Dariu M. Gavrila received the PhD degree in computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1996. Since 1997, he has been a Senior Research Scientist at Daimler R&D in Ulm, Germany. In 2003, he was further appointed professor at the University of Amsterdam, chairing the area of Intelligent Perception Systems (part time).
 
Over the last decade, Prof. Gavrila has focused on visual systems for detecting humans and their activity, with application to intelligent vehicles and surveillance. His contributions are frequently cited, he received the I/O 2007 Award from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) as well as several conference paper awards.

Dariu M. Gavrila received the MSc degree in computer science from the Vrije University in Amsterdam in 1990. He received the PhD degree in computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1996. He was a Visiting Researcher at the MIT Media Laboratory in 1996. Since 1997, he has been a Senior Research Scientist at Daimler Research in Ulm, Germany. In 2003, he was named professor in the Faculty of Science at the University of Amsterdam, chairing the area of Intelligent Perception Systems (part time).
 
Over the last decade, Prof. Gavrila focused on perception systems for detecting humans and their activity, with application to intelligent vehicles and surveillance. He published numerous papers in leading conferences and journals, and is among the 6000 most-cited computer scientists worldwide (CiteSeerX, Sept. 2011). Prof. Gavrila regularly reviews for the major computer vision and pattern recognition conferences and journals. He received the I/O 2007 Award from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), as well as several conference paper awards. His personal Web site is www.gavrila.net.

Machine learning for perception, modeling and decision making, enabling agents to interact intelligently and effortlessly with human-inhabited environments. Applications to intelligent vehicles, smart surveillance and social robotics.

Senior Research Scientist (1997 to present)
Environment Perception Dept, Daimler Research and Technology, Ulm, Germany

Developed the Chamfer System, a real-time vision system for shape-based object detection, with applications in intelligent vehicles, industrial vision and defense industry (1998-2005).

Acquired and managed several EU and national projects on active pedestrian safety on behalf of Daimler: EU WATCH-OVER (2006-2008), EU SAVE-U (2002-2005), EU PROTECTOR (2000-2002) and DE AKTIV-SFR (2006-2010).

Designed Daimler’s pedestrian system which features (video/radar-based) object detection, driver warning and braking in real-time on-board a vehicle demonstrator in urban traffic. The system was featured several times in the European broadcast and print media over the years, see Media Coverage.

Professor (2003 to present, 1/5 part-time)
Intelligent Autonomous Systems Group, Informatics Institute, Univ. of Amsterdam, NL

Chair in “Intelligent Perception Systems”. Computational models for the recognition of human activities in dynamic environments. Research involves aspects in computer vision, multi-modal perception, machine learning, and autonomous systems. Current pilot application (EU project ADABTS) deals with abnormal behavior and aggression detection.

Several guest lectures and lab sessions at the Bachelor and Master level yearly (e.g. MS course “Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition”, BA course “Intelligent Systems”).

Research Affiliate (Spring 1996)
Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, U.S.A.
Collaboration with Prof. A. Pentland´s group on 3-D head model acquisition from single-view image sequences, as part of my Dissertation.

Research Assistant (1992-1996)
Center for Automation Research, University of Maryland, College Park,  U.S.A.
My Dissertation introduced a framework for multi-view 3-D tracking of humans in action.

Ph.D. Degree in Computer Science (1996),
University of Maryland, College Park, U.S.A.,
Dissertation Title: 3-D Model-based Tracking of Humans in Action,
Advisor: Professor Dr. Larry Davis.

Doctoraal Degree - B.S. and M.S. - in Computer Science (1990),
VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands,
Thesis Title: 3-D Object Recognition from 2-D Images using Geometric Hashing, Advisor: Professor Dr. Frans Groen.

Propaedeuse Degree - preliminary comprehensive exam - in Physics (1987), VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

V.W.O. Degree - secondary school - (1986),
Barlaeus Gymnasium, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
 

• 12th Jornadas de Automatica, Sevilla, Spain, 2011
• 6th IEEE Conference on Advanced Video- and Signal-based Surveillance (AVSS), London, UK, 2007
• 2nd IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Computer Communication and Processing (ICCP), Cluj, Romania, 2006.
• 10th International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns (CAIP), Groningen, The Netherlands, 2003.
• 6th Conference of the Advanced School for Computing and Imaging (ASCI), Lommel, Belgium, 2000.
• Invited Talks (selection): Intelligent Machines Symposium (Nijmegen, 2010), 10th Anniversary of Brain Institute at Brown University (Providence, USA, 2010) - panel with Peter Norvig (head Google Research) and Rodney Brooks (prof. em MIT), MIT AI Laboratory (Cambridge, 2010), NWO ToKeN Symposium (Tilburg, NL, 2010), Int. Computer Vision Summer School (Sicily, IT, 2009), Heidelberger Bildverarbeitungsforum (Heidelberg, DE, 2008), WIC Public Safety Meeting (Eindhoven, NL, 2008) and workshop ``Intelligente Observatie Systemen'' (Almere, NL, 2007)

• DAGM 2011 Prize by the German Pattern Recognition Association
• I/O 2007 Award by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO),
  for quality of ICT research and outreach towards the general public
• Best Paper Award at the IEEE AVSS 2007 conference
• Graduate School Fellowship of the University of Maryland (top 1%)
• Cum Laude at the Doctoraal Degree in Computer Science (top 1%)
• Cum Laude at the Propaedeuse Degree in Physics (top 5%)
• Cum Laude at the V.W.O. Degree (top 2%)

• (Co) Supervised 3 Ph.D. Theses at Daimler (2005, 2007, 2011)
• (Co) Supervised 13 M.Sc. Theses at Daimler and Univ. of Amsterdam (2002 to present).
• Served on 13 Ph.D. Committees at the Univ. of Amsterdam, Autonomous Univ. of Barcelona, TU Darmstadt, Univ. of Heidelberg, Univ. of Mannheim, TU Twente, and ETH Zürich (2002 to present)
• (Co) Supervision of 4 Ph.D. Theses at Daimler and the Univ. of Amsterdam, in progress.

See listing here.

Among the 6000 most cited authors in Computer Science¹
(5500+ citations, cites/paper: 50+, authors/paper: 2.5 and h-index: 27. )²

¹ CiteSeerX (September 2011)
² Publish-or-Perish (January 2012)

• Organizing Committee Member for the workshops
• Interactive Human Behavior Analysis in Open or Public Spaces} (at AMI 2011 conference)
• 2nd IEEE Workshop on Computer Vision in Vehicle Technology} (at ICCV 2011 conference)
• Program Committee Member of the conferences
• European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV, 2004 and 2008)
• Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Mustererkennung (DAGM, 2001, 2004, 2007-2010)
• Face and Gesture (FG, 2008)
• Area Chair for the conferences
• IEEE Advanced Video and Signal-Based Surveillance (AVSS, 2010)
• IEEE Intelligent Vehicles (IV, 2011)
• IEEE Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV, 2011)
• Reviewer for the journals
• International Journal of Computer Vision
• IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
• IEEE Trans. on Intelligent Transportation Systems
• Evaluator of proposals at EU FP6 and FP7 calls
• Cognitive Systems (2005 and 2009)
• Advanced Robotics (2006)
• Member of professional societies
• the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• the Dutch Pattern Recognition Society (NVBVPH)

German patent granted in the area of vision-based driver assistance, 2002.
 

See listing here.

Fluent in English, German, Dutch and Romanian. Proficiency in French and Spanish.