The Department is pleased to welcome Guillermo Sapiro, a professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering with a primary appointment in the Pratt School of Engineering.

Sapiro is one of the leading figures in image processing, computer vision and biomedical and brain imaging. In addition to brain imaging, he currently is focusing his research time on consumer images, disease detection and behavioral analysis.

“He has made seminal contributions also to applied mathematics, differential equations, machine learning and scientific computing,” Computer Science Chairman Carlo Tomasi said. “He is also keenly interested in education and is developing a new Coursera course on image and video processing in order to explore opportunities offered by the new trends in massive online open courses.”

The online course will be offered in January, when Sapiro also will teach a course at Duke introducing advanced image processing.

Sapiro, who received his doctorate from Technion: Israel Institute of Technology, previously worked for 15 years at the University of Minnesota. He also has worked at Hewlett Packard Labs researching image processing. There, he developed an algorithm for image compression that was used in a previous Mars rover expedition as well as the current one. He joined Duke largely because of the opportunities for collaboration within his own discipline and others.

“I found it a very attractive place for the type of interdisciplinary work that I’ve been interested in the last few years,” he said. “I think it has a lot of great colleagues to work with.”

Since starting in July, Sapiro already has established a robust network of collaborations with students and colleagues, Tomasi noted.

“We are honored to have Guillermo among us,” Tomasi said. “I am looking forward to collaborating with him and to more of our very pleasant and engaging chats over coffee — an experience I highly recommend.”

Sapiro received the 2011 Test of Time Award from the International Conference on Computer Vision for his 1995 paper “Geodesic Active Contours.” The award is given to a paper that stands the test of time and has shown a significant and long-term effect on computer vision. According to Google Scholar, the paper has been cited more than 3,500 times. Sapiro also is the recipient of a number of other awards, including the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program Award; the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award; and the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers.