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Professor: Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta
Co-founder: humanfeedback.ai, modl.ai
PhD in Informatics: University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics, Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour (2006)
Bio
I am a Professor at the Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta (UM) and the co-founder of humanfeedback.ai and modl.ai. I received the PhD degree in Informatics from the University of Edinburgh in 2006. Between 2007 and 2012 I was an Associate Professor at the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University of Copenhagen. I do research at the crossroads of artificial intelligence, computational creativity, affective computing, advanced game technology, and human-computer interaction. I pursue research concepts such as user experience modelling and procedural content generation for the design of personalized interactive systems for entertainment, education, training and health. I have published over 350 journal and conference papers in the aforementioned fields (Google Scholar Profile Page). My research has been supported by numerous national and European grants (including a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship) and has appeared in Science Magazine and New Scientist among other venues. I have been involved in a number of journal editorial boards and I am currently the Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Games. I am the co-author of the Artificial Intelligence and Games textbook and the co-organiser of the Artificial Intelligence and Games summer school series. I am an IEEE Fellow.
Research Interests
Artificial Intelligence, Affective Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Games, Machine Learning, User Modeling, Procedural Content Generation, Computational Creativity, Preference Learning, Player Experience Modeling, Evolutionary Computation, Neural Networks
Awards and Honours (Selected)
IEEE Fellow (Class of 2024) for contributions to affective computing and artificial intelligence applied to games.
Best Paper Award and IEEE Best Paper Program Nomination, IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing for the paper The Ordinal Nature of Emotions: An Emerging Approach
IEEE CIS Outstanding Paper Award, IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games for the paper Crowdsourcing the Aesthetics of Platform Games.
Most Influential Paper Award, IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, for the paper Experience-Driven Procedural Content Generation. The award was presented at the Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Conference, 2015.
Current and Forthcoming Activities (Selected)
Editor in Chief of IEEE Transactions on Games.
Co-Author of the Artificial Intelligence and Games textbook, Springer Nature, 2015 (2nd Edition).
Co-Organizer of the Artificial Intelligence and Games Summer School Series (2018-present).
New Horizon Europe research project funded: PULSE-ART: Promoting Understanding and Lifelong learning Successful Education through the ARTs and culture, 2024-2027.
Past Activities (Selected)
- Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games and IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation
- Co-Editor of Emotion in Games: Theory and Praxis, Springer, 2016.
- General Chair of the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) Conference, Malta, September 2020.
- Program Chair of the IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games Conference, Santorini, Greece, 2016
- RSSD Research Excellence Fund completed: FRAME: ReFRAMing MachinE Learning via Ordinal Tensors and Deep Quality Diversity: 2020-2022.
- Horizon 2020 research project completed: Law-Game: 2022-2025.
- Horizon 2020 MSC IF research project completed: TAMED: 2020-2022.
- Horizon 2020 research project completed: PrismArch: 2020-2022.
- Horizon 2020 research project completed: AI4Media: 2020-2024.
- Erasmus+ research project completed: Learn to Machine Learn (LearnML): 2019-2022.
- Horizon 2020 research project completed: CoM_n_Play-Science: 2018-2020.
- Horizon 2020 research project completed: ENVISAGE: 2017-2019
- Erasmus+ research project completed: eCrisis: 2016-2019
- Horizon 2020 research project completed: CrossCult: 2016-2019
- ESF research project completed: AutoSemanticGame: 2016-2019
- FP7 Marie Curie CIG research project completed: AutoGameDesign: 2014-2018
- FP7-ICT research project completed: C2Learn: 2012-2015
- FP7-ICT research project completed: ILearnRW: 2012-2015
- Guest Editor of the Special Issue on Intelligence in Serious Games, IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games
- Guest Editor of the Special Issue on AI-based and AI-assisted Game Design, IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games
- Guest Editor of the Special Issue on Emotion in Games, IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing
- Chair of the IEEE Taskforce on Player Satisfaction Modeling, IEEE CIS (2007–2013)
- General Chair of the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) Conference, Chania, Greece, 2013
- Guest Editor of the Special Issue on Computational Aesthetics in Games, IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games
- RTI research project completed: Games for Health: 2010-2012
- FP7-ICT research project completed: SIREN: 2010-2013
- FTP research project completed: AGameComIn: 2009-2012
- Tutorials & Special Sessions Chair at the IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games Conference, Granada, 2012
- Co-Organizer of the ACII 2011 EmoGames Workshop, Memphis, USA.
- Co-Organizer of the ICMI 2011 AFFINE Workshop, Alicante, Spain.
- Tutorials & Special Sessions Chair at the IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games Conference, Seoul, 2011
- Chair of the EvoGames event, EvoStar 2011, Torino, Italy
- Tutorials Chair at the IEEE Games Innovation Conference, Hong Kong, 2010
- General Chair of the IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games, Copenhagen, 2010
- Chair of the EvoGames event, EvoStar 2010, Istanbul
- Sponsorship Chair of the IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games, Milan, 2009
- Chair of the Special Session on Player Satisfaction – IEEE CIG Symposium, Perth, Australia, 2008
- Chair of AIIDE’07 Workshop on Optimizing Player Satisfaction, Stanford University, 2007
- Chair of SAB’06 Workshop on Adaptive Approaches for Optimizing Player Satisfaction, Rome, 2006
