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: DISP uses joint design of physical sampling and digital processing strategies to develop high performance sensor systems. DISP builds instruments for visible, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, millimeter wave, terahertz, acoustic and ion imaging and spectroscopy. DISP has made particular contributions...
Lawrence Carin
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Applied statistics and machine learning.
Leslie M. Collins
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: This laboratory's research is in the area of physics-based statistical signal processing algorithms, and we are actively engaged in two general application areas: (1) Investigating human auditory perception and developing remediation strategies for the hearing impaired; (2) developing sensor-based...
Michael Richard Gustafson
Associate Professor of the Practice of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Kris Hauser
Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Research interests include robot motion planning and control, semiautonomous robots, and integrating perception and planning. Past applications of this research have included automated vehicle collision avoidance, robotic manipulation, robot-assisted medicine, and legged locomotion.
Lisa Gresham Huettel
Professor of the Practice in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Douglas Nowacek
Randolph K. Repass and Sally-Christine Rodgers University Associate Professor of Conservation Technology in the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School of Engineering
Research Interests: Sound propagates very efficiently through sea water, and marine mammals take advantage of this medium to communicate and explore their environment. My research is focused on the link between acoustic and motor behavior in marine mammals, primarily cetaceans and manatees, specifically, how they use...
Miroslav Pajic
Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Miroslav Pajic's research focuses on the design and analysis of cyber-physical systems. In particular, his research explores real-time and embedded systems, distributed/networked control systems, and high-confidence medical device systems. Because his research is frequently motivated by problems...
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.
Guillermo Sapiro
Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School 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 differential...
Stacy L. Tantum
Associate Professor of the Practice in the Department 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.
Secondary Faculty
Mary "Missy" Cummings
Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
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.
David B. Dunson
Arts and Sciences Professor of Statistical Science
Research Interests: Development of Bayesian methods motivated by applications with complex and high-dimensional data. A particular focus is on nonparametric Bayes approaches for conditional distributions and for flexible borrowing of information. I am also interested in methods for accommodating model uncertainty in...
Sina Farsiu
Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Farsiu's research focuses on medical imaging and image processing 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
Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Dr. Grill's research interests and in 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...
John Harer
Professor of Mathematics
Research Interests: Professor Harer's primary research is in the use of geometric, combinatorial and computational techniques to study a variety of problems in data analysis, shape recognition, image segmentation, tracking, brain imaging, biological networks and gene expression.
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.
Michail Zavlanos
Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: A range of topics in the emerging discipline of networked systems, which studies systems of intelligent physical agents interacting via a communication medium in search of local control principles that determine global network behavior. Focus on robotic, sensor, and wireless networks that can be...
Research Faculty
Jordan Milton Malof
Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: The application of advanced machine learning and computer vision techniques to real-world problems. Recently, I have used deep learning techniques to automatically recognize objects in aerial imagery, and detect buried explosives in ground-penetrating radar data.
Adjunct Faculty
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.