The University’s Goergen Institute for Data Science supports collaborative projects across disciplines.

Ten projects supported with seed funding from the Goergen Institute for Data Science this year demonstrate how machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) are transforming the way University researchers of Rochester, in all disciplines, tackle challenging problems.

“I am very excited about the wide range of collaborative projects we can support this year,” says Mujdat Cetin, director of the institute’s Robin and Tim Wentworth. “These projects address important and timely problems in data science methods and applications, and I am confident that they will lead to significant research contributions and attract external funding.”

The awards, of approximately $20,000 each, help researchers generate enough proof-of-concept findings to later attract significant outside funding.

This year’s projects involve collaborations between engineers, computer scientists, a historian, a biostatistician, and experts in brain and cognitive sciences, earth and environmental sciences, and palliative care. His projects include an entirely new type of computing platform, new virtual reality technologies to improve doctor-patient conversations and help people overcome color vision deficiency, and machine learning techniques to make it easier for people add music to their videos and enhance immersive AR/virtual reality experiences based on the unique geometry of each user’s anatomy.

The funded projects 2022-23 and their main researchers are:

• Ising Boltzmann substrate for energy-based models

  Co-PI: Michael Huang, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, and Gonzalo Mateos, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science and Asaro Biggar Family Member in Data Science

• A data-driven, virtual reality approach to improving poor color vision

  Co-PI: Yuhao Zhu, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, and Gaurav Sharma, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science and Biostatistics, and Computational Biology.

• Audiovisual Integration in Virtual Reality Renderings of Real Physical Spaces

  Co-PI: Duje Tadin, Professor and Chair of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Professor of Ophthalmology and Neuroscience; Ming-Lun Lee, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Michael Jarvis, associate professor of history

• Custom immersive spatial audio with physics-based neural field

  Co-PI: Zhiyao Duan, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, and Mark Bocko, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Professor of Physics and Astronomy

• Computational images of the Earth with machine learning

  Co-PI: Tolulope Olugboji, Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Mujdat Cetin, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, and Robin and Tim Wentworth Director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science

• Improving Deconvolution Estimates Through Bayesian Contraction

  PI: Matthew McCall, Associate Professor of Biostatistics

• Construction of a multi-step common sense reasoning system for story comprehension

  Co-PI: Zhen Bai, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, and Lenhart Schubert, Professor of Computer Science

• Versatile and customizable virtual patients to improve doctor-patient communication

  Co-PI: Ehsan Hoque, Associate Professor of Computer Science, and Ronald Epstein, Professor of Family Medicine and Palliative Care

• Machine learning-assisted femtosecond laser fabrication of efficient solar absorbers

  Co-PI: Chunlei Guo, Professor of Optics, and Jiebo Luo, Albert Arendt Hopeman Professor of Engineering

  Rhythm and emotion aware video background music generation

  PI: Jiebo Luo, Albert Arendt Hopeman Professor of Engineering

Find more information about each of the projects funded in 2022-23.