Keynote Lectures

Johan Bollen is a Professor at the Indiana University School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. He was formerly a staff scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 2005-2009, and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science of Old Dominion University from 2002 to 2005. He obtained his PhD in Experimental Psychology from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in 2001. He has published more than 75 articles on computational social science, social media analytics, informetrics, and digital libraries. His research has been funded by the NSF, DARPA, IARPA, EDA, NASA, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Jack Dongarra specializes in numerical algorithms in linear algebra, parallel computing, the use of advanced computer architectures, programming methodology, and tools for parallel computers. He holds appointments at the University of Manchester, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the University of Tennessee, where he founded the Innovative Computing Laboratory. In 2019 he received the ACM/SIAM Computational Science and Engineering Prize. In 2020 he received the IEEE-CS Computer Pioneer Award. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, ACM, IEEE, and SIAM; a foreign member of the British Royal Society and a member of the US National Academy of Engineering. Most recently, he received the 2021 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his pioneering contributions to numerical algorithms and software that have driven decades of extraordinary progress in computing performance and applications.

Mile Gu is a New Zealand citizen who completed his undergraduate at the University of Auckland with a triple major in mathematics, physics and computer science. His interest in the cross-disciplinary research in these areas propelled him to do a PhD in the field of quantum computation, graduating from the University of Queensland in 2009.
After a 4-year research fellowship at the center for quantum technologies in Singapore, Gu joined Tsinghua University as tenure-track faculty under the Chinese 1000 talent program. In 2016, he moved to the Nanyang Technological University as a National Research Foundation Fellow to establish the Quantum and Complexity Science Initiative – aimed at pioneering a new direction of research that interfaces quantum information and complexity.
During his research career, Gu has established a string of novel connections between scientific concepts that were previously unrelated. Notable contributions include a proof – using the methods of theoretical computer science – that not all properties of a macroscopic system can be determined from microscopic laws (see Nature 459, 332-334) and demonstrate that quantum mechanics may change what systems are considered complex (Nat. Comm 3,76). In addition, Gu jointly demonstrated that the simplest solution to a computational problem can be thought as free fall in some curved space, and discovered that different quantum phases may have different computational power.

Dr. Erika Fille T. Legara is a physicist and complex systems scientist with a Ph.D. in Physics. Her career spans academia, government, industry, and the corporate world, giving her a unique perspective on applying computational approaches across diverse sectors. She currently serves as the Managing Director and Chief AI and Data Officer of the Philippines Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Center for AI Research (CAIR), where she leads efforts to harness data and artificial intelligence for national development. Previously, she was the founding Academic Director of the Data Science Program at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), where she designed a forward-thinking curriculum integrating computational and data science with real-world applications.
Dr. Legara’s background in complex systems science underpins her work in addressing multifaceted challenges, from urban systems modeling to policy development and industrial optimization. Her experience across multiple sectors allows her to bridge disciplinary boundaries and explore innovative solutions to complex problems, making her insights highly relevant to ICCS 2025’s theme of “Making Complex Systems Tractable through Computational Science.”

Prof. Yong-Wei ZHANG is a Distinguished Principal Scientist at Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore. He also holds adjunct professorship at the National University of Singapore and Singapore University of Technology and Design. His research focuses on developing and applying multiscale modelling and simulation methods to investigate the structural, mechanical, electronic, thermal and chemical properties of materials. These efforts aim to advance new material design, additive manufacturing, nano-electronics, and energy conversion and storage. He has published over 550 journal papers, garnering more than 46,000 citations. He was recognized as a Global Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate for the years 2018 through 2022 and again in 2024. He is a Distinguished Institute Fellow at A*STAR and a Fellow of the Society of Engineering Science.