Blaise Agüera y Arcas

Blaise Agüera y Arcas is a VP and Fellow at Google, where he serves as CTO of Technology & Society and founded Paradigms of Intelligence, a group dedicated to fundamental AI research. His work spans privacy-preserving and on-device machine learning, large language models, evolution, sociality and the foundations of intelligence. He is the author of Who Are We Now? and What Is Intelligence?: Lessons from AI About Evolution, Computing, and Minds (MIT Press, 2025), which develops a unified account of intelligence across living systems, societies and AI.

His work has been recognised with MIT Technology Review’s TR35 Award, while Fast Company named him among its Most Creative People in Business.

Albena Yaneva

Albena Yaneva is a sociologist and architectural theorist whose work connects science and technology studies, architectural theory, cognitive anthropology and political philosophy. She is a Full Professor at Politecnico di Torino and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia GSAPP. Her research examines how architecture is made, documented and transformed through practice. Her books include Crafting History: Archiving and the Quest for Architectural Legacy (2020), Latour for Architects (2022) and Architecture After COVID (2023).

She received the 2010 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University-located Research and was awarded the Lise Meitner Visiting Chair in Architecture at Lund University.

Behnaz Farahi

Behnaz Farahi is an Iranian-born American designer, creative technologist and educator working across architecture, fashion and interactive design. She is an Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab, where she leads the Critical Matter research group. Trained as an architect, she uses computational design, robotics and emerging materials to explore relationships between the human body, technology and the environment. Her publications include two volumes co-edited with Neil Leach: 3-D Printed Body Architecture (Wiley) and the more recent Interactive Design: Towards a Responsive Environment (Birkhäuser).

Her honours include the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Digital Design Award, Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Award, and the World Technology Award.

Marcos Cruz

Marcos Cruz is an architect and Professor of Innovative Environments at The Bartlett, UCL, where he co-directs the Bio-Integrated Design (Bio-ID) programme. His research explores bio-integrated and sustainable approaches to the built environment, with a focus on bioreceptive materials, living systems and the intersection of biotechnology, computation and fabrication. A former Director of The Bartlett, he also co-founded Studio Biocene and previously led MAM/marcosandmarjan. His work has been published and exhibited internationally and received the RIBA President’s Award for Research.

His research received the 2008 RIBA President’s Award for Research in the Outstanding PhD Thesis category.

Karla Saldaña Ochoa

Guzden Varinlioglu

Guzden Varinlioglu is an architect, computational designer and Lecturer at the University of Liverpool. Her research examines the intersection of architecture, immersive technologies, artificial intelligence and digital cultural heritage, focusing on how computational and multisensory tools reshape the documentation and interpretation of built environments. She holds a PhD in Art, Design and Architecture, an MFA in Graphic Design and a BArch, and has conducted interdisciplinary work at MIT, UCLA and Texas A&M. She is a Fulbright and Chevening alumna.

A Fulbright and Chevening scholar, she was also part of the team awarded the 2021 ASCAAD Best Presentation Award for its digital interpretation of Silk Road caravanserais.