Thomas Huang
[3] He accepted a position as an electrical engineering professor and director of the Information and Signal Processing Laboratory at Purdue University in 1973, remaining there until 1980.[11] Huang was a founding editor of the International Journal of Computer Vision, Graphics and Image Processing, and of Springer-Verlag's Springer Series in Information Sciences.[7] Huang's research tended to focus on the development of general concepts, methodologies, theories, and algorithms which have wide application to multimodal and multimedia signal processing.[3] While still at MIT, he developed the first algebraic procedure for testing the stability conditions of two-dimensional filters, based on double bilinear transformation and the Ansell method.[3] Other research areas of importance include the use of relevance feedback in adapting database systems to user intentions (when browsing or searching),[20] and constructing tables of contents and semantic indexes for video using multimedia information (image sequence, audio, and closed-captions if available).[21] In the area of 3-D modelling, Huang worked on the identification of three-dimensional motion and the structure of rigid objects given multiple images in which corresponding features can be identified.Tools developed for this type of scenarios are applicable to many other problems as well, including virtual space conferencing with avatars, and electronic games.[28][29] Huang also hoped to develop more natural and effective ways for humans to interact with a computer or virtual environment using speech and gesture.His work in gender and emotion detection received media attention when his software was used to examine the Mona Lisa, concluding that the portrait was of a female (not, as some had theorized, based on Da Vinci himself) and that her enigmatic smile was more happy than sad.[31][32] In 2015, Huang worked with Ann Willemsen-Dunlap in an interdisciplinary project to develop a 3-D computer-generated avatar, capable of showing appropriate emotions, to be used in online communication of medical information to patients.