Alexander von Humboldt Professorship for Artificial Intelligence 2022

Radu Timofte

Whether in smartphones, traffic detectors or medical images – in many aspects of our everyday lives, we take high-quality images for granted, in some situations they have become vital. In Würzburg, Radu Timofte’s work on image enhancement will forge links between different research areas.

  • Nominating University: University of Würzburg
Porträt von Radu Timofte
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Kontakt

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Computer vision

Radu Timofte’s research has had a lasting influence on the development of image super-resolution (SR) which can be used to magnify the resolution of images, thus augmenting the perception of information. By employing sophisticated imaging models and combining them with modern machine learning methods, Timofte has repeatedly made outstanding contributions to computer vision – research findings that promise numerous applications and that have already flowed into a number of industrial projects and start-ups. Image enhancement and processing of smartphones, the design of intelligent cameras, 3-D mapping of street signs, methods for estimating biometric data and pedestrian detectors in intelligent traffic lights are just a few examples that benefit from his calculations.

Würzburg is already a hub for data science in Bavaria’s AI network. The university, for example, has seen the establishment of the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (CAIDAS) that is set to be expanded further. Radu Timofte’s Humboldt Professorship will enable him to assume the Chair for Computer Vision which will be an important pillar of the centre and, together with the leading researchers who are already there, will help the University of Würzburg to distinguish itself as a globally visible research location for AI in data sciences. The aim is to interlink research on data science methods with applications in science and become a knowledge catalyst for science and society. In a yet to be established Interdisciplinary Super-Resolution Research Center (ISRC), biology and image processing are due to be connected.

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Radu Timofte at ETH Zurich

Brief bio

Dr Radu Timofte embarked on his academic career in his native country, Romania. After spending time in Finland and the Czech Republic, he completed his doctorate at KU Leuven, Belgium, in 2013 before becoming a postdoc at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He is currently a lecturer and research group leader there as well as a lecturer at the Technical University of Iași, Romania. Timofte has enjoyed much recognition for his research. In 2012, he received a Best Scientific Paper Award at the International Conference on Pattern Recognition and, together with his team, also won various competitions, such as the AIM Real World Super-Resolution Challenge at the international computer vision conference ICCV in 2019.

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