• Ph. D., Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 2007
  • M.A., Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 2004
  • M.S., Electrical Sciences and Computer Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2001
  • B.S., Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, 1999

Biography:

 

Dr. Velipasalar received the Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2007 and 2004, respectively, the M.S. degree in Electrical Sciences and Computer Engineering from Brown University in 2001, and the B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering with high honors from Bogazici University in 1999. During the summers of 2001 through 2005, she worked in the Exploratory Computer Vision Group at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, where she conducted research on automatic spatio-temporal event detection across multiple camera views, automatic people counting by using a single uncalibrated camera, and multi-object tracking. Between 2007 and 2011, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University.

 

The focus of her research has been on wireless embedded smart cameras, distributed multi-camera tracking and surveillance systems, and automatic event detection from videos. Her research interests include embedded computer vision, video/image processing, embedded smart camera systems, distributed multi-camera systems, pattern recognition, statistical learning, and signal processing.

 

Dr. Velipasalar received a Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2011. She is the recipient of the 2021 IEEE Region 1 Technological Innovation (Academic) Award and 2014 Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award. She is the coauthor of the paper, which received the 3rd place award at the 2011 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras. She received the Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME) 2006, for the paper titled "Design and Verification of Communication Protocols for Peer-to-Peer Multimedia Systems". She is also the recipient of the EPSCoR First Award, two UNL Layman awards, IBM Patent Application Award, and Princeton and Brown University Graduate Fellowships. Dr. Velipasalar is a senior member of the IEEE.

 

Research Interests:

  • Computer Vision

  • Video/Image Processing

  • Wireless Smart Camera Networks (Wi-SCaNs)

  • Distributed Smart Camera Systems

  • Embedded Smart Cameras

  • Multi-camera Multi-object Tracking

  • Video Event Detection

  • Object Recognition

  • Image Understanding and Multimedia

  • Distributed Computing

  • Pattern Recognition

  • Detection and Estimation

  • Statistical Learning

  • Signal Processing

Honors and Awards:

  • NSF CAREER Award, 2011.
  • Recipient of the 2021 IEEE Region 1 Technological Innovation (Academic) Award.
  • 2021 IAAI Deployed Application Award for our paper titled "Preclinical Stage Alzheimer's Disease Detection Using Magnetic Resonance Image Scans".
  • Top 25 most downloaded IEEE Sensors Journal paper in the months of January-September 2017, and June 2018.
  • Graduate School All-University Doctoral Prize, received by my former Ph.D. student Burak Kakillioglu, 2022.
  • Graduate School All-University Doctoral Prize, received by my former Ph.D. student Natalie Sommer, 2021.
  • Graduate School All-University Doctoral Prize, received by my former Ph.D. student Yantao Lu, 2020.
  • 2017 IEEE Green Communications & Computing Technical Committee Best Journal Paper Award for our paper titled "Analysis of Energy Efficiency in Fading Channels under QoS Constraints".
  • 2014 Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award.
  • Graduate School All University Doctoral Prize, received by my former Ph.D. student Akhan Almagambetov, 2014.
  • Nunan Research Day Poster Competition EECS Departmental Winner Award, received by Danushka Bandara (co-advised by Dr.Hirshfield), 2014.
  • Intelligent Transportation Society (ITS) of NY Best ITS Student Essay Award, received by my former Ph.D. student Akhan Almagambetov, based on our research on vehicle taillight tracking and alert signal detection, May 2013.
  • The college-wide award for "Applicability of Research to Business and Industry", received by my former Ph.D. student Akhan Almagambetov, Nunan Lecture and Research Day, April 2013.
  • Third place paper award at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras for the paper titled "Energy-efficient Feedback Tracking on Embedded Smart Cameras by Hardware-level Optimization", 2011
  • EPSCoR First Award, 2009

  • Layman Award as PI, 2007

  • Layman Award as Co-PI, 2009

  • Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME) for the paper titled "Design and Verification of Communication Protocols for Peer-to-Peer Multimedia Systems," 2006

  • IBM Patent Application Award, 2005

  • Travel Grant, Office of Graduate Affairs, Princeton University, 2005

  • Graduate Fellowship, Princeton University, 2002

  • Graduate Fellowship, Brown University, 1999

  • NETAS Scholarship given on highly selective basis to successful engineering students, 1999

  • Sabanci Scholarship for outstanding success at the university entrance examination, 1994

