Krisztian Balog

A selection of highlights from 2022:

• We organized ECIR’22 in Stavanger, Norway, marking it as the first major IR conference with a hybrid setup that allowed in-person travel after the pandemic. We wrote about our experiences in SIGIR Forum.
• Co-organized a workshop on Measuring the Quality of Explanations in Recommender Systems (SIGIR’22).
• Pioneered work on natural language user profiles for transparent and scrutable recommendation, published as a perspectives paper at SIGIR’22.
• Trond Linjordet successfully completed and defended his PhD thesis “A Critical Look at the Evaluation of Knowledge Graph Question Answering“.
• Two new PhD students started at IAI under my supervision: Nolwenn Bernard and Weronika Łajewska.
• Above all, I became a father this year, a personal milestone that far outshines any professional success. It has made me even more deliberate about where I spend my time, prompting me to say no more often, including accepting committee invitations and traveling to conferences.

A selection of highlights from 2021:

• Served as PC co-chair of the short paper track of CIKM’21.
• Organized workshops on Simulation for IR Evaluation (@SIGIR’21) and Personal Knowledge Graphs (@AKBC’21).
• Received a Best Paper Award at DESIRES’21.
• Ivica Kostric joined IAI as a PhD student.
• Joined Google as a Staff Research Scientist in a 50% role. In the remaining 70% I continue to work as a Professor at the University of Stavanger. (Yes, that adds up to 120% ;))