Usman Tariq, PhD
About Me
I am a faculty member in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the American University of Sharjah (AUS), United Arab Emirates. Before joining AUS, I was working as a Research Scientist in the Computer Vision group at the Xerox Research Center, Europe. I earned my M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), respectively in 2009 and 2013, under supervision of Professor Thomas S. Huang at the Beckman Institute. Before that, I received my Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology Taxila, Pakistan in 2004.
My research interests include computer vision, image processing, and machine learning, in general. More specifically, I am interested in object recognition, object detection, face recognition, soft biometrics, sparse coding and deep learning.
My google scholar page can be found here.
Publications
Patent
U. Tariq, J. A. Rodriguez-Serrano, F. Perronnin, "Adapted vocabularies for matching image signatures with Fisher vectors," U.S. Ser. No.: 14/557,891, issued on Jan 02, 2016
Book
V. Le, U. Tariq, P. Khorrami, H. Tang, T. S. Huang, Face processing and Applications to Distance Learning, (in print), Hollywood, FL: World Scientific Publishing Company, 2015
Book Chapters
U. Tariq, Y. Hu, T. S. Huang, "Gender and race identification by man and machine," in Pattern Recognition, Machine Intelligence and Biometrics --- Expanding Frontiers, Patrick S. P. Wang, Ed.: High Education Press (HEP) and Springer, 2011 [Link]
U. Tariq, J. A. Rodriguez-Serrano, F. Perronnin, "Unsupervised Fisher Vector adaptation for re-identification," in Domain Adaptation in Computer Vision Applications, Gabriela Csurka, Ed.: Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2017 [Link, PDF]
Peer-reviewed Publications
F. Al-Shargie, O. Hassanin, U. Tariq, H. Al-Nashash, "EEG-Based semantic vigilance level classification using directed connectivity patterns and graph theory analysis," (accepted in) IEEE Access, June 2020.
A. Ibrahim, A. Dalbah, A. Abualsaud, U. Tariq, A. El-Hag, "Application of machine learning to evaluate insulator surface erosion," IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 314-316, 2020.
A. Obeid, U. Tariq, S. Mukhopadhyay, "Supervised Learning for Early and Accurate Battery Terminal Voltage Collapse Detection", IET Circuits, Devices & Systems, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 347-356, 5, 2020.
F. Al-Shargie, U. Tariq, O. Hassanin, H. Mir, F. Babiloni, and H. Al-Nashash. "Brain Connectivity Analysis Under Semantic Vigilance and Enhanced Mental States." Brain Sciences 9, no. 12 (2019): 363.
F. Al-Shargie, U. Tariq, M. Alex, H. Mir, H. Al-Nashash, "Emotion recognition based on fusion of local cortical activations and dynamic functional networks connectivity: An EEG Study," IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 143550-143562, 2019.
M. Alkaddour, U. Tariq (2020) "Investigating the effect of noise on facial expression recognition". In: Arai K., Kapoor S. (eds) Advances in Computer Vision. CVC 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 944. Springer, Cham
M. Sahnoon, K. Assaleh, U. Tariq and H. Mir, "A Classification Based Method for Target Detection," 2019 1st International Conference on Unmanned Vehicle Systems-Oman (UVS), Muscat, Oman, 2019, pp. 1-4.