  • The award from Is Bank to the top 70 students, out of about 1 million, in the university entrance examination, 1994

Current Research Group:

  • Fatih Altay (August 2018- present)
  • Jiyang Wang (August 2019- present)
  • Feng Wang (August 2019- present)
  • Chenbin Pan (August 2019- present)
  • Weiheng Chai (August 2019- present)
  • Jiajing Chen (August 2020- present)
  • Minmin Yang (August 2021- present)

Former Students:

  • Chen Zhong (Ph.D.) (defense date: January 27, 2022)

    • Thesis Title: Learning-based Decision Making in Wireless Communications


  • Burak Kakillioglu (Ph.D.) (defense date: July 15, 2021)

    • Thesis Title: Computer Vision Applications for Autonomous Aerial Vehicles

    • Currently employed at Motorola.


  • Natalie Sommer (Ph.D.) (defense date: April 16, 2021)

    • Thesis Title: Multi-Label / Multi-Class Deep Learning Classification of Spatiotemporal Data

    • Currently employed at DeVry University.


  • Yu Zheng (Ph.D.) (defense date: April 16, 2021)

    • Thesis Title: Person Re-Identification and an Adversarial Attack and Defense for Person Re-Identification Networks


  • Yantao Lu (Ph.D.) (defense date: February 7, 2020)

    • Thesis Title: Human Activity Recognition from Egocentric Videos and Robustness Analysis of Deep Neural Networks

    • Currently employed at Northwestern Polytechnical University.


  • Maria Cornacchia (Ph.D.) (defense date: December 6, 2018)

    • Thesis Title: On Fusion-based Approaches for Detecting, Classifying and Tracking Objects from Image and Video Data

    • Currently employed at AFRL.


  • Danushka Bandara (Ph.D.) (defense date: July 30, 2018)(co-advisor Dr. Hirshfield)

    • Thesis Title: Machine Learning Methods for Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy


  • Chuang Ye (Ph.D.) (defense date: June 13, 2018) (co-advisor Dr. Gursoy)

    • Thesis Title: Multimedia Transmission over Wireless Networks: Performance Analysis and Optimal Resource Allocation

    • Currently employed at Hermes Microvision, San Jose, CA.


  • Koray Ozcan (Ph.D.) (defense date: March 3, 2017)

    • Thesis Title: Computer Vision Algorithms for Mobile Camera Applications

    • Currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at Iowa State University.


  • Yi Li (Ph.D.) (defense date: June 6, 2017) (co-advisor Dr. Gursoy)

    • Thesis Title: Delay QoS Provisioning and Optimal Resource Allocation for Wireless Networks

    • Currently employed at Intelligent Fusion Technology.


  • Mauricio Casares (Ph.D.) (defense date: April 14, 2014)

    • Thesis Title: Energy-Efficient and Lightweight Algorithms for Embedded Smart Cameras: Design, Implementation and Performance Analysis

    • Currently employed at Schneider Electric.


  • Akhan Almagambetov (Ph.D.) (defense date: August 16, 2013)

    • Thesis Title: Toward Computationally Lightweight Stationary and Mobile Computer Vision-based Traffic Surveillance for Assistive Devices in Intelligent Transportation Systems

    • Currently an Assistant Professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Arizona.


  • Youlu Wang (Ph.D.) (defense date: April 17, 2013)

    • Thesis Title: Distributed Multi-Object Tracking with Multi-camera Systems Composed of Overlapping and Non-overlapping Cameras

    • Currently employed at Qualcomm, San Diego, CA.


  • Deli Qiao (Ph.D.) (co-advised with Dr. Gursoy) (Fall 2007 -- Summer 2012)

    • Thesis Title: Wireless Communications under QoS Constraints: Energy Efficiency, Power and Rate Control, and Throughput.
    • Currently employed at Huawei Technologies, China.

  • Ayesha Ahmad (M.S.) (defense date: May 7, 2018)

    • Thesis Title: Object Recognition in 3D data using Capsules.

  • Alvaro Pinto (M.S.) (August 2008 - July 2011)

    • Currently employed at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.


  • Li He (M.S.) (co-advised with Dr. Gursoy) (August 2009 - July 2011)

    • Thesis Title: Detection-assisted Object Tracking by Mobile Cameras
    • Currently employed at Qualcomm, San Diego, CA.