I am Ph.D. candidate and a research assistant in the School of Electrical Engineering at KAIST (Daejeon, South Korea). I work under the supervision of Professor Yong Man Ro, at the image and video systems (IVY) Lab. I research in machine learning and deep learning focusing on image and video recognition. Particularly, I focus on encoding spatio-temporal feature from video dynamics. A large portion of my research focuses on analyzing and recognizing facial features, facial expressions and emotions. My aim is to build emotionally intelligent systems that would understand the users emotional context during the interaction between humans and machines.

I received the B.Sc. degree from University of Jordan, (Amman, Jordan), in 2010. In my 4th year ofundergraduate school, I was selected by the IAESTE global internship program, for an internship in Infinitt-healthcare (Seoul, South Korea). After graduation, I worked as a software developer for a telecom and contact center solutions provider named Globitel. Although working as a software developer have sharpened my design development skills, my interest in image and video processing research have driven me back to academia. I was awarded a scholarship for a M.S. degree from KAIST, where I joined the image and video systems lab. and started my research endeavor.

Education

• Ph.D. Candidate in Electrical Engineering (February 2014 – Current)
  • KAIST (Daejeon, South Korea)
  • Lab: Image and Video Systems Lab.
  • Advising Professor: Yong Man Ro.

• M.Sc in Electrical Engineering (February 2012 – February 2014)
  • KAIST (Daejeon, South Korea)
  • Lab: Image and Video Systems Lab.
  • Thesis title: Microcalcification cluster detection in mammograms with sparse based breast tissue removal and local density dependent multiple classifiers.
  • Advising Professor: Yong Man Ro.

• B.Sc in Computer Engineering (September 2005 – February 2010)
  • University of Jordan (Amman, Jordan).
  • Graduation Project: Real time broadcasting over IP.

Awards

Academic Awards:

• 25th Samsung Human-Tech Paper Award- Silver Prize (2019)
  • Title: Mode Variational LSTM Robust to Unseen Modes of Variation: Application to Facial Expression Recognition
• 2017 Research Excellence Award, School of Electrical Engineering, KAIST (2018)
• 2016 Research Excellence Award, KAIST Special Interest Group on Future Emerging Technology of Medical Imaging (카이스트 의료영상 분야 미래융합기술연구희)
• 2016 Best Paper Award, Korea Information Processing Society Spring Conference (한국정보처리학회 춘계학술발표대회)
  • Title: Deep learning based gender classification for embedded systems. (임베디드 환경에서의 딥 러닝 (Deep Learning) 기반 실시간 성별인식.)
• Best 10% Paper Award, IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (2015)
  • Title: Feature extraction from bilateral dissimilarity in digital breast tomosynthesis reconstructed volume
• KAIST academic scholarship for the PhD. program (March 2014- March 2018)
• KAIST academic scholarship for the MSc. program (Feb 2012- Feb 2014)

Miscellaneous Awards:

• Third place award, Korean speech competition at KAIST international house.