Maria Bielikova

Research areas

• personalized web-based systems
• human-computer interaction analysis
• machine learning
• user modelling
• trustworthy AI

Maria developed the long-term vision and strategy for the institute. She also conducts research focusing on human-computer interaction analysis, user modelling and personalization. Recently, she has been working in data analysis and modelling of antisocial behavior on the Web. She is active in discussions on trustworthy AI at the national and European levels. For example, she is a former member of the High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence established by the European Commission. Currently she is a chair of the Permanent Committee for Ethics and Regulation of AI established by the Ministry of Investments, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic. She was also a member of the European Commission Joint Research Center Board of Governors.

Before her work at KInIT, Maria was employed at the Slovak University of Technology for more than 30 years — 15 as a full professor, lead of the PeWe research group (Personalized Web) and director of the User eXperience and Interaction research center. She is a former dean of the Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies (FIIT STU). She mentored talented students and participated in various international competitions, advancing several times to the world finals.

Selected achievements

• Head of the excellence team PeWe of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, 2019
• Slovakia IT Personality 2016
• Prize of the Minister of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic for exceptional results in internationally recognized research and the involvement of young talents in research (2010)
• Professor of the Year recognized by the Slovak University of Technology in 2006 and 2009
• 1st place in E-learning Competition ICETA 2010 category Supporting learning materials – Adaptive LEarning Framework ALEF
• ECUK, Engineering Council UK, registered Chartered Engineer (since 1998)

Selected activities

Maria believes in connecting experts from multiple fields and experiences. She was a founder of the Slovak Research Center for Artificial Intelligence — Slovak.AI — and is active in the AI research community, with a particular interest in recommenders and user modelling. She regularly serves as a reviewer for international journals. She is also a steering committee or program committee member of several international conferences, including UMAP, RecSys, IJCAI, The Web Conference and Hypertext.

Maria has participated in more than 30 research projects, mostly as principal investigator. She continually strives to be involved in international projects. Recently, she participated in projects with Bar Ilan University, Lugano University and British Columbia University. She was an initiator of industrial collaborations at FIIT STU and secured funding for more than ten industrial projects.

• Co-author of reports on trustworthy AI (High-level expert group on AI)
  • Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI
  • Policy and investment recommendations for trustworthy AI
  • Assessment list for trustworthy AI (ALTAI)
• Member of the editorial board
  • User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction
  • New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia
  • Journal of Intelligent Information Systems
  • Journal of Web Engineering
• Chair of the Permanent Committee for Ethics and Regulation of AI established by the Ministry of Investments, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic
• Leading PeWe (Personalized Web) Group at FIIT STU (2005-2020)
• Leading User eXperience and Interaction Research Centre (UXI) (2015-2020)
• Mentoring students in international competitions
  • Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC) (2000-2006). We were evaluated three times among top ten teams and participated in the World Finals (Washington, D.C.).
  • Imagine Cup Competition – Software Design category (2005-2011). We participated in the World Finals 2007 (Seoul), 2008 (Paris), 2009 (Cairo), 2010 (Warsaw).