News

2026

• 2026 I will be presenting at the ACM AI Leadership Summit 2026: “From Substitution to Scaffolding: Breaking the Self-Reinforcing Harm Cycle of AI in Education (and Beyond)”.
• 25 Jun 2026 Invited talk at the IDIAP social computing group, Martigny: “Teaching AI to Ask: MAIKE, a Socratic Chatbot”.
• 5 May 2026 Presented the MAIKE classroom-study design at the ML4ED group seminar, EPFL, Lausanne.
• Apr 2026 Presented “MAIKE: Designing a Socratic Educational Chatbot to Foster Critical Thinking and Learner Agency” at the Tools for Thought workshop, ACM CHI 2026, Barcelona. Paper
• 16 Mar 2026 Outreach talk on AI to more than 700 high-school students at the IV ELLIS Alicante event for teenagers, Alicante. Press release
• Mar 2026 Started a six-month visiting research stay at the ML4ED lab, EPFL, Lausanne, hosted by Prof. Tanja Käser and funded by an ELIAS mobility grant (ELLIS Research Exchange 2026).
• 2026 New preprint: “Argumentative Essay Assessment with LLMs: A Critical Scoping Review” (Research Square). Preprint
• Feb 2026 New preprint: “Beyond Holistic Scores: Automatic Trait-Based Quality Scoring of Argumentative Essays” (arXiv:2602.04604). arXiv
• Feb 2026 New preprint: “AI in Education Beyond Learning Outcomes: Cognition, Agency, Emotion, and Ethics” (arXiv:2602.04598). arXiv

2025

• 12 Dec 2025 Presented “Leveraging Small LLMs for Argument Mining in Education” at the 25th International Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument (CMNA 2025), online. Workshop
• 12 Nov 2025 Television interview on intelligent tutoring systems, TV Andalucía. Video
• 29 Oct 2025 Presented the MAIKE project to the Galician Centre for Educational and Digital Innovation, Alicante.
• 8 Oct 2025 Talk on the risks and benefits of AI in education at “Youth, screens and relationships”, Proyecto Hombre, Murcia. Event
• 17 Sep 2025 Panelist at the Fundación Banco Sabadell round table “La Cultura del Talento”, Barcelona. La Vanguardia
• 17 Sep 2025 Panelist at the round table “Can AI make us more human?”, Samsung Innovation Campus Summit: AI for a Better World, Madrid. Samsung News
• 2 Sep 2025 Presented MAIKE at the ELIAS Plenary 2025, Alicante. Press
• 31 Jul 2025 Poster at the 12th Workshop on Argument Mining, ACL 2025, Vienna: “ELLIS Alicante at CQs-Gen 2025”. Paper
• 22 Jul 2025 Opening talk at the GenAIHEd workshop, AIED 2025, Palermo: “Do AI tutors empower or enslave learners?”.
• 8 Jul 2025 New paper on arXiv: “Do AI Tutors Empower or Enslave Learners? Toward a Critical Use of AI in Education”. arXiv
• 18 Jun 2025 New paper on arXiv: “ELLIS Alicante at CQs-Gen 2025: Winning the Critical Thinking Questions Shared Task”. arXiv
• 3–16 Jun 2025 Ramon Ruiz-Dolz joined ELLIS Alicante as a visiting researcher on the argument-mining project.
• 8 May 2025 Poster at the Jornada del Doctorado en Informática (JDI 2025), Universidad de Alicante. Poster
• 17 Apr 2025 Radio interview on the Critical Questions Generation shared-task win, Cadena SER.
• 11 Apr 2025 Ranked 1st of 13 international teams in the Critical Questions Generation Shared Task (12th Workshop on Argument Mining, ACL 2025). Press release
• 3 Mar 2025 Paper at the AI4ED workshop, AAAI 2025, Philadelphia: “Argument Mining in Education: Exploring the Potential of Open-Source Small LLMs”. PDF
• 25 Feb 2025 Poster presentation and co-organization of the Collaborative AI and Modeling of Humans (CAIHu) Bridge, AAAI 2025, Philadelphia.
• 21 Feb 2025 Outreach talk to more than 400 high-school students on careers in technology, Alicante.
• 21 Feb 2025 New preprint on arXiv: “Leveraging Small LLMs for Argument Mining in Education”. arXiv
• 19 Feb 2025 Talk for the Anna Lindh Foundation Spanish Network and Casa Mediterráneo at ELLIS Alicante: “Teaching chatbots how to ask the right questions”.

2024

• 18 Oct 2024 Talk at the AIEER 2024 workshop, ECAI 2024, Santiago de Compostela: “Enhancing Critical Thinking in Education with a Socratic Chatbot”.
• 26–30 Aug 2024 Poster at the ELLIS Doctoral Symposium 2024, Paris.
• 22 Aug 2024 Research visit to co-supervisor Prof. Tanja Käser and the ML4ED lab, EPFL, Lausanne.
• 7–8 May 2024 Invited speaker at “Shaping the Future, Keeping us Human”, Madrid.
• 2 May 2024 Best Poster Award at the Jornada del Doctorado en Informática (JDI 2024), Universidad de Alicante. Poster
• 19 Apr 2024 Outreach talk to high-school students on careers in technology, Alicante.
• 28 Mar 2024 Radio interview, “AI in the educational environment”, Radio Estudiantil (Universidad de Valencia).
• 1 Mar 2024 Talk at the Universidad de Alicante (and online): “Towards Student-Centric AI-Supported Learning”.
• 21 Feb 2024 Two posters at the Collaborative AI and Modeling of Humans (CAIHu) Bridge, AAAI 2024, Vancouver.
• 11 Feb 2024 Talk for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (11F), IES Mutxamel.

2023

• 2 Nov 2023 Started the PhD in Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at ELLIS Alicante (pan-European ELLIS PhD Program).
• 19 Oct 2023 Talk at “Structuring Knowledge for Flexible Behaviour”, FENS, Rungstedgaard, Denmark.
• 28 Aug – 1 Sep 2023 Poster at the ELLIS Doctoral Symposium 2023, Helsinki.