Signal and Information Processing and Robotics
Signal and Information Processing and Robotics at Duke University plays a key role at the intersection of fundamental science, domain knowledge, and theory and algorithms.
We build upon other strong departments, including mathematics, physics, statistics, computer science and the medical center, to address a wide-variety of challenging problems in science and technology. Within modern ECE programs, and particularly within Duke ECE, SIPR has generalized to include machine learning, statistics, and applied mathematics. Moreover, the focus problems are not simply signal and image processing, but now include information discovery and optimal design of measurement systems, for very high-dimensional data. Example areas of focus include genomics, in close cooperation with the Duke University Medical Center. There are also burgeoning collaborations with the Duke Marine Lab, on data of massive dimensionality and significant variability.
Defense applications continue to be a focus and strength, specifically in radar and sonar signal processing. We also have unique and emerging strengths in biosignal processing, ranging from cochlear implants and medical imaging to emergency room management and human-computer interfaces for prosthetic limbs.
Primary Faculty
David J. Brady
Michael J. Fitzpatrick Professor of Photonics in the Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School of Engineering
Research Interests: Professor Brady's research focuses on "smart cameras" which use artificial intelligence to increase the amount of visual information captured and to render this information useful. In 2012 his group built the world's first gigapixel camera, his work today focuses on making...
Robert Calderbank
Charles S. Sydnor Professor of Computer Science
Research Interests: Error control codes for quantum computing, wireless communication and the internet of things, coding theory for computer architecture, signal processing, machine learning
Lawrence Carin
James L. Meriam Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Applied statistics and machine learning
Yiran Chen
Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Nonvolatile memory and storage systems, neuromorphic computing, and mobile applications.
Leslie M. Collins
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Physics-based machine learning algorithms for big data, including developing remediation strategies for the hearing impaired and sensor-based algorithms for the detection of hazardous buried objects
Mary "Missy" Cummings
Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Human-unmanned vehicle interaction, human-autonomous system collaboration, human-systems engineering, public policy implications of unmanned vehicles, and the ethical and social impact of technology.
Ingrid Daubechies
James B. Duke Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Wavelet theory, signal processing, machine learning, computational geometry, time-frequency analysis
Michael E. Gehm
Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Primarily computational and compressive sensing and measurement in all modalities (with special emphasis in Electromagnetic/Optical from RF to x-ray and all forms of Mass spectrometry), with side interests in optical physics, high-performance x-ray simulation, and rapid-...
Michael Richard Gustafson
Associate Professor of the Practice of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Computational methods for image analysis and information extraction, discrete event simulations, curriculum development and deployment
Kris Hauser
Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Robot motion planning and control, semiautonomous robots, and integrating perception and planning
Lisa Gresham Huettel
Professor of the Practice in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Engineering education, pedagogy and curriculum development, applications of statistical signal processing
Jeffrey L. Krolik
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Physics-based and statistical signal processing, sensor array processing, radar and sonar systems, pervasive distributed processing
Hai "Helen" Li
Clare Boothe Luce Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Brain-inspired computing systems and neuromorphic design, memory design and architecture based on conventional and emerging technologies, and device/circuit/architecture co-design for low power and high performance.
Loren W. Nolte
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Bayesian approach to signal detection, classification, estimation, tracking and decision and sensor fusion. Applications in ocean acoustics, and in medical imaging for cancer research.
Douglas Nowacek
Randolph K. Repass and Sally-Christine Rodgers University Associate Professor of Conservation Technology in Environment and Engineering
Research Interests: Link between acoustic and motor behavior in marine mammals, specifically, how they use sound in ecological processes. Development of tools for marine conservation research
Miroslav Pajic
Nortel Networks Assistant Professor in the Pratt School of Engineering
Research Interests: Design and analysis of cyber-physical systems (CPS), in particular, embedded systems, distributed/networked control systems, CPS security, and high-confidence medical systems
Henry Pfister
Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Information theory, communications, probabilistic graphical models, machine learning, and deep neural networks
Galen Reeves
Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Information theory, high-dimensional statistical inference, statistical signal processing, compressed sensing, machine learning
Cynthia D. Rudin
Professor of Computer Science
Research Interests: Machine learning, interpretability and transparency of predictive models, causal inference, energy, criminal justice, healthcare
Guillermo Sapiro
James B. Duke Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Image and video processing, computer vision, computer graphics, computational vision, biomedical imaging, brain imaging, cryo-tomography of viruses, computational tools in cryo-tomography, computational tools in early diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, differential geometry and...
Stacy L. Tantum
Bell-Rhodes Associate Professor of the Practice of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Signal detection and estimation theory, statistical signal processing, pattern recognition and machine learning, remote sensing, matched-field processing, and ocean acoustics
Vahid Tarokh
Rhodes Family Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Representation, modeling, inference and prediction from data
Secondary Faculty
David Carlson
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Machine learning, predictive modeling, health data science, statistical neuroscience
Sina Farsiu
Paul Ruffin Scarborough Associate Professor of Engineering
Research Interests: Focused on medical imaging and machine learning to improve the overall health and vision outcome of patients with ocular and neurological diseases (e.g., age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, Alzheimer, and ALS) through earlier and personalized therapy.
Warren M. Grill
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Neural engineering and neural prostheses and include design and testing of electrodes and stimulation techniques, the electrical properties of tissues and cells, and computational neuroscience with applications in restoration of bladder function, treatment of movement disorders...
Katherine Heller
Assistant Professor of Statistical Science
Roarke W. Horstmeyer
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Computational optics, machine learning, and designing new algorithms for image processing. A main focus is to improve how we capture and use images of microscopic phenomena within a range of biomedical contexts. In general, I like to create new optical devices that can improve...
John Pearson
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
John H. Reif
A. Hollis Edens Professor of Computer Science in Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
Research Interests: Molecular assembly, DNA computing, robot motion planning, parallel algorithms, randomized algorithms, graph algorithms, algebraic computation, data compression, optical computation, and quantum computation.
Jiaming Xu
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Research Interests: Network science, machine learning, high-dimensional statistical inference, information theory, optimization, stochastic systems, game theory, communications and networking
Michail Zavlanos
Mary Milus Yoh and Harold L. Yoh, Jr. Associate Professor
Research Interests: Networked control systems, distributed control and optimization, hybrid control, with applications to robotic, sensor, communication, and biomolecular networks.
Research Faculty
Jordan Milton Malof
Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Application of advanced machine learning and computer vision techniques to real-world problems
Qiang Qiu
Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Machine learning, computer vision, pattern recognition, deep learning, biometrics applications, human activity recognition, image classification, object detection, representation learning
Adjunct Faculty
Xuejun Liao
Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Joshua Stohl
Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Signal processing for hearing aids and auditory prostheses, computational modeling of the auditory periphery, and the use of intracochlear and cortical evoked potentials in the development and refinement of methods for coding sound for users of cochlear implants.
Patrick Wang
Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering