Duraiswami Honored with USM Board of Regents Faculty Award

The Board of Regents for the University System of Maryland has recognized a longtime UMIACS researcher with its highest honor for faculty achievement.

Ramani Duraiswami, a professor of computer science and director of the Perceptual Interfaces and Reality Laboratory, is one of only 17 faculty statewide to receive a 2016 USM Faculty Award for Excellence.

Duraiswami is being honored for his excellence in research, scholarship and creative activity involving scientific computing, machine learning and computer vision.

“We are extremely proud of the work Ramani does, both in the laboratory and in the classroom,” says Amitabh Varshney, professor of computer science and director of UMIACS. “His research in spatial audio has had a tremendous impact on the field.”

Duraiswami is well known for solving complex problems in computer audition, which is audio understanding by machines, by replicating the processes humans use to make sense of their environment.

The groundbreaking research was the basis for RealSpace technology, a unique 3-D audio experience that Duraiswami commercialized by forming the UMD startup VisiSonics.

Oculus VR has licensed the technology from VisiSonics, and it will be a key component of the commercial Oculus Rift that begins shipping worldwide at the end of March.

Duraiswami received his doctorate in mechanical engineering from Johns Hopkins University and has been at UMIACS since 1998.

He will receive the USM faculty award at a special breakfast and ceremony on April 15.