I am currently a senior scientist at the Qatar Computing Research Institute, an institute that strives for pursuing world-class research to advance science and technology in the interest of society in a happening part of the World, Qatar. As a member of this young institute, I am passionate about exploring new grounds for developing innovative and impactful solutions in the humanitarian domain by using artificial intelligence techniques to understand images collected from the Web or satellites.
Before joining QCRI, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, where I worked in the Teleimmersion Lab with Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy mainly on human body motion analysis and action recognition, and particularly on the design and development of an interactive exercise coaching system for older adults.
I obtained my BSc degrees, both in electrical & electronics engineering and computer engineering, and the PhD degree in electrical engineering from Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey, in 2005 and 2010, respectively. I pursued my PhD work in the Multimedia, Vision and Graphics Laboratory (MVGL) under supervision of Profs Engin Erzin, Yücel Yemez and Murat Tekalp. I received the Graduate Studies Excellence award in 2010 for outstanding academic achievement at Koç University.
My research interests span the areas of machine learning, computer vision and things at the intersection of language and vision. My recent studies focus on the analysis of social media as well as aerial (UAV and satellite) images for disaster response and sustainable development. My earlier studies concentrated on creating a holistic view of an individual's health, food image and recipe understanding, human body motion analysis and action recognition from 3D data, multimodal dance performance analysis and music-driven dance synthesis and animation, as well as, facial expression analysis and speech-driven facial expression synthesis and animation.
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