News

We are so happy to welcome a new Ph.D. student, Shamim Samadi, in Fall 2017. Let us hear what she said about her research and MCL.

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?
My name is Shamim Samadi, and I am a Ph.D. student at the MCL lab in the department of Electrical Engineering at USC. Prior to joining MCL, I was a graduate student at the ECE department in NC State University, Raleigh, NC. I received my Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. I am passionate about machine learning and have recently grown a lot of interest in deep learning. My research expertise is applied machine learning and signal processing.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?
With a cozy beautiful campus in the heart of Los Angeles, USC is a lively environment and a top school with an outstanding Engineering program, particularly in my major. The MCL lab at USC is an excellent platform for doing original innovative research in machine learning and computer vision, with a dynamic and inspiring atmosphere.

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?
My goal is to build upon my current knowledge and expertise in machine learning and be able to make a contribution to the field.

We are so happy to welcome a new Ph.D. student, Jiali Duan, in Fall 2017. Let us hear what he said about his research and MCL.

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

I’m Jiali Duan from Chinese Academy of Sciences, who is passionate and enthusiastic about life and research, never cease to explore. From 2015.9-2016.3, I interned at AuthenMetric for Face Recognition and Liveness Detection. From 2014-2017, I worked closely with Prof. Stan Z, Li and published papers related to detection, face benchmark and video recognition. I also had an intern experience at Sensetime for image/video segmentation. In 2017, I was awarded with UCAS Presidential Award and Excellent Beijing Graduate. More information about me is also available at https://davidsonic.github.io/index/.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

MCL is an exuberant, marvelous family, in which I have made acquaintances with people who are intelligent and hospitable. I’m also very fortunate to meet Prof. Kuo, a kind and gentle mentor, who has a strong belief and ideal about research. As for my impression about USC, I have never ceased to be awed by its aesthetic beauty and mysteriously stunning appeal. I especially enjoy the sunshine and Romanesque architecture here at LA.

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

I would like to dedicate myself to research in the next coming years, pursuing the brightest pearl on the crown of the academia. I hope that my efforts could contribute as much as possible to our lab. My future expectation about MCL is that all group members could fight together, for the prosperity of our lab.

We are so happy to welcome a new summer intern student, Yubo, in Summer 2017. Let us hear what she said about her research and MCL.

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

I’m Yubo Zhang, a junior undergraduate from Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. I had participated in two projects in circuits analysis and bioinformatics area respectively in my sophomore year. My research interest turns to computer vision right now. Besides, I have passion to apply computer vision as well as deep learning methods to practical areas, such as medical images and HRI problems.

2. What’s your first impression of USC and MCL?

Although USC doesn’t hold a big campus, I am impressed by its beautiful scenery and well-designed architectures. I can feel it’s a school with confidence and proud. MCL has a friendly and hospitable environment. Everyone here has a positive attitude and is willing to help. Also, it is a lab where every member is enthusiastic about his/her work. A wonderful place to do research and it’s my honor to join MCL!

3. What’s your future expectation for MCL?

It is a good chance for me to learn more about deep learning, computer vision, and above all, how to do research in this area. Hope I can contribute much to my project and to my group.

We are so happy to welcome a new summer intern student, Zhilin Lu, in Summer 2017. Let us hear what he said about his research and MCL.

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

I am LU ZHILIN from the department of electronic engineering, Tsinghua, Beijing, and my hometown is Inner Mongolia.

My main research interest is Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. And I am interested in Computer Vision and Media Compression as well. These areas can actually form a sort of aggregation and improve one another. AR and VR technology is not that mature so far and there are still many problems to settle both in technology and commerce.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

MCL (Media Communications Lab) is a really wonderful place to join, providing open and passionate research environment.

Professor Kuo is a very kind and wise man and his opinion, like “You can’t be an engineer all along your career” really impressed me a lot. I meet loads of friendly, motivated and skillful seniors here as well and they help me in my research and life greatly.

When it comes to USC, I just want to say it’s really a beautiful school! Great sense of design is everywhere in the whole campus. What’s more, the P.E. and School of Cinematic Arts of USC are both fantastic.

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

I am leaving on August 12th and I do look forward to improving my research skills and accomplishing some concrete works before that. Besides, I hope that a long-term connection between friends that I make here and me can be made as well.

We are so happy to welcome a new summer intern student, Po-Cheng Tseng, in Summer 2017. Let us hear what he said about his research and MCL.

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself? (Previous research experience, project experience, research interest and expertise)

My name is Tseng, Po-Cheng , and I am currently a sophomore majoring in computer science in The Chinese University of Hong Kong. As a computer science student, I have had some internship experiences , which include, but not limited to ,web-scraping and writing websites, etc. Even though I currently only know very little about the field of artificial intelligence, I have been enamoured by the potential and the change that this field will bring about to the world, and it is always enjoyable to build something from scratch!

2. What’s your first impression of USC and MCL?

From the very moment that I stepped into the campus of USC, I have always felt an aura of perseverance and confidence around. Although USC does not boast the most beautiful buildings in the world, but everyone here is feverishly and relentlessly pursuing his or her goal, whether it be in the labs , on the track field or in the swimming pool.

MCL has always given me a vibe of friendliness and peacefulness, where everybody is willing to help each other when one encounters a problem. I love the symbiotic atmosphere created here!! I would like to give my special thanks to Eric, Sreedhar ,Alshivar and many others (I am not sure if I have spelt your names wrong haha) for showing me around upon my arrival here in the USC, and also Haqiang Wang , Wang Ye , for your generous help [...]