Christian Timmerer (head of ATHENA) is a full professor of computer science at Klagenfurt University, Institute of Information Technology (ITEC). He is a Co-Founder of Bitmovin Inc. where he is the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) and the Head of Research and Standardization. His research interests include immersive multimedia communication, streaming, adaptation, and quality of experience. Further information is available here.
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Hermann Hellwagner is a full professor of computer science at Klagenfurt University where he leads the research group “Multimedia Communication (MMC)” in the Institute of Information Technology (ITEC). His current research areas of interest are distributed multimedia systems, multimedia communications and adaptation, QoS/QoE, Information-Centric Networking (ICN), and communication multi-UAV networks. Further information is available here.
Hadi Amirpourazarian
is a PostDoc researcher in ATHENA. He received his B.Sc. degrees in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering, and he pursued his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering. He got his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Klagenfurt in 2022. He was involved in the project EmergIMG, a Portuguese consortium on emerging imaging technologies, funded by the Portuguese funding agency and H2020. Currently, he is working on the ATHENA project in cooperation with its industry partner Bitmovin. His research interests are image processing and compression, video processing and compression, quality of experience, emerging 3D imaging technology, and medical image analysis. Further information is available here.
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Farzad Tashtarian is a PostDoc Researcher in the ATHENA project. Before joining the team, he was an Assistant Professor at the Azad University of Mashhad, Iran. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. His current research areas of interest are End-to-End latency and QoE in Video Streaming, Video Networking, Software-Defined Networking (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Mathematical Modeling, and Distributed Optimization.
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Emanuele Artioli is a Ph.D. candidate in the ATHENA project. He received his M.Sc. in Data Science in 2022 from the University of Milan Bicocca, with a Master Thesis in collaboration with Bitmovin on Root Cause Analysis for Video Streaming errors. His current research interests include video analytics, machine learning, and quality of experience.
Mohammad Ghasempour is a Ph.D. student actively contributing to the ATHENA project.He earned his Master’s in Computer Architecture at the University of Tehran in 2018 and completed his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Semnan, Iran, in 2016. His research interests in compressed-domain video processing drive his specialization in video compression, streaming, and transcoding solutions.
Yiying Wei is currently pursuing her doctoral studies at the
Christian Doppler (CD) Laboratory ATHENA based at the University of Klagenfurt. She received the M.S. degree in Electronic and Digital Technology from the University of Nantes, France, and the B.S. degree in Information Engineering from the South China University of Technology. Her research interests include video compression and video streaming using deep learning.
Kamran Qureshi is a Ph.D. student working on the ATHENA project. He served as a lecturer for 5+ years at Abasyn University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He received his M.Sc. in Electronics Design from Mittuniversitetet, Sundsvall, Sweden. His research interests include computer vision, machine learning, and video compression, and he is currently working on immersive media technology.
Ayman Alkhateeb is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Information Technology (ITEC), working on the HoloSense project. He earned his M.Sc. in Communication Technologies and Multimedia from the University of Brescia, Italy, his thesis received the Best Student Paper Award at MMSP 2024. He has served as a lecture at Aleppo University and researcher at Brescia university. His research interests include holographic image/video coding, computer vision, and machine learning.
Milad Ghanbari 
holds a MSc. in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics from the Isfahan University of Technology, and is currently studying his second Master’s in Game Studies and Engineering at the University of Klagenfurt. Being proficient in the Unity Engine, his research interest in the ATHENA project includes developing interactive apps for the Apple Vision Pro (visionOS) using full immersive (Metal rendering) and mixed immersion (RealityKit PolySpatial) to evaluate depth perception in Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (XR).
Philipp Fößl is a master’s student in Informatics at the University of Klagenfurt, specializing in multimedia systems. He earned his bachelor’s in Applied Informatics from the same university. His research focuses on Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) algorithms for volumetric video streaming, evaluating recent approaches and implementing a selected algorithm in a controlled testbed to assess its performance.
