Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab Biometrics Center wins 2015 Edison Award

Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab Biometrics Center recently won Gold at the 2015 Edison Awards in the category of Applied Technology.

For the past eight years, the Edison Awards have recognized products, institutions and business leaders demonstrating excellence in innovation.

“It is a huge honor for our lab to receive an Edison Award,” said Marios Savvides, Research Professor of electrical and computer engineering and founder and director of the Biometrics Center. “This award is an important verification of our technological innovations and their positive impact on society.”

Savvides’ Biometrics Center, housed in the College of Engineering’s cybersecurity laboratory CyLab, is developing biometric identification tools.

Most recently, Savvides developed an iris recognition solution that can reveal a driver’s identity by scanning their iris through a side-view mirror of a car from up to 40 feet away.

“Savvides’ lab is creating opportunities to save lives by enabling officers to identify potentially dangerous criminals without even approaching the vehicle,” said Jim Garrett, Dean of Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering.

Savvides has also developed technology that is able to detect partially-obstructed faces in photographs, accurately predicting what the subject’s entire face looks like, even when presented with a blurry, low-resolution image.

“The computer is doing something the human brain cannot do,” said Savvides. “I just find it extremely fascinating how machine learning and pattern-recognition can create this artificial intelligence system that can make correct inferences from such small amounts of facial data.”

Article Topics

awards  |  biometrics research  |  CyLab  |  iris recognition