Resume

Dr. Osmar R. Zaïane is a Professor of Computing Science at the University of Alberta, a Fellow of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair. Recognized as a leader in artificial intelligence and data science, he is also a Fellow of both the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association.

With a Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University (1999), Dr. Zaïane has made significant contributions to knowledge discovery and data mining, authoring over 450 peer-reviewed publications in top international conferences and journals. He has played a pivotal role in shaping the field as an Associate Editor for leading journals and as a program chair and general chair for numerous prestigious conferences.

His outstanding contributions have earned him multiple accolades, including the CS-Can/Info-Can Lifetime Achievement Award (2023), the Killam Professorship, the McCalla Research Professorship, and the ACM SIGKDD Service Award from the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Mining. Through his research, leadership, and service, Dr. Zaïane continues to advance the frontiers of AI, big data, and data analytics.

Resume

Adriana AnaMaria Davidescu is a Senior Researcher at INCSMPS and Professor at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE), with over 18 years of experience in socio-economic research. Her expertise includes labor market dynamics, public policy evaluation, and the informal economy, with a strong focus on quantitative and machine learning methods.

She coordinates the Business Economics Data Science Lab (BEDSL) and leads the Informality Data Research Lab, advancing interdisciplinary research on informal markets in the digital age. As a Ph.D. supervisor and project leader, she has contributed to over 50 national and international projects, offering strategic insights for EU and government institutions. Her work bridges economics, data science, and digital transformation to inform inclusive formalization policies. Her work provides actionable insights to key institutions such as the European Commission, the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, and the Ministry of Investments and European Projects.