The 9^th  Summer School on Computational Interaction, ACM Europe School will be held at Sorbonne Université (campus Jussieu). It will take place on June 16 – 20, 2025.

This summer school teaches HCI students, researchers, and industry professionals computational methods and their application in user interface design, interactive systems, user modeling, and more. Each day will feature one or two outstanding speakers who will share their expertise on a technical topic relevant to Computational Interaction. Individual lectures will give students an overview of different topics in Computational Interaction, and will include exercises that will give students hands-on experience with Computational Interaction research.

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Important dates

•  January 31^st, 2025 – Applications for the summer school open
•  March 14^th, 2025 – Application Deadline
•  March 21^st, 2025 – Admissions notifications
•  June 16^th, 2025 – Start of Summer School
•  June 20^th, 2025 – End of Summer School

All deadlines are in Anywhere on Earth (AoE) time zone.

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Topics

We put together a remarkable program that features the leading experts in the area of computational interaction. These are the confirmed topics so far:

Forward and inverse modelling in input 
by John H. Williamson, University of Glasgow, Scotland

This session will discuss Bayesian probabilistic approaches to interactive system engineering. It will contrast this to traditional ML approaches and discuss how probabilistic inference is a distinctive and fruitful approach to building interactive systems. The session will bring together modern probabilistic Bayesian models and machine learning approaches and demonstrate practical implementations.

Modeling interactive behavior with computational rationality
by Antti Oulasvirta, Alto University, Finland

Cognitive models simulate how users perceive, think, and act when interacting with computers. They offer a powerful approach for understanding and optimizing interactive systems. This block starts with a review of so-called architecture based models of cognition such as GOMS and ACT-R. We then introduce modern modeling approaches powered by machine learning methods, in particular deep reinforcement learning. The block offers hands-on Python programming experience with notebooks

Demystifying Large Language Models and exploring new Frontiers in Interaction and User Experience
by Laure Soulier, Sorbonne Université, France

Large Language Models (LLMs) are now standard models in natural language processing and computer vision, but also powerful tools for interdisciplinary research. In this talk, we will dive deep into the inner workings of large language models by exploring the backbone architecture of current models called Transformer, the training and fine-tuning processes as well as the emergent abilities. We will discuss how LLMs impact research based on users’ interactions (such as information retrieval) but also how it can improve the information accessibility.
The practical session will include some basic notions around LLMs with application on different tasks closed to HCI (conversational agents, simulating user data, …).

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Schedule

TBD

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Venue

Sorbonne Université is located in Paris, France. The institution’s legacy reaches back to the Middle Ages. Sorbonne Université is one of the most sought after universities by students and researchers from France, Europe, and the French speaking countries. It has three faculties: Arts and Humanities, Science and Engineering, and Medicine.

Sorbonne Université is situated in the Latin Quarter (Quartier Latin) known for its student life, lively atmosphere, and bistros. The Latin Quarter is is home to many academic institutions and university libraries.

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Useful links

Here are some useful links for your trip to Paris, France:

• Arriving by trains
• Getting around on the metro

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Hosts

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Student volunteers

TBD

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Advisors

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Registration

Please submit your application using this form. The form will ask you to submit a CV, and a short research statement (no longer than 1 pages) describing your: research interests and a brief description of how attending this summer school will help you in your research. The deadline for applications is March 14, 2025 11:59PM.

The summer school hosts up to 30 students, researchers, faculty members, or practitioners. Participants will be selected based on their motivation, background, and diversity. Notifications of admission will be sent out by March 21^st, 2025.

Note that submitting an application is a binding registration. Upon acceptance you will need to pay the registration fees as detailed below.

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Choose your registration plan

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Prerequisites

The summer school has no special prerequisites. However, examples and practical exercises will be given in Python using Jupyter notebooks. Thus, familiarity with Python is recommended.

In addition, familiarity with Machine Learning, and basic skills in Linear Algebra and Probability Theory are also beneficial.