UMIACS Team Wins UMD Invention of the Year Award

A team of researchers in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) has received the UMD Invention of the Year award in the information sciences category for their robust facial recognition technology.

The team—Rama Chellappa (far right in photo), professor and chair of electrical and computer engineering (ECE), Carlos Castillo (left in photo), an assistant research scientist in UMIACS, and Rajeev Ranjan (center in photo), a doctoral student in ECE—were recognized at the annual Innovate Maryland celebration on April 11.

Their technology, “Robust System for Large Scale Facial Verification and Search,” uses deep convolutional neural networks to analyze immense databases of photos, and then collect detailed data about each face. The team’s software can identify features such as the gender and age of the subject as well as their pose and fiducial points, which are markers used as points of reference in digital imagery.

The UMIACS team envisions their invention being applied to many fields, including homeland security, human-computer interaction, secure online shopping, and smartphone and tablet security.

Go here to read more about the technology.