated program analysis. He is Professor for Secure Software Engineering at Paderborn University and director for Software Engineering and IT-Security at Fraunhofer IEM. RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=ynmKyZpakUeiQ_Bq_WdGTbOXO7ktpRtBsn62WuekYtpUQjZQS1k5TTNQWVZNTTlETE5VVEc0RTM2SC4u&route=shorturl. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Information Technology & Systems. Audience: Public. Current Student. Academic Community. Friday, July 3, 2026, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM. Seminar Room 4-2, Level 4. SMU SCIS 2, Singapore 178903. For more info visit computing.smu.edu.sg.

The Voice of the Flow: A Graph-based Approach for Step-Wise Explanations of Constraint Satisfaction Problems

Stepwise explanations are an important tool for interpreting constraint programs. Existing methods rely heavily on repeated minimal unsatisfiable subsets (MUS) extraction or intensive SAT-based propagation, which are computationally prohibitive for large-scale problems with complex constraints. We propose a novel framework leveraging Multi-Valued Decision Diagrams (MDDs) to overcome these bottlenecks. By decomposing CSPs into smaller, graph-based subproblems compactly represented as MDDs, we enable highly efficient constraint propagation through network-flow reformulation. To further enhance efficiency, we propose a Divide-and-Conquer approach to improve the search for minimal explanation steps. Furthermore, we utilize the MDD’s network-flow structure to generate nested explanations that break down complex derivation steps into granular, arc-level details, revealing specifically how variable-value assignments become infeasible. In this way, our approach equips the explainer agent with a voice that provides mo… Subtitle: Pre-Conference Talk by NGUYEN Minh Anh. Contact: scisseminar@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: , NGUYEN Minh Anh PhD Candidate School of Computing and Information Systems Singapore Management University, NGUYEN Minh Anh is a third-year PhD candidate in Computer Science at Singapore Management University, supervised by Prof. LAU Hoong Chuin. His research focuses on explainable optimization, where he develops methods such as step-wise and counterfactual explanations to provide transparency and trust in complex combinatorial optimization problems. His work explores the intersection of XAI and… RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=ynmKyZpakUeiQ_Bq_WdGTejbEKPlArBJhZomj91naG9UNkdQQjJCWFRVN1FPM0FTOVZXMVFHUVFBNC4u. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Information Technology & Systems. Audience: Public. Friday, July 3, 2026, 11:30 AM – 11:50 AM. Meeting room 4.4, Level 4. School of Computing and Information Systems 1, Singapore Management University, 80 Stamford Road, Singapore 178902. For more info visit computing.smu.edu.sg.

MITB Virtual Information Session (Singapore)

Public Events RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://scispg.smu.edu.sg/acton/media/44865/mitbis0726. Type: Information Sessions. Subject: Analytics for Business, Consumer & Social Insights. Finance & Financial Markets. International. Information Technology & Systems. Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Leadership. Operations Management. Learning & Professional Development. Organisational Behaviour. Strategic Management. Audience: Public. Saturday, July 4, 2026, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM. Online This information session will be conducted virtually via Zoom. Please register for the session by clicking on the “Register Now” button that leads you to our event registration form.

SMU: Tokyo Coffee Session

Public Events Hourly Sessions: 12:00pm - 3:00pm (JST) (hourly sessions) 6:00pm - 8:00pm (JST) (hourly sessions). RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://calendly.com/smuai/tokyo-coffee-session. Event Details: Join us for an insightful session to ​​discover ​​how ​​our post-graduate programmes ​​can support your personal and professional aspirations. ​​ Our Admissions Advisors will speak with you directly to provide detailed guidance on the application process and to discuss the financial aid and scholarship opportunities that may be available to you. For a pre-application assessment, please bring along a copy of your resume for a personalised review. Kindly note that sessions may be conducted in a group se… Type: Information Sessions. Subject: Finance & Financial Markets. Business. Audience: Prospective Student. Public. Friday, July 31, 2026, 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM. SALONE VENDREDI 103-0022 Tokyo, Chuo-City, Nihonbashimuromachi, 3-4-4 Floor 1.