About

Researcher (Assistant Professor) in Computer Vision and Machine Learning (2019). Stuart’s research focus is on Visual Reasoning to understand the layout of visual content from Iconography (e.g. Sketches) to 3D Scene understanding and their implications on methods of interaction.

Prior to Stuart’s current appointment, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher position also at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) working on 3D scene understanding with Dr Alessio Del Bue (2017). Before which Stuart worked at University College London (UCL) as a Research Associate working with Prof. Tim Weyrich (2015) working on 3D reconstruction of large relief art. While at the University of Surrey he worked as a Research Fellow working on Charting the Digital Lifespan (2013) – a big social data classification task through the fusion of social image and comments while exploring the social implications.

Stuart’s PhD completed in 2015, also at the University of Surrey, explored how Visual Narratives (Free-Hand sketched storyboards) can be used for Video Retrieval and Synthesis. Contributions involved approaches for Sketch-based Video retrieval and Dance Choreography Synthesis. He also holds a BSc in Computer Science with Games development from the University of Hull.

During 2013 he visited INESC-ID (IST), Portugal for an internship. The research project looked at expanding prior work and integrating the user into the process of choreographic video synthesis. This work focused on Human Computer Interaction developed and interactive process.

During his PhD and Post-doc positions at University of Surrey and UCL, Stuart has enthusiastically engaged with students through teaching opportunities. By working as a lab assistant or marking student work. He has assisted in Computer Vision, Robotics, Research Methods and Programming (C, C++) modules.

Stuart is a member of several professional bodies including ACM, IEEE, BCS; additionally part of specialist groups in research related fields. Stuart regularly peer reviewers for: CVPR, ECCV, AAAI, BMVC, ICIAP, ACH, EADH, GCH conferences and workshops. As well as Computers & Graphics and IEEE Transaction on MultiMedia, RA-L, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities journals.

Additionally, Stuart has worked at JCS Technology for over ten years as IT Manager. Organising the lab infrastructure and services while making informed purchasing decisions. This experience has broadened Stuart’s interaction with industrial technologies and given an understanding which in turn has been used to guide research infrastructure.

PhD Students

Supervisor of Mohamed Dahy Abdelaher Elkhouly Visual scene understanding through geometry with Dr Alessio Del Bue (IIT)

Collaborative supervisor of Daniele Giunchi How we can sketch in Virtual Environments with Prof. Anthony Steed (UCL)

Looking to do a PhD?

We are always looking for good PhD candidates, so if you are interested in doing a PhD in Visual Reasoning please contact me to discuss the options. We have yearly calls in the Italian education system and other options depending on the type of PhD. Areas of research include:

Artificial Intelligence

Machine Vision

Information Retrieval

Digital Humanities

Cultural Heritage

Specifically:

Visual Reasoning

Visual Knowledge Reasoning

Visual Question and Answering

Abstract / Iconography Detection, Representation and Reasoning (Sketch, Line, Hatching, Motifs, … )

Calls:

2020 University of Genova - Cycle XXXVI [Now closed]