Fall 2008 CSE Colloquium Series

Next-Generation Iris Biometrics

Professor Kevin Bowyer

Schubmehl-Prein Professor and Department Chair
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Notre Dame University

November 21
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
1260 Anthony Hall

Host: Anil K. Jain

Abstract

This talk begins with an overview of the major approach to iris biometrics. This approaches uses a binary "iris code" that represents the texture pattern of an individual eye. The importance of masking inconsistent bits in the code is explained and illustrated as a means to improved accuracy. The importance of incorporating knowledge of the degree of pupil dilation is also explained and illustrated. Finally, problems that arise due to the wearing of contact lenses are illustrated as an example current research problem.

Biography

Kevin Bowyer is the Schubmehl-Prein Professor and the Department Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Professor Bowyer is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Golden Core Member of the IEEE Computer Society. Among other professional contributions, he has served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, and as the General Chair of the 2007 and 2008 IEEE International Conference on Biometrics Theory Applications and Systems (BTAS).

His article “A Survey of Approaches and Challenges in 3D and Multi-modal 3D+2D Face Recognition” which appeared in Computer Vision and Image Understandingin 2006 was number one on the CVIU "Top 25" list for two quarters and in the top ten for seven consecutive quarters. His article “Face Recognition Technology and the Security Versus Privacy Tradeoff” which appeared in IEEE Technology and Society in 2004 received an Award of Excellence from the Society for Technical Communication.

His research group has been active in support of a variety of government-sponsored biometrics programs, including the Human ID Gait Challenge, the Face Recognition Grand challenge, the Iris Challenge Evaluation, the Face Recognition Vendor Test 2006, and most recently the Multiple Biometric Grand Challenge.

Professor Bowyer completed his PhD in Computer Science at Duke University.He received an Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award from the University of South Florida in 1991 and Teaching Incentive Program Awards from USF in 1994 and in 1997.He is author of the textbook Ethics and Computing - Living Responsibly in a Computerized World. Together with Professor Dianne Martin of The George Washington University, he organizes the annual Schubmehl-Prein Competition for high-school students on the best essay on the social impact of computing technology.