The International Association of Smart Learning Environments (IASLE) is delighted to announce that Dr. Sonsoles López-Pernas of the University of Eastern Finland has been selected as the recipient of the inaugural IASLE Emerging Scholar Award (2026).

Established in 2026, the IASLE Emerging Scholar Award recognizes an outstanding early career researcher who has made significant contributions to the field of smart learning environments, demonstrated high-quality research outcomes, and actively engaged with the academic community. As the first edition of the award, this year’s selection marks an important milestone in IASLE’s efforts to celebrate and support emerging talent in the smart learning community.

Dr. López-Pernas’s research focuses on learning analytics and artificial intelligence in education, with influential work spanning precision education, the modeling of learning processes as complex systems, and technology-enhanced learning. Her publications and open-source contributions have had a wide-reaching impact on the international learning analytics community.

Following an open call for nominations, the IASLE Awards Committee received several strong nominations from across the globe. After careful evaluation against the award’s selection criteria — research quality and impact, publication quality and influence, IASLE contributions and involvements, and community service and engagement — the committee, chaired by Prof. Maiga Chang (Athabasca University, Canada), selected Dr. López-Pernas as this year’s awardee by majority vote.

IASLE sincerely thanks all nominators and nominees for their participation in this inaugural cycle, and encourages the community to take part in future award cycles.

Dr. López-Pernas will receive the award certificate at the 10th International Conference on Smart Learning Environments (ICSLE 2026), to be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on October 19–20, 2026, where she will also deliver an award talk. We warmly congratulate Dr. López-Pernas on this well-deserved recognition and look forward to welcoming her in Tashkent.