We are thrilled to announce that Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman will be joining the UW CSE faculty this fall.
Ira works in computer vision and computer graphics, with a particular interest in developing computational tools to enable capturing, modeling and rendering a person’s appearance and behavior from the billions of photos that can be now found online or in personal photo collections. As a consultant to Google, she transitioned her recent work “Exploring Photobios” into “Face Movie,” the signature feature of the latest release of Picasa. Currently a Postdoctoral researcher in UW CSE, Ira received her B.Sc. with honors in computer science and mathematics at the Bar-Ilan University in 2001 and M.Sc. and Ph.D in computer science and applied mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2004 and 2009 respectively.
The addition of Ira and of Ali Farhadi to the UW CSE faculty further enhances our already superb capabilities in computer graphics, computer vision, games, and animation. Here’s what the GRAIL team has accomplished in just the past few years:
Student recognition:
- Three Ph.D. students recognized in the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award competition in the past six years: Seth Cooper (winner, 2012), Noah Snavely (honorable mention, 2009), and Aseem Agarwala (honorable mention, 2006).
- TR35 awards to Ph.D. alums Noah Snavely (2011), Adrien Treuille (2009), and Karen Liu (2008).
- Sloan Research Fellowships to Noah Snavely (2012), Karen Liu (2010), and Li Zhang (2010). (Li Zhang also received a Packard Fellowship in 2010.)
- Technical Academy Awards to Ph.D. alums Brett Allen and Per Christensen, both in 2010.
Tech transfer:
- Microsoft Photosynth
- Microsoft Group Shot
- Google Picasa Face Movie
- Google Maps Photo Tours
- Electronic Arts continuum crowds and style-based inverse kinematics
- Adobe Photoshop Auto-Align vignette correction
- Adobe Photoshop Elements Photomerge
- Adobe After Effects Roto Brush
- ESPN/NASCAR/Sportvision Draft Track
Breakthrough games for science and for learning:
With the addition of Ira and Ali, there is even more to come!