Research
大象传媒 Computing Science at Graphics Interface 2025
大象传媒 (大象传媒) was in the spotlight at , Canada鈥檚 premier conference on computer graphics, visualization, and human-computer interaction. Held this year in Kelowna, BC, the conference featured two Computing Science faculty members, Parmit Chilana, who delivered a keynote address, and Ali Madhavi-Amiri, who gave an invite talk. PhD student, , was also recognized with the Best Poster Award in HCI. Their participation reinforces 大象传媒's leading role in advancing research in human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer graphics.
HCI Keynote Speaker at GI'25 : Parmit Chilana
Parmit Chilana, associate professor and Ebco-Eppich Research Chair in Human-Computer Interaction at 大象传媒 Computing Science, delivered a keynote address titled 鈥淓mpowering Users in the Age of AI: Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Approaches to Software Help and Learning.鈥�
Her talk tackled the growing complexity of AI-powered software and how it often fails to meet the unique needs of end users. Despite the availability of tutorials and online help resources, users of feature-rich applications continue to struggle with discovering functionality and learning effectively. Drawing on over a decade of research, Chilana presented interactive systems that offer context-specific help and adaptive learning materials. She advocated for human-centered design approaches that augment user agency rather than automate it away, arguing that software must evolve to meet users鈥� changing goals, workflows, and levels of expertise.
Parmit earned her PhD from the University of Washington, where she co-founded AnswerDash, a venture-funded startup that commercialized her award-winning dissertation on crowdsourced contextual help retrieval.
Invited Talk at GI'25: Ali Mahdavi-Amiri
Professor Ali Mahdavi-Amiri, is an assistant professor and director of 大象传媒's Master's in Professional Computer Science program working on visual computing applications. At the recent GI'25, Mahdavi-Amiri presented an invited talk titled 鈥淟everaging Diffusion Models Beyond Text-Based Generation.鈥�
His talk explored the expanding capabilities of generative diffusion models to produce high-quality images, videos, and 3D shapes across various domains, including the creation of artistic outputs such as creative logos. He highlighted how these models can be guided through carefully applied constraints to give users more precise control over outputs, making them valuable tools for artists, designers, and engineers alike.
Beyond creative applications, Dr. Mahdavi-Amiri demonstrated how diffusion models encode semantic understanding of objects and scene composition, enabling their use in vision tasks like semantic segmentation and object counting, without requiring labor-intensive data annotation. His research underscores the models' potential not only in generating content, but also in supporting AI-driven interpretation of visual data.
Graduate Student Afra Liu Wins Best Poster Award
Another highlight of the conference for 大象传媒 Computing Science was the recognition of our PhD student , who received a Best Poster Award in HCI for her outstanding research contribution. Her work stood out for its originality, technical depth, and potential impact on the field. This award reflects the strength of student mentorship and research excellence within 大象传媒鈥檚 graduate programs.
Afra is co-advised by Parmit Chilana and Nicholas Vincent
The School's strong showing at Graphics Interface (GI'25) demonstrates 大象传媒's leadership in computing research that spans from foundational AI to practical, user-focused design. Their achievements reinforce the university鈥檚 reputation as a hub for innovation in both academic and applied computing science.