Svetlana Lazebnik, assistant professor of computer science in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences, has won a Microsoft New Faculty Fellowship Award.
The awards from Microsoft Research recognize and support early-career professors engaged in innovative computing research. Five recipients are selected each year from a pool of about 100 nominees. Each fellow receives an unrestricted cash gift of $200,000.
Lazebnik, who joined the computer science department in July 2007, is exploring new ways for computers to interpret digital images. She is designing methods to search large digital image collections based on what can be seen in the picture, rather than what is described in textual tags.
“We are very proud of her cutting-edge research in computer vision and applaud this recognition of the impact she has had so early in her career,” said Anselmo Lastra, chairman of the department of computer science.
Lazebnik said the fellowship allows her to test even more possibilities: “This fellowship will enable me to explore a lot more and do things that are maybe more speculative or long-term in my area of research.”
She is the second UNC faculty member to receive the award. Wei Wang, associate professor of computer science, received the fellowship in 2005, its inaugural year.
