Event

Booz Allen Colloquium: "Behavioral Signal Processing and Informatics," Prof. Shri Narayanan, USC

Friday, September 23, 2011
3:00 p.m.
1110 Jeong H. Kim Engineering Bldg.
Carrie Hilmer
301 405 4471
chilmer@umd.edu
http://www.ece.umd.edu/colloquium

Booz Allen Hamilton Distinguished Colloquium in Electrical and Computer Engineering

"Behavior Signal Processing and Informatics"

Prof. Shrikanth (Shri) Narayanan
University of Southern California, Viterbi School of Engineering

Abstract:

Human behavior is exceedingly complex. Its expression and experience are inherently multimodal, and are characterized by individual and contextual heterogeneity. The confluence of sensing, communication and computing is however allowing access to data, in diverse forms and modalities, that is enabling us understand and model human behavior in ways that were unimaginable even a few years ago. No domain exemplifies these opportunities more than that related to human health and well being. Consider for example the domain of Autism where crucial diagnostic information comes from manually-analyzed audiovisual data of verbal and nonverbal behavior. Behavioral signal processing advances can enable not only new possibilities for gathering data in a variety of settings--from laboratory and clinics to free living conditions—but in offering computational models to advance evidence-driven theory and practice.

This talk will describe our ongoing efforts on Behavioral Signal Processing—technology and algorithms for quantitatively and objectively understanding typical, atypical and distressed human behavior—with a specific focus on communicative, affective and social behavior. Using examples drawn from different domains, the talk will also illustrate Behavioral Informatics applications of these processing techniques that contribute to quantifying higher-level, often subjectively described, human behavior in a domain-sensitive fashion. In particular, we will draw on examples from our work on health domains such as Autism, Addiction, Family Studies, Obesity and Traumatic Stress disorders to illustrate the challenges and opportunities for behavioral signal processing.

[Work supported by NIH, DARPA, ONR, and NSF].

Biography:

Shrikanth (Shri) Narayanan is the Andrew J. Viterbi Professor of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC), where he holds appointments as Professor of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Linguistics and Psychology. Prior to USC he was with AT&T Bell Labs and AT&T Research. His research focuses on human-centered information processing and communication technologies. Shri Narayanan is an Editor for the Computer Speech and Language Journal and an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing and the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, IEEE, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is a recipient of several awards including Best Paper awards from the IEEE Signal Processing society in 2005 (with Alex Potamianos) and in 2009 (with Chul Min Lee) and is a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Signal Processing society for 2010-11. He has published over 425 papers and has eight granted U.S. patents.

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