Kostas Daniilidis

Kostas Daniilidis is a prominent figure in the field of computer science, specifically known for his contributions to computer vision and robotics. He holds the position of Scientific Advisor and Co-Founder at Cosy - Cognitive Operational Systems, Inc. Additionally, he is a Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has been faculty since 1998.

Educational Background

• Undergraduate Degree: Electrical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (1986).
• PhD: Computer Science from the University of Karlsruhe (1992), under the supervision of Hans-Hellmut Nagel.

Professional Achievements

• IEEE Fellow: Awarded in January 2012 for significant contributions to visual motion analysis, omni-directional vision, and three-dimensional robot vision.
• Director of GRASP Laboratory: Led this interdisciplinary robotics lab from 2008 to 2013.
• Associate Dean for Graduate Education: Served from 2012 to 2016.
• Director of Online Learning: Since 2016, he has been involved in developing online educational programs.

Research Focus

Daniilidis' research primarily revolves around:

• Geometric Methods in Computer Vision: Exploring how to extract three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional images.
• Deep Learning: Focusing on learning 3D representations and semantic localization.
• Robotics Applications: Enhancing robots' abilities to understand and manipulate objects in their environments.

He has also initiated and directed several educational programs, including the Penn Coursera Robotics Specialization and the Penn EdX MicroMasters in Robotics. His work has led to advancements in visual odometry, 3D pose estimation, and image matching, making significant impacts on both academic research and practical applications in robotics.12