Computer Graphics, Machine Vision, Computational Photography
I'm primarily interested in how we acquire models of the visual
complexity of the real world. I've worked on interpreting images from
standard cameras, and also building new kinds of cameras, 3D sensors,
and other crazy devices to make these measurements. Of course
displaying this visual complexity is as important as measuring it.
Current projects relate to image based sensors for relightable images,
as well as novel displays for both relightable images and 3D stereo.
Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD)
Computing technology has historically had huge impacts on the cost
structure of many industries, dramatically lowering the costs of some
activities, which in turn affects what is possible. It has the
potential to have similar huge impacts on global poverty, by similarly
lowering costs in key places. Current projects are related to
delivering digital work to needy populations, telemedicine eye care,
and measuring water collection time and distances in urban informal
settlements.
Human Computation
Silicon computers can't do everything. For example, they are terrible
at most tasks in computer vision. However people have great visual
reasoning skills. If we could just make a function call to a person, we
could build many computer systems and services that are currently
impossible. The field of human computation is broadly about how we can
actually build these sorts of joint systems. For me, this ties together
the two areas above. I have current research both reinventing computer
vision to make use of human computation, as well as looking at the
skills and employability of the human workers who are now part of the
system.
Entrepreneurship
While I don't publish on entrepreneurship in the academic sense that a economics professor does, I am
deeply interested in how we bring our academic research to actual use
in the real world. I'm on the advisory boards of a number of startups
which range from brand new student dreams to companies with 8-digit
valuations. I was the founding Director of the Center for
Entrepreneurship at UCSC, and it has now trasitioned to other leadership.
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