Dirk Colby is 2006 CSE Most Outstanding Graduate Student

Dirk Colbry is a doctoral student in Computer Science and Engineering who is researching 3D face analysis and matching with George Stockman. He received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech and his MS in Computer Science from the University of Michigan after working a few years in the robotics industry. His research has been published in a recent IEEE PAMI paper, an IEEE workshop, and in other conference proceedings and journals. Not only has his work resulted in new ideas, algorithms, and publications, but also in a commercially viable system (3DID) and hence a product licensable by MSU. The 3DID system can scan and match a person’s face to a model face in about 3 seconds and performed well in the Face Recognition Grand Challenge #1 run by Notre Dame.

Colbry is also recognized for his all-around contribution to his MSU environment. He has acted with professional competence as project coordinator with the engineers at Pixel Velocity, a PRIP lab industry partner. He has mentored eight other CSE students, including six undergraduates and two MS students. Colbry is an IGERT Fellow in the Cognitive Science program, where he tutors new Cognitive Science students and plans and coordinates group research projects. He has taught a regular CSE undergraduate course himself and has substituted in regular CSE grad classes. His expertise with both software and hardware has been invaluable to the PRIP Lab environment and he has organized many demonstrations for visitors to the lab.

(Date Posted: 2006-04-07)