Jeffrey C. Barrett, PI (external link)
Joining the Institute during the autumn semester 2026 | Genomics, Human genetics, Bioinformatics, Statistical genetics
ELLIS Institute Finland recruits 7 new principal investigators
The institute’s second call for AI and machine learning research group leaders attracted 315 applications. The seven newly recruited professors will join the institute as principal investigators during the 2026-2027 academic year.
Seven new principal investigators (PI) are set to join ELLIS Institute Finland, the second institute of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS). As principal investigators at the ELLIS Institute, they will lead research groups and hold professorships at partner universities across Finland. The ELLIS Institute faculty has now grown to 52 professors, who represent excellence in artificial intelligence and machine learning research.
“We are pleased to welcome these outstanding scientists to the institute and to Finland,” says Samuel Kaski, director of the institute and professor at Aalto University. “Some are already established scholars and others extremely promising early-career researchers. They all share a common drive to advance machine learning research and innovation.”
The seven new PIs, listed below, will join the institute throughout the 2026-2027 academic year. ELLIS Institute Finland is also currently recruiting new researchers.
Jeffrey C. Barrett will be co-affiliated with the University of Helsinki. He was most recently the Chief Scientific Officer at Nightingale Health. His research interests include genomics, biomarkers and prediction of human disease risk.
Hao Dong will be co-affiliated with Tampere University. He recently completed his PhD at ETH Zürich. His research will focus on how multimodal foundation models and agentic systems can safely adapt and generalize to new environments.
Hao Dong, PI (external link)
Joining the Institute during the autumn semester 2026 | Multimodal learning, Computer vision, Robotics
Xiaobai Li will be co-affiliated with the University of Jyväskylä. She is currently a professor at Zhejiang University. Her research focuses on analyzing videos to understand human emotions and psychological status, with applications in healthcare, affective computing, biometrics and AI security.
Xiaobai Li, PI (external link)
Joining the Institute during the autumn semester 2026 | Computer vision, Affective computing, Biometrics
Johan Pensar will be a PS Fellow affiliated with Åbo Akademi University. He was previously an associate professor at the University of Oslo. His research interests include statistical machine learning, probabilistic graphical models, and the intersection of causality and machine learning.
Johan Pensar, PI (external link)
Joining the Institute during the autumn semester 2026 | Statistical machine learning, Graphical models, Causal learning
Kıvanç Tatar will be a PS Fellow affiliated with the University of the Arts Helsinki. He is currently an associate professor at Chalmers University of Technology and a WASP-HS fellow in Sweden. His research focuses on AI for arts and music, combining generative modelling, musical AI, interactive AI, and critical computing.
Kıvanç Tatar, PI (external link)
Joining the Institute during the autumn semester 2026 | Generative modelling, Musical AI, Interactive AI, Critical computing
Anshul Thakur will be co-affiliated with the University of Oulu. He is currently a departmental lecturer in clinical machine learning at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on clinical AI through a theoretical and translational lens, spanning healthcare data democratization, reliable foundation models, clinical federated learning, and world models for adaptive clinical monitoring.
Anshul Thakur, PI (external link)
Joining the Institute during the autumn semester 2026 | AI, Safety-Critical AI, Clinical AI, Deep learning
Xucong Zhang will be co-affiliated with the University of Turku. He is currently an assistant professor at Delft University of Technology. His research interests include human-AI interaction and AI applications in healthcare.
Xucong Zhang, PI (external link)
Joining the Institute during the autumn semester 2026 | Computer vision, Gaze estimation, Human-AI interaction
About ELLIS Institute Finland
Established in 2025, ELLIS Institute Finland is the second institute in ELLIS, the pan-European AI network of excellence. It functions as a world-class research hub in AI and machine learning and a unique gateway to collaboration Europe-wide and globally. For researchers, the institute offers a dynamic, international research environment, access to cutting-edge computing resources (including the EuroHPC LUMI supercomputer), and close ties to both academia and industry in Finland and beyond. The institute operates in partnership with Finnish universities, RDI organizations and businesses, and is funded by Finland's Ministry of Education and Culture, partner organizations and private sources such as Foundation PS, established by Peter Sarlin to strengthen Finland’s and Europe’s AI ecosystem.
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