Graduate Research — CSIT

Coming up

• GRS seminar

  24 Aug 2026 · 16:00–17:00

  Speaker:

  Dr Kaining Zhang (recent graduate presentation)

  Date and Time:

  Monday 24 August 2026, 16:00–17:00 (Adelaide)

  Title:

  Decoding Input Preferences and Switch-Intention from Implicit Signals

  Location:

  CE: Ingkarni Wardli 5.57 (IW5.57); ML: Mawson Lakes Building J, J2-15

  Abstract:

  Adaptive interactive systems need to understand not only what users are doing, but also how they experience and respond to different interaction methods. This research investigates whether physiological and behavioural signals can provide implicit evidence of users’ input preference and reported switch-intention, with a particular focus on augmented reality (AR) interaction. Across three empirical studies, we examine whether EEG can differentiate preferred and non-preferred hand-based input methods, whether preference-related EEG patterns remain detectable during realistic AR interaction, and whether multimodal signals, including EEG, eye gaze, and head movement, can predict users’ reported trial-level intention to switch input methods. The findings highlight the potential of implicit sensing for understanding dynamic user states during interaction and inform the design of more adaptive and user-centred interactive systems.

  Bio:

  Kaining Zhang is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Adelaide University and an HCI researcher working at the intersection of augmented and mixed reality, multimodal interaction, and implicit sensing. She recently passed her PhD defense, with her doctoral research investigating how physiological and behavioural signals, including EEG, eye gaze, and head movement, can be used to infer users’ input preferences and interaction intentions. Her broader research interests include adaptive and intelligent interactive systems, implicit user-state modelling, and interaction design for emerging computing environments. She is particularly interested in how interactive systems can better understand users and adapt to their changing needs while preserving user agency and control.

• GRS seminar

  24 Aug 2026 · 16:00–17:00

  Speaker:

  Spencer O'Keeffe (recent graduate presentation)

  Date and Time:

  Monday 24 August 2026, 16:00–17:00 (Adelaide)

  Title:

  Action Research with Industry

  Location:

  CE: Ingkarni Wardli 5.57 (IW5.57); ML: Mawson Lakes Building J, J2-15

  Abstract:

  Working with an industry partner provides researchers with domain expertise, relevant data, and tangible context for research projects, but brings a unique set of challenges. This talk will provide an overview of a PhD focused on immersive analytics in forestry, covering the action research methodology taken, how findings guided the research direction, opportunities arisen, and observations for new researchers engaging in industry partnered projects.

  Bio:

  Spencer O’Keeffe recently defended his PhD with the Wearable Computer Lab and the Forestry Centre of Excellence. His cross-disciplinary research spans Immersive Analytics and Forestry, exploring how extended reality, LiDAR, and advanced data visualisation can support decision-making, training, and planning in complex forestry systems. His work is conducted in close collaboration with industry partners, including OneFortyOne Mt Gambier. His current research interests include pine disease detection from LiDAR, machinery safety training in VR, and point clouds.

• Special session

  27 Aug 2026 · 14:30–15:30

  Speaker:

  Dr Na Zhao, Singapore University of Technology and Design

  Date and Time:

  Thursday 27 August 2026, 14:30–15:30 (Adelaide)

  Title:

  Beyond the 3D Data Bottleneck: Foundation Models as Teachers, Annotators, and Reasoners

  Location:

  CE-AIML-G.42 Atrium

  Abstract:

  3D scene understanding and reasoning are limited less by architectures than by supervision. 3D annotation is slow and expensive, and the datasets we have remain orders of magnitude smaller than the image–text corpora that gave 2D vision and language models their open-world competence. The productive question, then, is what to borrow from foundation models, and how to route it into 3D. This talk traces that question through a series of our recent works, organized around a single observation in embodied AI. One ordinary instruction, such as "open the bottom drawer of the wooden cabinet with the flower vase on top", inherently demands four distinct capabilities: 1) recognizing categories outside the training vocabulary; 2) resolving which instance a description refers to; 3) reasoning about spatial arrangement; and 4) inferring how a part of an object can be acted upon. Across these works, 2D foundation models take on three roles. As teachers, they supply image-wise guidance and vision-language alignment for open-vocabulary 3D detection. As annotators, they synthesize diverse text–3D pairs that any existing 3D grounding method can consume. As reasoners, they operate directly over rendered viewpoints, replacing 3D-specific training with task-driven view selection to enable both spatial reasoning and fine-grained embodied reasoning, including predicting the location of affordance elements and how they move. Together, these works show which role a foundation model can usefully play in a given 3D task depending on where the bottleneck lies. I will close by looking ahead to instruction-driven embodied agents, and to the open challenges that stand in the way.

  Bio:

  Dr. Na Zhao is an Assistant Professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), where she directs the Intelligent Machine Perception Lab (IMPL). She received her PhD in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore, where her thesis was awarded the 2021 IMDA Excellence Prize for Best PhD Thesis. Her research spans 3D computer vision, machine learning, and embodied AI, with the goal of building trustworthy autonomous systems that can perceive, reason, and act reliably in real-world applications, including robotics and autonomous driving. She has published 70+ papers in leading venues, including CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, ICRA, IROS, IJCV, and TIP, and has attracted competitive research funding totaling over S$14M, including approximately S$4M as lead PI. She serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology and Knowledge-Based Systems, and as an Area Chair or Senior Program Committee member for venues including NeurIPS, ICLR, ACM MM, AAAI, and IJCAI. She is General Co-Chair of the 33rd International Conference on Multimedia Modeling (MMM 2027), Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Chair of the 36th ACM Web Conference (WWW 2027), and will serve as Technical Program Co-Chair of the 18th ACM International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval (ICMR 2028).

  Online:

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• GRS seminar

  31 Aug 2026 · 16:00–17:00

  Speaker:

  Professor Wolfgang Mayer

  Date and Time:

  Monday 31 August 2026, 16:00–17:00 (Adelaide)

  Title:

  SW Engineering Job Readiness in the AI Era

  Location:

  CE: Ingkarni Wardli 5.57 (IW5.57); ML: Mawson Lakes Building J, J2-15

  Abstract:

  GRS Series — Week 6 of 15.

• GRS seminar

  7 Sep 2026 · 16:00–17:00

  Speaker:

  Yuval Yarom

  Date and Time:

  Monday 7 September 2026, 16:00–17:00 (Adelaide)

  Title:

  TBD

  Location:

  CE: Ingkarni Wardli 5.57 (IW5.57); ML: Mawson Lakes Building J, J2-15

  Abstract:

  GRS Series — Week 7 of 15 (tentative).