MICCAI 2026 Workshop: HemaRAI
A workshop on robust, fair, and clinically reliable AI for blood smear analysis
Red blood cell analysis and parasitemia detection are important tasks in clinical hematology and computational pathology. This workshop focuses on robust and trustworthy AI methods that can generalize across real-world domain shifts, support standardized evaluation, and accelerate clinically meaningful deployment.
Held in conjunction with MICCAI 2026. The workshop will take place on 1 October in Strasbourg, France.
Call for Papers
We welcome submissions on robust RBC morphology analysis, parasitemia detection, foundation models, self-supervised learning, fairness and generalization, reproducibility and benchmark design, and clinically relevant hematology AI.
Submitted papers will undergo peer review, with selected contributions featured as oral presentations.
Submissions are managed via OpenReview. Please use the link below to submit your paper.
Submission
Papers should follow the MICCAI 2026 submission format and be prepared for double-blind review. All submissions will be handled electronically through OpenReview.
Format
Submissions must use the MICCAI 2026 template in LNCS style: up to 8 pages for the main paper plus up to 2 pages of references. Papers must be submitted as searchable PDF files.
Submissions that exceed the page limit or violate formatting requirements may be rejected without review.
Review
Reviewing is double blind. Please remove author-identifying information from the manuscript, acknowledgments, links, supplementary files, and any other submitted material.
Authors should follow the MICCAI anonymity and paper submission guidelines when preparing their manuscripts.
Submission
HemaRAI uses OpenReview for online submission and review. Authors should submit through the workshop OpenReview site by the stated deadline.
Please make sure that the author list, conflicts of interest, subject areas, and manuscript metadata are complete and correct before the deadline.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material is optional and should be submitted by the same deadline as the main paper. The paper should clearly refer to any supplemental content, but reviewers are not required to consult it.
Originality
Submitted work must be original and must not be under review or accepted for publication elsewhere in substantially similar form. Archived preprints are permitted when they comply with MICCAI policies and do not compromise anonymity.
Proceedings
Accepted workshop papers are expected to follow the MICCAI Satellite Events proceedings process. Final publication details will be updated here once confirmed by MICCAI.
For full formatting and submission requirements, please consult the MICCAI 2026 Paper Submission Guidelines.
About
A focused discussion space for rigorous methods, meaningful evaluation, and translational thinking across hematology images.
Why This Workshop
Performance on curated datasets is not enough. The field needs methods that remain dependable across clinical settings and deployment conditions.
Blood smear analysis is highly sensitive to acquisition and preparation variability, making robustness and calibration central technical challenges.
Better tools can support diagnosis, triage, and laboratory workflow only when they align with clinical needs and practical constraints.
Shared evaluation protocols and rigorous benchmarks are key to comparing methods fairly and moving the field forward credibly.
Program
Opening remarks and workshop framing.
Authors: Jai Kumar Sharma; Peeyush Tapadiya
Speaker: Jai Kumar Sharma
Authors: Mohamed Elmanna; Ahmed Morsy; Muhammad Rushdi
Speaker: Mohamed Elmanna
Authors: Muditha Fernando; Tishan Rathnasekara; Saeedha Nazar; Avishka Perera; Tharindu Kaluarachchi
Speaker: Saeedha Nazar
Authors: Thierry Bossy; Andrea Loddo; Mirko Marras; Vittoria Pala; Alessandra Perniciano
Speaker: Alessandra Perniciano
Authors: Andrea Caputo; Lars Kaestner; Stephan Quint
Speaker: Andrea Caputo
Featured presentation on reliable computational pathology and clinically meaningful AI.
Audience discussion following the invited talk.
Wrap-up, outlook, and community follow-up.
Speaker
We are pleased to welcome Santiago Alférez as the HemaRAI invited speaker.
Assistant Professor · Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Biography: Santiago Alférez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. Since beginning his doctoral research at UPC in 2010, he has developed artificial intelligence methods for biomedical imaging in close collaboration with Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.
His work in computational hematology spans classical image analysis, machine and deep learning, generative adversarial networks, diffusion models, and explainable AI, with applications to abnormal blood cell recognition, diagnostic support for leukemia and lymphoma, malaria detection, and neutrophil morphology. He currently leads a Spanish national research project on explainable deep learning in medical image analysis.
His research aims to develop robust, interpretable, and clinically meaningful AI systems and has contributed to open blood cell datasets and patented technology for automatic blood cell analysis.
Organizers
The workshop is coordinated by an interdisciplinary team spanning academic research, translational AI, and biomedical image analysis.
General Chair
University of Cagliari
Program Chair · Webmaster
University of Cagliari
Clinical and Translational Advisor
PathOlOgics, LLC
Senior Advisory Chair
Helmholtz Munich
Program Chair
Helmholtz Munich
Webmaster
University of Cagliari
Keynote and Outreach Chair
University of Cagliari
Contact
For workshop-related inquiries, please contact the corresponding organizer.
Corresponding organizer
Dr. Andrea Loddo — andrea.loddo@unica.it
Webmasters: Luca Zedda, Davide Antonio Mura, Andrea Loddo