CHEI - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of Development
- DEVELOPMENT
- Director of Development ( Jacobs Schools of Engineering )
Adrienne Bolli is Director of Development in the Jacobs School of Engineering and in that role, she engages alumni, parents and community partners on how they wish to see their passion for giving back directed to a specific purpose such as supporting graduate student involvement in the Bermuda 100 Challenge. Prior to her current position, Bolli was the Jacobs School's Director of Alumni Affairs, and before that Director of Development at The Ohio State University. She earned an MA in Higher Education Administration in 2005 from the University of Central Florida, where she also received a B.S. in Psychology.
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- Assistant Research Scientist, Qualcomm Institute ( QI )
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- Program Manager, Qualcomm Institute ( QI )
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- Student, Structural Engineering ( SE ), 08 / 2018 - Present
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- Alma Mater Studiorum - Università Di Bologna, 2019
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- Doctoral Researcher, Calit2
Chris McFarland is a software engineer in the Qualcomm Institute and he has worked on projects for CISA3, CHEI and other research centers in the institute. McFarland is a member of the Catalyst Project's Library Digital Repository Project., and helped create the CAVEcam Virtual Reality Photography Collection of the Geisel Library in 2016.
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- Student, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering ( MAE ), 2018 - Present
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- Assistant
- Member of the LEADERSHIP Team
- Research Scientist
Dominique Rissolo holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from UC Riverside, and did his undergraduate work at San Diego State University. He is a former Executive Director of the Waitt Institute, and co-directed of the National Geographic Society-Waitt Foundation Grants Program and the Rapid Ocean Conservation (ROC) Grants Program on behalf of the Waitt Foundation. The Waitt Institute funded a major expedition and exploration of the Mary Celestia shipwreck in Bermuda waters in 2011 (with Rissolo participating in that expedition). Rissolo subsequently joined the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego as Special Projects Coordinator for CHEI and CISA3, with a major focus on working with graduate and undergraduate students on cultural heritage-related projects. Rissolo has been involved in a number of marine archaeology projects including deep-water remote sensing surveys. As an archaeologist, Rissolo's research interests include the development of ancient maritime trade networks along the Yucatan coast. His work on the Yucatan Peninsula also focused on ancient Maya and Paleoamerican cave and cenote use as well as coastal and near-coastal settlement patterns and ecosystems. Throughout his fieldwork, Rissolo has been active in local initiatives and the development of sustainable cultural heritage preservation strategies. Rissolo also serves on the NOAA Ocean Exploration Advisory Board.
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- Director of Communications, Qualcomm Institute ( QI )
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- Graduate Student, Technical University of Denmark
- Technical
Eric Lo received his M.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 2016, after completing a B.S. in Computer Engineering from UC San Diego in 2014. Lo's primary interests are in embedded systems and robotics applied to the exploration and study of cultural heritage sites. He played a leadership role in the UC San Diego Engineers for Exploration student program, and led the team developing a Stabilized Aerial Camera Platform as well as the Airborne Radio Collar Tracker. In his spare time, Lo enjoys reading about, building and tinkering with robots.
Job Titles:
- Engineer
- Member of the LEADERSHIP Team
- Director, Professor
- RESEARCH
BACKGROUND: Prof. Kuester received an MS degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1994 and MS degree in Computer Science and Engineering in 1995 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 2001 he received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis and currently is the Calit2 Professor for Visualization and Virtual Reality at the University of California, San Diego. Professor Kuester holds appointments as Professor in the Departments of Structural Engineering and Computer Science and Engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering (JSoE) and serves as the director of the Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI), the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3), the Calit2 Center of Graphics, Visualization and Virtual Reality (GRAVITY) and the DroneLab.
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Prof. Kuester is a cultural heritage engineer, working on methodologies and techniques for cultural heritage diagnostics and preservation, including diagnostic and analytical imaging as well as visual and cultural analytics techniques that provide engineers, scientists, art historians and restorers, with a means to intuitively and interactively explore historic artifacts. This research is creating the foundation for the development of digital surrogates of world cultural heritage sites and artifacts, providing a means for researchers and the public alike to study these artifacts and facilitate their preservation. His research interests also include tera-scale scientific data visualization, virtual reality and augmented reality, image-based modeling and rendering, robotics and layered manufacturing.