A Jalal, U Tariq, "Semi-supervised clustering of unknown expressions", Pattern Recognition Letters, 2019 [Link, PDF]
A. Jalal, U. Tariq, "The LFW-gender Dataset," in Proceedings of the 2016 Asian Conference on Computer Vision (ACCV), 2016 [Link]
U. Tariq, J. Yang, T. S. Huang, "Supervised super-vector encoding for facial expression recognition," Pattern Recognition Letters, Volume 46, no. 1, pp. 89-95, 2014 [Link, PDF]
T. S. Huang, V. Le, T. Paine, P. Khorrami, U. Tariq, "Visual Media: History and Perspectives," MultiMedia, IEEE , vol.21, no.2, pp.4-10, 2014 [Link, PDF]
U. Tariq, J. Yang, T. S. Huang, "Maximum margin GMM learning for facial expression recognition," in Proceedings of The 10th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG 2013), 2013 [Link, PDF]
U. Tariq, J. Yang, T. S. Huang, "Multi-view facial expression recognition analysis with generic sparse coding feature," in Proceedings of the 2012 European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), pp.578-588, 2012 [Link]
U. Tariq, T.S. Huang, "Features and fusion for expression recognition – a comparative analysis," in Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pp.146-152, 2012 [Link]
U. Tariq, K. H. Lin, Z. Li, X. Zhou, Z. Wang, V. Le, T. S. Huang, X. Lv and T. X. Han, "Recognizing emotions from an ensemble of features," Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B: Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on, vol.42, no.4, pp.1017-1026, 2012 [Link]
U. Tariq, K. H. Lin, Z. Li, X. Zhou, Z. Wang, V. Le, T. S. Huang, X. Lv and T. X. Han, "Emotion recognition from an ensemble of features," in Proceedings of The Ninth IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG 2011), Santa Barbara, CA, 2011 [Link, PDF]
Y. Hu, Y. Fu, U. Tariq, and T. S. Huang, “Subjective experiments on gender and ethnicity recognition from different face representations,” Advances in Multimedia Modeling. Proceedings of the 16th International Multimedia Modeling Conference, MMM 2010, pp. 66 – 75, 2010 [Link]
U. Tariq, Y. Hu, and T. S. Huang, "Gender and ethnicity identification from silhouetted face profiles," in Proceedings of the 2009 16th IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP 2009), Cairo, Egypt, pp. 2441 – 2444, 2009 [Link]
Masters Theses
M. Rezk, "Combining saliency with prediction for endoscopic diagnosis", Spring 2020
M. Moussa, "Distinguishing between fake and real smiles with EEG signals using machine learning", Spring 2020
O. Hassanin, "Cognitive Vigilance assessment and enhancement using binaural beats", Spring 2020
U. Din, "Recyclable plastic detection & collection using an autonomous robot", Spring 2020
M. AlKaddour, "FACE FLOW: Constrained optical flow framework for faces", Spring 2020
A. Lutfi, "Transformer differential protection using deep learning", Fall 2019
M. AlAwar, "Automatic threat detection in X-ray images: recognizing plastics", Fall 2019
M. Alex, "Discrimination between genuine and acted expressions using EEG signals and machine learning", Spring 2019
D. Waleed, "Drone Based Outdoor Insulator Inspection", Spring 2019
Z. Bachir, "Speed estimation using an inertial measurement unit with CNNs", Spring 2019
A. Jalal, "Facial expression recognition in an unsupervised manner", Fall 2017
M. Sahnoon, "Learning based target detection", Summer 2017
Datasets
LFW-gender dataset, can be downloaded from this link.
Research Grants
Hasan Al-Nashash (PI), Nadia Bu Hannad (co-I), Usman Tariq (co-I), Fares Al-Shargie (co-I), Fabio Babiloni (co-I), Faculty research grant (AED 750,000), "Stress related vigilance management using binaural beat stimulation", Office of Research and Graduate Studies, AUS, Sharjah, 2020-2023
Hasan Al-Nashash (PI), Usman Tariq (co-I), Hasan Mir (Co-I), Hamad Alawar (Co-I) and Fabio Babiloni (Co-I), AUS-BBRI’18, “Cognitive Vigilance Assessment and Enhancement Using Audio Stimulation” AED 600,000, 2018-2020
Hasan Al-Nashash (PI), Usman Tariq (co-I), Hasan Mir (Co-I), Enhanced Faculty Reseach Grant (AED 137,000), “Differentiating Acted vs Actual Smile Using EEG Signals”, Office of Research and Graduate Studies, AUS, Sharjah, 2018-2020
Usman Tariq (PI), Faculty research grant (AED 56,000), "Semi-supervised clustering of facial behavior", Office of Research and Graduate Studies, AUS, Sharjah, 2017-2019
Usman Tariq (PI), Jianchao Yang (Co-I), Faculty research grant (AED 75,000), "General representation learning for facial expression analysis", Office of Research and Graduate Studies, AUS, Sharjah, 2015-2017
Usman Tariq (PI), Seed grant (AED 12,445), "Domain adaptation for facial expression recognition", College of Engineering, AUS, Sharjah, 2015
Other Activities
developed an application for automated electronic course portfolio generation at AUS, 2017
developed a demo for real-time facial expression recognition, 2017
worked with Exponent Technology Services in Dubai for smart crowd monitoring usng drones and machine learning, 2016
led the collaborative team from UIUC and University of Missouri Columbia (the UIUC-UMC team) in the FG 2011 Facial Expression Recognition and Analysis Challenge (FERA2011)
Important Links
Contact Information
Email: utariq (AT) aus.edu
Department of Electrical Engineering
American University of Sharjah