Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora

Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora
08th October 1985, Costarrican
Lausanne, Switzerland
[email protected]
www.idiap.ch/~kfunes
EDUCATION
Doctor of Science in Electrical Engineering. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Oct. 2015.
Master of Science in Computer Vision and Robotics. Erasmus Mundus ViBot. Université de
Bourgogne (France), Universitat de Girona (Spain) and Heriot-Watt University (United Kingdom).
Master Thesis at INRIA Rhône-Alpes. 2008-2010.
License in Electronics Engineering (5 years). Costa Rica Institute of Technology, ITCR. Accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB). 2003-2008.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
• 3D face tracking and gaze modeling (PhD thesis)
• Computer vision, machine learning and statistical modeling
• Human behavior and interaction analysis from automated methods
• Multimodal data processing
• Computer graphics
• Digital design and reconfigurable systems
EMPLOYMENT
Research Assistant, Idiap Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland. January 2011-present.
Research intern, LEAR Team, INRIA Rhône-Alpes. Grenoble, France (January to August 2010).
Research intern, Computer Vision Laboratory. University of Girona, Spain (Summer 2009).
Research and development engineer, Canam Technology Inc. 2007-2008
Student assistant, SIP-Lab, Costa Rica Institute of Technology. 2005-2007
MAIN PROJECTS
3D face tracking and gaze modeling: PhD thesis project developed at the Idiap Research
Institute under the supervision of Dr. Jean-Marc Odobez:
We have developed diverse techniques for 3D gaze tracking using consumer RGB-D sensors. We
address the challenges of low-resolution and appearance variations due to head pose, user and sensing
conditions. We also address higher-level problems in human-robot interaction, human computer
interaction, sociology and psychology studies. Developed within the SNFS projects: TRACOME,
G3E, SONVB and UBImpressed.
Robust face descriptors in uncontrolled settings: MSc thesis at the LEAR Team, INRIA
Rhône-Alpes under the supervision of Matthieu Guillaumin, Jakob Verbeek and Cordelia Schmid:
We studied different variants of facial image descriptors for the task of face verification in unconstrained scenarios. The variants included different image alignment methodologies in combination
with local and/or holistic descriptors.
PASCAL VOC 2009: We worked on the implementation of object classification algorithms from
natural images. Computer Vision Laboratory, University of Girona.
Digital audio broadcasting (DAB) transmitter. Canam Technology Inc. I developed a DAB
transmitter from reconfigurable hardware (FPGAs) and high-level software for transmission control.
This transmitter was used in a DAB rebroadcasting system.
Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora
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CONFERENCE PUBLICATIONS (PEER REVIEWED)
• Deciphering the Silent Participant. On the Use of Audio-Visual Cues for the Classification of Listener Categories in Group Discussions. Catharine Oertel, Kenneth Alberto
Funes Mora, Joakim Gustafson and Jean-Marc Odobez. in: International Conference on Multimodal
Interaction, Seattle, United States, 2015
• Who Will Get the Grant ? A Multimodal Corpus for the Analysis of Conversational
Behaviours in Group. Catharine Oertel, Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora, Samira Sheikhi, JeanMarc Odobez and Joakim Gustafson. in: International Conference on Multimodal Interaction,
Understanding and Modeling Multiparty, Multimodal Interactions Workshop, Istanbul, Turkey, 2014
• Geometric Generative Gaze Estimation (G3 E) for Remote RGB-D Cameras. Kenneth
Alberto Funes Mora and Jean-Marc Odobez. in: IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Conference, Columbus, Ohio, USA. June 2014
• 3D Gaze Tracking and Automatic Gaze Coding from RGB-D Cameras. Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora and Jean-Marc Odobez. in: IEEE Conference in Computer Vision and Pattern
Recognition, Vision Meets Cognition Workshop, Columbus, Ohio, USA, 2014
• EYEDIAP: A Database for the Development and Evaluation of Gaze Estimation Algorithms from RGB and RGB-D Cameras. Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora, Florent Monay
and Jean-Marc Odobez. in: ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, Florida,
United States of America. March 2014
• A Semi-Automated System for Accurate Gaze Coding in Natural Dyadic Interactions.
Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora, Laurent Son Nguyen, Daniel Gatica-Perez and Jean-Marc Odobez in:
ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction, Sydney, Australia. December 2013
• 3D Head Pose and Gaze Tracking and Their Application to Diverse Multimodal Tasks.
Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora in: Doctoral Consortium of the ACM International Conference on
Multimodal Interaction, Sydney, Australia. December 2013
• Person Independent 3D Gaze Estimation From Remote RGB-D Cameras. Kenneth
Alberto Funes Mora and Jean-Marc Odobez in: IEEE International Conference on Image Processing,
Melbourne, Australia. September 2013
• Gaze Estimation from Multimodal Kinect Data. Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora and JeanMarc Odobez in IEEE CVPR Workshop on Gesture Recognition. June 2012. Providence, United
States. [Oral presentation, Best student paper award]
JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS
• Gaze Estimation in the 3D Space Using RGB-D sensors. Towards Head-Pose And
User Invariance. Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora and Jean-Marc Odobez. International Journal of
Computer Vision. November 2015.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
• A Gaze Estimation Method and Apparatus. Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora and Jean-Marc
Odobez. PCT EP Patent application PCT/EP2014/062604.
• EYEDIAP Database: Data Description and Gaze Tracking Evaluation Benchmarks.
Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora, Florent Monay and Jean-Marc Odobez. Idiap Tech Report. IdiapRR-08-2014. May 2014.
Kenneth Alberto Funes Mora
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SUMMER SCHOOLS, WORKSHOPS, TALKS AND COMPETITIONS
• Winner in the International Create Challenge. Eyeware project, in collaboration with Carlos Becker
and Serban Mogos. Idiap Research Institute. September 2015.
• Winner in the Arkathon, together with Carlos Becker. “Souris Virtuelle”. Sierre. June 2015.
• “3D head pose and gaze tracking using remote RGB-D sensors”. Invited talk at the KTH Speech,
music and hearing group. Stockholm, Sweden. April 2014
• “A model for person-independent gaze estimation from RGB-D cameras”. Talk at the Machine
Learning Workshop. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. November 2012
• “Sensing and Analyzing Nonverbal Behavior in Interactions at Work”. Talk at the SONVB Workshop. Neuchâtel, Switzerland. September 2012
• Participated in the International Create Challenge. Bulb-me-back project: start-up proposal and
prototype of a question forwarding website. Idiap Research Institute. September 2012.
• Attended the INRIA Visual Recognition and Machine Learning Summer School. Grenoble, France.
August 2010.
RECOGNITIONS AND GRANTS
• Idiap PhD Student Research Award: Idiap Research Institute 2014. Martigny, Switzerland.
• Travel grant: Doctoral consortium at ICMI 2013. Sydney, Australia.
• Best student paper award. CVPR 2012 Workshop on Gesture Recognition. June 2012.
• Erasmus Mundus grant: awarded by the European commission to pursue the M.Sc. studies.
• M.Sc. Mention trés bien (Université de Bourgogne) and with distinction (Heriot-Watt University).
• Honor grant for most of my undergraduate studies.
SERVICE
• Reviewer: ETRA; TCSVT; MVAP; VAAM; CVIU; THMS and ACCMM.
• Member of the student committe at the Electrical Engineering department at EPFL [May 2012-April
2014].
• Student supervision: Matthieu Duval (MSc thesis, 6 months, 2013).
SKILLS
General
Knowledge in Pattern Recognition, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Image Processing,
Medical Imaging and Electronic Engineering design (Digital Systems, Electric Communications, Power Electronics, Automatic Control and Telecommunications)
Computer related
R
Programming languages: Python, C, C++, C#, Java, Verilog HDL, Assembler, PICC, MATLAB
.
Libraries and tools: OpenCV, OpenGL, Point Cloud Library, CUDA, OpenCL, OpenKinect,
OpenNI, Qt, Doxygen, SWIG, Python API, Make, CMake, subversion, Git, Inkscape, Gimp.
Web development: CSS, HTML, Django, PHP (basic).
Operative Systems: Mac OS X, Linux [various distributions], Windows.
LANGUAGES
Spanish [Mother tongue]
English [Written and spoken]
French [Intermediate].
HOBBIES
• Playing and writing music.
• Drawing and painting.
• Traveling and socializing.