KEYNOTE PRESENTERS
Lydia Cao, PhD
Lydia Cao is an Assistant Professor of Digital Technologies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. She received her PhD in Education from the University of Cambridge in 2022. She has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and University of Toronto. Her research focuses on developing collaborative AI systems and learning analytics, transforming Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) with digital technologies, and investigating AI-powered immersive technologies for complex skill development and assessment. Her work on cross-community knowledge building in sustainability education has won the “Outstanding Long Paper Award” at the International Society of Learning Sciences Annual Conference in 2025. She has delivered numerous invited talks and guest lectures on a variety of AI and sustainability topics to audiences in Australia, Canada, China, India, Singapore, the UK, and the US. She currently teaches Introduction to AI in Education at the University of Toronto.
Jack Reed, PhD
Jack Reed is a Research Fellow at the University of Exeter in the UK and holds a PhD in Education from the University of Edinburgh. His research has examined the influence of mobile technologies in outdoor education and Jack has emerged as a world-leading thinker in postdigital theory, with numerous peer reviewed publications on the relationships between people, technologies and nature. Beyond his academic work, Jack can be found in the mountains, and he is an accomplished cyclist (mostly in cross-country mountain biking). He lives in the UK with his wife, Catherine, and their cat, Pickle.
