Behind the Scenes at CUI 2026: HAII Student Volunteers in Bremen

Aria Kalforian and Soumik Bhattacharjee joined CUI 2026 as student volunteers, supporting four days of research, conversations, and community building while discovering just how much work goes into making a conference happen. From July 21 to 24, 2026, the ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI 2026) took place in Bremen in northern Germany. Hosted by the General Chairs Effie Law, Nima Zargham, and Thomas Eßmeyer together with the University of Bremen, this year’s conference followed the theme “Conversational AI: Agency and Identities.” It brought together researchers and practitioners interested in how people interact with conversational technologies, from voice assistants and chatbots to multimodal and agentic AI systems.

For the HAII group, the journey to Bremen was not too far from home, but it was still a special one. The visit was also a return to familiar surroundings for Soumik, who completed his Master’s degree in Digital Media at the University of Bremen.

It was Aria’s first time volunteering at an academic conference and Soumik’s second. Student volunteers are often among the first people attendees meet when they arrive and among the last to leave after a busy conference day. For Aria and Soumik, the role involved a wide range of tasks. They helped prepare goodie bags and badges, welcomed attendees at registration, transported and set up materials, supported poster sessions and workshops, and assisted session chairs during paper presentations. While the responsibilities were an important part of the experience, some of the strongest memories came from working with the other student volunteers. The SV team brought together students and early-career researchers from different universities, countries, and areas of HCI. Working closely over several days made it surprisingly easy to connect.

“Making friends felt incredibly natural,” Aria reflected. “Because we worked together throughout the conference, there was always something to talk about. We could discuss our research one moment and laugh about something completely unrelated the next. It felt different from networking as an attendee, where you might have to approach someone and immediately introduce yourself or your work. Here, friendships developed naturally through shared responsibilities.”

These connections felt especially meaningful because many of the SVs are at similar stages in their academic journeys. They are likely to meet again at future conferences as authors, reviewers, organizers, collaborators, or simply familiar faces in the HCI community.

CUI 2026 was held in Bremen’s historic city centre, with workshops at the Forum am Domshof and the main conference program at the Haus der Wissenschaft. This placed the conference only a short walk from the cathedral, market square, town hall, and some of the city’s best-known landmarks.

Also, from a cultural perspective, Bremen has to offer many options. A visit to Bremen would not be complete without stopping at the statue of the Bremen Town Musicians (Bremer Stadtmusikanten). The famous donkey, dog, cat, and rooster stand beside the town hall, inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Aria and Soumik made sure to follow the local tradition correctly by holding both of the donkey’s front legs and hopefully brought some of that luck back to Dortmund.

They returned to Dortmund tired, happy, and carrying much more than their conference goodie bags. CUI 2026 offered new research perspectives, a better understanding of how academic conferences work, and friendships that will hopefully continue across many future HCI events.