| Personal Data |
Name: Jesse Hoey
Address: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, 6 King's College Rd., Toronto, Ont, M5S 3H5
Phone: 1-416-946-0857
Email:
Web: www.cs.toronto.edu/~jhoey/
| Research Interests |
My primary interest is in value-directed video processing and analysis. My secondary interest is detection and recognition of events in video. My strengths are in visual machine learning and decision making in very large uncertain environments, including cognitive assistive technologies and service robotics. I have worked in diverse areas of computational intelligence, including machine learning, control and decision theory, computer vision, robotics and reinforcement learning.
| Education |
1997-2004 Ph.D. Computer Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
1992-1994 M.Sc. Physics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
1989-1992 B.Sc. Physics (Honours), McGill University, Montreal, Canada
| Research Experience |
2004-Present - Postdoctoral Fellow, Departments of Occupational Therapy and Computer Science (cross-appointed), University of Toronto,
Supervisors: Dr. Alex Mihailidis and Dr. Craig Boutilier
Working on the development of intelligent supportive environments for adults. Developing computer vision and decision theoretic models of human behaviors for use by an intelligent system for helping people with cognitive disabilities perform daily living tasks. Researching approximate planning methods for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs). Developing a wheelchair collision avoidance system using 3D sensors. Developing methods for detecting and preventing unsafe stair use in older adults. Aiding in the development of fall detection and human activity monitoring systems using computer vision.
2000-2004 Research Assistant, Department of Computer Science ,UBC
Supervisor: Dr. James J. Little.
Primary project: computer vision analysis of human motion.
Developed novel representations of motion in the human face. Built a software system for tracking and analysing human facial expressions in natural interactions.
Secondary project: mobile robotics.
Developed software for mobile robots including the lab's robotic waiter, Jose, and the robotic messenger, HOMER. Developed software for control of IEEE 1394 (firewire) single-lens and stereo digital video cameras. Participated in multiple conference and in-house robotic demonstrations. Assisted junior graduate students in the laboratory. Wrote conference papers and technical reports.
2002-2003 Research Associate, Computer Vision Driver Analysis project Nissan Motor Corp. -- UBC partnership.
Project supervised by Dr. James J. Little and Dr. Nando de Freitas.
Principal researcher in project to analyse the motions of car drivers. Analysed videos of drivers to find correlations between driver motions and driver workload, car speed, and traffic density. Wrote research proposals, interim reports and a final report. Gave presentations and demonstrations to senior Nissan executives and researchers, in Canada and in Japan.
| Representative Publications (see complete list) |
| Awards |
2005 Canesta Vision Contest Grand Prize Winner
Innovative Application of Canesta's electronic perception technology, Wheelchair collision avoidance using 3D sensors
($17,500 USD Cash and In-kind prize)
2001 First place, 2001 Hors D'oeuvres Anyone? Mobile Robot Competition
Seattle, WA, August, 2001.
1998,1999,2000 Teaching Assistant Award, Department Computer Science, UBC
Awarded to departmental teaching assistants for outstanding student evaluations and faculty recommendations.
1992 Horace Watson Medal. , Montreal, Canada.
Awarded for highest academic standing in Honours Physics
| Professional Activities |
Reviewer for major computer science journals: PAMI 2004,2005; IEEE IS 2005; CVIU 2004; IMAVIS 2004.
Reviewer for major international conferences in computer vision, computer graphics and artificial intelligence: IJCAI 2005; UAI 2005; RSS 2005; MICAI 2005; GI 2004; CVPR 2001,2003,2005; ICPR 2001; ECCV 2002; EG 2002; KI 2002
Wrote SPUDD, an efficient planning engine based on Markov decision Processes (MDPs) and algebraic decision diagrams (ADDs).
| Research Grants |
2006 - Precarn-CITO (Communications and Information Technology Ontario)
co-Investigator: Intelligent Haptic Stroke Rehabilitation amount: $599,990(CDN)
2006 - Canadian Institute for Health Research
co-Investigator: Development and validation of an automated tool for detecting and preventing unsafe stair use by older adults amount: $48,227(CDN)
2002 - Nissan Motor Corp., Japan -- UBC Computer Science Partnership Grant
Analysis of driver behavior with computer vision amount: $95,275(CDN)
| Research Personel Trained or Supervised |
Dan Gunn, Research Assistant, IATSL 05/2005-09/2005
The development of an intelligent anti-collision system for a powered wheelchair.
Jasper Snoek, Research Assistant, IATSL 05/2005-09/2005
Development of an automated tool for detecting unsafe stair use by older adults
Chris Riddle, Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Toronto 04/2005-06/2005
Clinical testing of an automated prompting system for handwashing
| Invited Talks and Demonstrations |
March 18th, 2005 Assistive Technology and POMDPs
Presentation to AI group, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
June 9th 2004 Learning Models of Human Behavior using a Value Directed Approach
IRIS Machine Learning Workshop 2004, Ottawa, Ontario
July 10th 2002 University of British Columbia downtown campus opening gala
Demonstrated Jose, the robotic waiter, to senior UBC officials.
September 20th 2002 Vicky Gabereau Show. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Live television robotic waiter demonstration.
June 3rd 2002 UBC awards night gala reception
Robotic waiter demonstration.
March 23rd 2002 Advanced Systems Institute of British Columbia Technology Exchange.
Robotic waiter demonstration.
January 17th 2002 UBC Department of Computer Science Open House
Robotic waiter demonstration.
August 4th-9th 2001 AAAI Hors D'oeuvres Anyone? Mobile Robot Competition
Winning entry in the robotic waiter competition. Three demonstrations.
| Skills |
Programming Experience
Designed and wrote several large projects in C/C++ in both Unix and Microsoft Windows environments. Included writing code to communicate with hardware devices, and computer graphics user interfaces with OpenGL. OpenGL work further involved using graphics hardware for fast image computation, such as image re-scaling and optical flow computation.
Expert in Matlab programming for computation and data visualization. Extensive experience programming in Java, FORTRAN, Visual Basic, and Scheme.
Working knowledge of Prolog. Internet design work includes HTML, Javascript, CGI and Perl.
Hardware Experience:
Worked extensively with single-lens and stereo cameras. Worked on IEEE 1394 (Firewire) and s-video interfaces. Experienced working with a RWI B14 mobile robot.
| Languages |
Completely fluent in written and spoken English and French. Basic spoken Spanish.
| References |
Craig Boutilier
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto,
+1 (416) 946-5714
James J. Little
Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia,
+1 (604) 822-4830
Alex Mihailidis
Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Toronto,
+1 (416) 946-8565
David Lowe
Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia,
+1 (604) 822-6254