23rd EURASIP*/IAPR*/IEEE* Int.l Summer School for Advanced Studies on Biometrics, Behavior and Vision
HUMAN INTERACTIONS AND LARGE FOUNDATION MODELS
Alghero, Italy – June 8-12 2026 Contact: tista@uniss.it  https://biometrics.uniss.it
For the past 22 years this international Summer School provided an active and dynamic forum to closely follow the most recent developments in science and technology to offer a cutting edge, intensive training course, always up to date with the current state-of-the-art. This year's main topic will be the impact of generative AI and large foundation models on the development and deployment of biometrics and human recognition in different application domains to facilitate human interaction with artificial agents.
Machine learning, Image understanding, Signal analysis, Neuroscience, Robotics, Forensic science, Digital forensics and other disciplines, converged in a truly multidisciplinary effort to devise and build advanced systems to facilitate the interpretation of signals recorded from individuals acting in a given environment. This is what we simply call today "Biometrics".
Over the last decade the advent of Deep Learning and, more recently, Generative AI, strongly impacted both research and application of automatic biometric data analysis and recognition. However, other issues and concerns, not directly related to the computational performance, arise including the fairness, reliability and trustfulness of current biometric systems.
This edition of the school will address these issues trying to answer some compelling questions, such as:

- How to mitigate bias in recognition systems?
- How to design privacy-preserving and "ethical" AI models?
- What can we learn from human perception?
- How to better deploy current large foundation models?
- How to cope for adversarial attacks in biometric recognition?
- How human interactions can facilitate continual learning and adaptation?
- What is the potential impact of biometrics in forensic investigation and crime prevention?

The course follows the successful track of the International Summer Schools on Biometrics held since 2003 and it will provide a clear and in-depth picture on the state-of-the-art in biometric verification/identification technology, both under the theoretical and scientific point of view as well as in diverse application domains.
The lectures will be given by 18 outstanding experts in the field, from both academia and industry.
Open sessions will be organised with questions and answers moderated by leading experts in the field.
APPLICATION DEADLINE: February 15th 2026 download application form: https://biometrics.uniss.it
* Sponsorship approval pending
Participant application The school will be open to about 60 highly qualified, motivated and pre-selected applicants. Phd students, post-docs, researchers, forensic examiners, police officers and professionals are encouraged to apply. To attend the school classes, physical presence of the participants will be required. In exceptional cases of travel limitations, remote participation with videoconference facilities will be also allowed.
The expected school fees will be in the order of 1,900 € (400 € in videoconference) for students and 2,500 € (900 € in videoconference) for others.
The fees will include full board accommodation at the school premises, all courses and handling material. A limited number of scholarships, offered by the school sponsors, partially covering the fees, will be awarded to students, selected on the basis of their scientific background and on-going research work.
The scholarship request form can be downloaded from the school web site https://biometrics.uniss.it .
Phd students, researchers and post-docs are also encouraged to submit a short paper (6 pages maximum) for an oral presentation on their recent research activity.
Poster boards will be also available for all participants to display their current research or professional activities in the field.
Send a filled application form (download from http://biometrics.uniss.it ) together with a short curriculum vitae to: Prof. Massimo Tistarelli – e-mail: biometricsummerschool@gmail.com
Advance application is strictly required by February 15th 2026
School location The school will be hosted by Hotel Dei Pini (https://www.hoteldeipini.com/ ) in the Capo Caccia bay, near Alghero, Sardinia.
This is one of the most beautiful resorts in the Mediterranean Sea. The structure is beautifully immersed into the Capo Caccia bay.
The hotel Dei Pini has a recently renovated conference centre, fully equipped for scientific events.
The school venue, as well as the surroundings, proved to be a perfect environment for the school activities.
 School Committee
Massimo Tistarelli Computer Vision Laboratory University of Sassari, Italy
Josef Bigun  Department of Computer Science  Halmstad University, Sweden
Enrico Grosso Computer Vision Laboratory University of Sassari, Italy 
Anil K. Jain Biometrics laboratory Michigan State University, US
Distinguished lecturers from past school editions
Josef Bigun - Halmstad University – Sweden Thirimachos Bourlai - University of Georgia – USA Kevin Bowyer - University of Notre Dame – USA Vincent Bouatou - Idemia – France Rama Chellappa - University of Maryland – USA
Roberto Cipolla - Cambridge University – UK John Daugman - Cambridge University – UK Farzin Deravi - University of Kent – UK Andrzej Drygajlo - EPFL – Switzerland Jean-Luc Dugelay - Eurecom – France Ida Gobbini - Università di Bologna – Italy James Haxby - Dartmouth University – USA Anil K. Jain- Michigan State University – USA Ioannis Kakadiaris - University of Houston – USA Michael King - Florida Institute of Tech. – USA Joseph Kittler - University of Surrey – UK Chang-Tsun Li - Warwick University – UK Davide Maltoni - Università di Bologna – Italy Sebastien Marcel - IDIAP – Switzerland John Mason - Swansea University – UK Aldo Mattei - Arma dei Carabinieri – Italy Didier Meuwly - Netherlands Forensic Institute – NL Emilio Mordini MD - Responsible Technology – Italy Mark Nixon - University of Southampton – UK Alice O’Toole - University of Texas – USA Maja Pantic - Imperial College – UK Vishal Patel - Johns Hopkins University – USA Jonhaton Phillips - NIST – USA Tomaso Poggio - MIT – USA Nalini Ratha - University at Buffalo – USA Arun Ross - Michigan State University – USA Tieniu Tan - CASIA-NLPR – China Massimo Tistarelli - Università di Sassari – Italy Alessandro Verri - Università di Genova – Italy James Wayman - University of San Josè – USA Harry Wechsler - George Mason University – USA Lior Wolf - Mentee Robotics & Tel Aviv University – Israel