INTEGRATIVE EDUCATION PHILOSOPHY: Prof. Kuester firmly believes in integrative education, combining active learning in the classroom, with applied research and fieldwork, allowing students to learn, evaluate, refine and apply their skills in the context of real-world challenges. In support of this philosophy he has developed multiple new academic programs and supporting curricula at the undergraduate and graduate level, new teaching styles allowing students to actively participate and stay engaged inside and outside the classroom, created applied research development and training opportunities for our students through course projects, directed research, international field schools and expeditions, combined with successful collaborative advising and mentoring strategies, and created multiple new internationally recognized research centers supporting these education, research and training objectives.
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- Student -, Structural Engineering ( SE )
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- Systems Engineer, Qualcomm Institute ( QI )
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- Professor, Computer Science and Engineering ( CSE )
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- Student, Scripps Institution of Oceanography ( SIO ), 01 / 2018 - Present
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- Professor, Anthropology ( ANTH )
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- Systems Engineer, Qualcomm Institute ( QI )
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- Student, Mathematics ( MATH ), 2019 - Present
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- Project Coordinator, Qualcomm Institute ( QI )
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- Research Scientist, Computer Science and Engineering ( CSE )
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- Development Engineer, Qualcomm Institute ( QI )
- Doctoral Researcher, Calit2
Lei Liang is a Chinese-born American composer, the winner of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is Chancellor's Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego and Former Research Artist in Residence at the Qualcomm Institute, UC San Diego .
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- Doctoral Researcher, Calit2
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- Sapienza Università Di Roma, 2018
- Student ( Visiting from Italy ), History & Architecture
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- Doctoral Researcher, Structural Engineering ( SE )
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- Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering ( ECE ), 08 / 2019 - Present
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- Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography ( SIO )
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- Doctoral Researcher, Qualcomm Institute ( QI )
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- Student, Computer Science and Engineering ( CSE )
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- Student, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering ( MAE ), 08 / 2018 - Present
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- Student, Computer Science and Engineering ( CSE ), 08 / 2019 - Present
Pranav Verma is currently pursuing his Masters of Science in Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego, focusing on Computer Vision. He's currently working as a Graduate Student Researcher in DroneLab, UCSD, with Prof. Falko Kuester, where he's working on visual SLAM systems, light fields, computer vision simulation pipelines, and semi-supervised object localization. Prior to this, he completed his Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 2019, where he worked on using deep learning to solve domain-specific problems in computer vision, NLP and power systems.
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- Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering ( ECE ), 08 / 2019 - Present
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- Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering ( ECE ), 08 / 2019 - Present
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- Web Designer / Front - End Developer Graphic Designer
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- Data Systems Analyst
- Expert in 3D
Scott McAvoy is an expert in 3D data processing, reconstruction, and archiving, working in the fields of archaeology, oceanography, and conservation sciences. He is known, in the cultural heritage community, for his reconstructions of ISIS destroyed sites in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, and his ongoing work with the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology and University of Aarhus Palmyra Portrait Project. Scott's unique focus on 3D digital formats, their preservation, and utility has made him a lead figure in the effort to integrate complex visual media with archival infrastructure.
Hanyang Xu is currently pursuing his Masters of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego, focusing on Computer Architecture. He's currently working as a Graduate Student Researcher in DroneLab, UCSD, with Prof. Falko Kuester, where he's working on FPGA Acceleration of Computer Vision Algorithms. His other works also include Machine Learning Accelerators and Communication System Design. Prior to this, he completed his Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from University of Washington in 2019 with concentration in Computer Architecture and Embedded System.
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- Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering ( ECE )
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- Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography ( SIO )
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- Professor, Structural Engineering ( SE )
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- Doctoral Researcher, Calit2
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- Research Scientist, Qualcomm Institute ( QI )
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- Doctoral Researcher, EECS
Vid Petrovic is nearing completion of his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego. He received a BS in Computer Science and Engineering as well as a MS in Computer Graphics and Visualization from UC Irvine. Petrovic's research focuses on developing a system that visualizes LIDAR data to create three-dimensional replicas of sites that CISA3/CHEI are working on, including the Bermuda 100 Challenge shipwreck sites. Petrovic collects data from a site, renders that data into a visual form on a computer, and then creates an image that can be observed from various angles, light levels, and distances from a separate location. The system that Petrovic is developing allows an objective record of the site to be preserved for future study.
Job Titles:
- Doctoral Researcher, Structural Engineering ( SE )