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Administrative data

Daniel Gatica-Perez

daniel.gatica-perez@epfl.ch +41 21 693 11 11

EPFL STI IEM LIDIAP
ELD 241 (Bâtiment ELD)
Station 11
1015 Lausanne

EPFL CDH SODH-GE
INN 138 (Bâtiment INN)
Station 14
1015 Lausanne

EPFL SCI-IC-DGP
INN 138 (Bâtiment INN)
Station 14
1015 Lausanne

Expertise

Social computing, human-centered computing, social media, ubiquitous computing, participatory methods

Current work

My research integrates human-centered and participatory methods with mobile, social, and machine learning technologies to study how people and technology interact in everyday life, and to support individuals and communities using these technologies. I also work with organizations on social innovation projects. 

Website

www.idiap.ch/~gatica
I am Professeur Titulaire at EPFL and direct the Social Computing Group at Idiap. I am a faculty member of the School of Engineering (STI) and (by courtesy) of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC). My research has been supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, Innosuisse, the European Commission, industry, and foundations. I have served in the editorial board of the leading journals in ubiquitous computing and multimedia; and served as General Co-Chair or Program Co-Chair of the premier conferences in ubiquitous computing, multimedia, and multimodal interaction.

Education

PhD

| Electrical Engineering

2001 – 2001 University of Washington

Awards

Best Paper Award, ACM Int. Conf. on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS)

2026

Best Paper Award, Int. Conf. on Communities and Technologies (C&T)

2025

EPFL Digital Humanities Best Teacher Award

2024

Distinguished Paper Award, PACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT)

2023

Sustained Accomplishment Award, ACM Int. Conf. on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI)

2022

Ten-Year Impact Paper Award, ACM Int. Joint Conf. on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp)

2022

Teaching & PhD

PhD Students

Kimia Alavi, Ravinithesh Annapureddy, Matilde Barbini, Pierre Anton Beckmann, Victor Bros, Nil Yagmur Ilba, Aurel Ruben Mäder, Isabelle Mohr, Stefano Sorrentino

Past EPFL PhD Students

Joan Isaac Biel Tres (2013), Gülcan Can (2017), Katayoun Farrahi (2011), Dinesh Babu Jayagopi (2011), Jan Frederik Jonas Florian Mai (2023), Andreas Thomas Marfurt (2023), Lakmal Buddika Meegahapola (2024), Skanda Muralidhar (2019), Radu Andrei Negoescu (2011), Laurent Son Nguyen (2015), Thanh Trung Phan (2020), Jessica Pidoux (2021), Edgar Roman Rangel (2013), Sina Sajadmanesh (2023), Dairazalia Sanchez Cortes (2013), Darshan Santani (2016), Suhan Narayana Shetty (2024), Sandrine Tornay (2021)

Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector

Seyed Mohammad Mahdi Johari (2024), Florent Monay Michaud (2007), Sree Hari Krishnan Parthasarathi (2011), Kevin Smith (2007), Dong Zhang (2006)

Courses

Computational Social Media

DH-500

The course integrates concepts from media studies, machine learning, multimedia, and network science to characterize social practices and analyze content in platforms like Twitter/X, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Students will learn methods to understand socio-technical phenomena in social media.