Advancing Computer Science Careers through Enhanced Networking and Training
ASCENT Faculty
Shih-Fu Chang is the lead PI for the ASCENT program. He is the Richard Dicker Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Director of the Digital Video and Multimedia Lab, and Senior Vice Dean of the Engineering School at Columbia University. He is an active researcher leading development of innovative technologies for multimedia information extraction and retrieval, while contributing to fundamental advances of the fields of machine learning, computer vision, and signal processing. In the past several decades, his group has developed some of the earliest image/video search engines, laying the foundation of the vibrant field of content-based visual search. Recognized by many paper awards and citation impacts, his scholarly work set trends in several important areas, such as compressed-domain video manipulation, video structure parsing, image authentication, large-scale high-dimensional data indexing, and semantic video search. His group demonstrated the top performance in the international video retrieval evaluation forum TRECVID (2008 and 2010). The video concept classifier library, ontology, and annotated corpora from his group have been used by many groups worldwide. He co-led the ADVENT university-industry research consortium with participation of more than 25 industry sponsors. He has received the IEEE Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award, the ACM SIG Multimedia Technical Achievement Award, the IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award, Service Recognition Awards from IEEE and ACM, and the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (2006-8), Chairman of Columbia Electrical Engineering Department (2007-2010), Senior Vice Dean of Columbia Engineering School (2012-date), and advisor for several companies and research institutes. His research has been broadly supported by government agencies as well as many industry sponsors. He is a Fellow of IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. I’m a great place for you to tell a story and let your users know a little more about you.
Julia Hirschberg is a co-PI for the ASCENT program. She is a Professor of Computer Science and Chair of the Computer Science Department at Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania. She worked at Bell Laboratories and AT&T Laboratories -- Research from 1985-2003 as a Member of Technical Staff and a Department Head, creating the Human-Computer Interface Research Department. She served as editor-in-chief of Computational Linguistics from 1993-2003 and co-editor-in-chief of Speech Communication from 2003-2006 and is now on the Editorial Board. She was on the Executive Board of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) from 1993-2003, on the Permanent Council of International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP) since 1996, and on the board of the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) from 1999-2007 (as President 2005-2007, Advisory Council 2007--). She now serves on the IEEE Speech and Language Processing Technical Committee, the Executive Board of the CRA, the AAAI Council, the Executive Board of the NAACL, and the board of the CRA-W. She has been active in working for diversity at AT&T and at Columbia. She has been a AAAI fellow since 1994, an ISCA Fellow since 2008, and a (founding) ACL Fellow since 2011. She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2014 and as an Honorary Member of the Association for Laboratory Phonology in the same year. She received an Honorary Doctorate (Hedersdoktor) from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Stockholm in 2007, a Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association (CESAA) Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award in 2009, the IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award in 2011, and the ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement in 2011.
Soulaymane Kachani is a co-PI for the ASCENT program. He conducts research in the fields of dynamic pricing, revenue management, logistics, supply chain management, algorithmic trading, statistical arbitrage, traffic flow modeling, and transportation analysis. He teaches courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the areas of quantitative corporate finance, industrial economics, operations consulting, logistics, pricing, and production and inventory planning. On July 1, 2014, Professor Kachani was appointed Vice Provost for Online Education at Columbia's Engineering School. Prior to that, he served as Special Assistant to the Provost for Online Education. In this role, he oversees the development of Columbia University’s online, teaching and learning strategies. Since July 1, 2011, Professor Kachani has also been serving as Vice Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He also serves on the Columbia University Senate, where he is a member of the University Senate Executive Committee and the Chair of the University Senate Budget Committee. Between 2008 and 2014, he was the Director of Master's Programs and the Director of Executive Education of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.
Eric Vieira is a co-PI for the ASCENT Program. Currently, he is the Director of Special Research Programs for the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at the City University of New York (CUNY). Vieira is a technology and business development specialist with extensive experience in life science technology assessment, including scientific and intellectual property due diligence, market analysis and valuation. He is also a community organizer and educator who has developed and led numerous seminars, workshops, courses and conferences to promote technology development and entrepreneurship in the NYC/Tri-State area. Vieira is currently exploring topics such as the ‘Open Innovation’ paradigm, ‘Big Data’ analysis and visualization, crowd-funding, the gamification of life science research, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) science investigations and crowd-sourced innovation challenges. His specialties are biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, early-stage technology development, alliance management, partnering, entrepreneurship, business development, competitive intelligence, market models, and asset valuation. His domain expertise is in genetics/genomics, oncology, hematology/oncology, autoimmunity, and metabolic disease/diabetes.
Barbara Knuth is a co-PI for the ASCENT program. She currently serves as Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School at Cornell University. As Vice Provost since April 1, 2010, she focuses on a number of key Provost Office priorities, including overseeing undergraduate enrollment through the Undergraduate Admissions Office and the Office of Financial Aid and Student Employment, as well as serving on the University Diversity Council. On July 1, 2010, Knuth became Dean of the Graduate School. In this role, she provides leadership for graduate education across the university. Knuth joined Cornell's Department of Natural Resources in 1986 in a research and teaching position, serving as Chair from 2002 to 2007. She served as Senior Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences from 2007 until 2010. Knuth is the Associate Director of the Human Dimensions Research Unit and a past president of the American Fisheries Society. She holds a Ph.D. in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and an M.En. in Environmental Science, a B.Phil. in Interdisciplinary Studies, and a B.A. in Zoology from Miami University. Her current research examines risk perception, communication and management focused on fisheries affected by chemical contaminants; ecosystem-based management approaches for Great Lakes and marine systems; and factors influencing human stewardship and use of natural resources, particularly fish and wildlife.
Kurt Becker is a co-PI for the ASCENT program. He is an international expert in the areas of the experimental and theoretical study of electron-driven processes in plasmas. He was part of a group of pioneering scientists who determined the ionization cross sections for atoms and molecules, which are critical to understanding the charge carrier formation in plasmas. He is also well known for microplasmas, or plasmas generated and sustained at atmospheric pressure. These plasmas are very unstable and prone to destructive arching. By confining these plasmas to less than 1mm, they become more stable. The plasmas provide a fertile environment for basic plasma physics and for developing new plasma technologies. Additional areas of interest include atomic, molecular and chemical physics, the development of new experimental techniques and processes, technology transfer, and IP commercialization. Becker joined the Polytechnic Institute of NYU faculty in his current capacity in 2007. Prior to joining NYU-Poly, Becker was associate director of the Center for Environmental Systems at the Stevens Institute of Technology from 2003-2007 and department head from 2000 to 2007. He earned a Diplom in Physik (M.S.) and Dr. rer. Nat. from the Universitat des Saarlandes in 1978 and 1981, respectively. He is the recipient of the Dr. Eduard-Martin Prize for Excellence in Research, an American Physical Society Fellowship, the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award (with Erich Kunhardt), and an honorary professorship from the Leopold Franzens Universitat. A prolific author, Becker has written over 200 articles in refereed journals and books, 375 conference presentations and abstracts and seven patents on the stabilization of atmospheric pressure plasmas and their applications. In addition, he has served on the editorial boards of numerous journals and was the invited presenter at national and international conferences.