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John K. Tsotsos

John Konstantine Tsotsos

Photo of John K. Tsotsos

Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Lassonde School of Engineering
York University

tsotsos@yorku.ca

JT Lab website

Current Position (June 2024)

  • Distinguished Research Professor of Vision Science, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Lassonde School of Engineering, York University
  • NSERC Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Computational Vision
  • Founding Director and Member, Centre for Innovation in Computing @ Lassonde, York University
  • Member and Past Director, Centre for Vision Research, York University
  • Adjunct Professor, Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Research Interests

  • Computer Vision
  • Visual Attention
  • Active Vision Systems            
  • Human Vision
  • Visually Guided Robotics
  • Artificial Intelligence

Education

  • Post-Doctoral Fellow – Ontario Heart Foundation Fellowship held at the Cardiovascular Unit, Toronto General Hospital, 1979-81
    • Supervisor: Dr. E.D. Wigle, Chief of Cardiology
  • Ph.D. – Computer Science, University of Toronto, 1980
    • Supervisors: J. Mylopoulos, H.D. Covvey (Toronto General Hospital), S.W. Zucker (McGill University)
    • External Appraiser: H.-H. Nagel, University of Hamburg, Germany
  • M.Sc. – Computer Science, University of Toronto, 1976
    • Supervisor: J. Mylopoulos
  • B.A.Sc. (Honours) – Engineering Science (Computer Science Option), University of Toronto, 1974

Honours

  • Fellow, Canadian Academy of Engineering 2024
  • Fellow, Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association 2022         
  • CS-Can|Info-Can Award for Lifetime Achievement in Computer Science 2020
  • Fellow, IEEE (Computer Society) 2018 (achieved Life Fellow 2024)
    • Citation: For contributions to active vision and computational models of visual attention
  • Sir John William Dawson Medal, Royal Society of Canada, 2015
    • First Computer Scientist to receive this medal since award inception in 1987
    • Citation: Computer scientist John Tsotsos is a world leader in interdisciplinary research on human and computational vision. In visual psychology, his Selective Tuning theory has prompted new discoveries of human attentive behaviour. In neurobiology, his theory predicted novel characteristics of top-down processing in human perception. Finally, his seminal contributions to computational vision span early and intermediate visual representations, computational complexity of perception, visual attention, robotic active perception, and medical image analysis.
  • Geoffrey J. Burton Memorial Lecture 2011
  • Fellow, Royal Society of Canada,Div. of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Academy of Science 2010 
    • Citation: John Tsotsos is Canada’s premiere interdisciplinary vision scientist, spanning computer and human vision. An international leader in active vision and computational models of vision and attention, he provided the first formal theorems regarding the complexity of human vision. Using these, he defined a neural architecture and theory of human visual attention, including counterintuitive predictions. These predictions have been strongly supported experimentally, now forming a new basis for vision science. His leadership in Canada is second to none, having built world-class vision groups and networks, and leading major scientific activities internationally in both computer and human vision science.
  • Distinguished Research Professor of Vision Science, York University  2008
    • First Computer Scientist to receive this honour since award inception in 1983
  • Canadian Image Processing and Pattern Recognition Society Award: Research Excellence and Service  2006 

Awards and Distinctions

  • Best Student Paper Award (3rd), 35th IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, June 2024, South Korea, for
    • Kotseruba, I., Tsotsos J.K. SCOUT+: Towards practical task-driver drivers’ gaze prediction
  • 1st Prize: Best Computer Vision Poster, Int. Conference on Predictive Vision, Toronto, Jun. 10-13, 2019, for
    • Wloka, C., Kunic, T., Kotseruba, I, Tsotsos, J.K., SMILER: An Easy and Consistent Way to Compute Saliency Maps.
  • Winner, Visual Domain Decathlon (Image Classification in 10 Domains), PASCAL in Detail Workshop Challenge, IEEE/CVF Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), July 26, 2017, Honolulu, Hawaii for
    • Rosenfeld, A., Tsotsos, J.K., Incremental Learning Through Deep Adaptation, arXiv:1705.04228.
  • Best Conference Paper Finalist Award, Int. Conference on Computer Vision Systems, Shenzhen, China, Jul. 10-13, 2017, for
    • Chen, B., Sahdev, R., Tsotsos, J.K., Integrating Stereo Vision with a CNN Tracker for a Person-Following Robot.
  • Best Robotics Paper Award, Canadian Conference on Computer and Robot Vision (CRV) May 2017, Edmonton, for
    • Chen, B., Sahdev, R., Tsotsos, J.K., Person Following Robot Using Selected Online Ada-Boosting with Stereo Camera.
  • 1st President’s Research Excellence Award, York University, Nov. 2009
    • Inaugural award celebrating York University’s 50th birthday.
  • Best Robotics Paper Prize, 5th Canadian Conference on Computer and Robot Vision, Windsor, Ont., May 28-30, 2008, for
    • Andreopoulos, A., Tsotsos, J.K., Active Vision for Door Localization and Door Opening using Playbot: A Computer Controlled Wheelchair for People with Mobility Impairments.
  • Best Papers at Conference Special Issue, Image and Vision Computing Journal 27(1-2), 2009, for
    • Bauckhage, C., Tsotsos, J.K., Bunn, F.E., Automatic detection of abnormal gait.
    • Mekuz, N., Bauckhage, C., Tsotsos, J.K., Subspace manifold learning with sample weights.
  • Best Paper Prize, Canadian Conference on Computer and Robot Vision, Victoria, BC, May 2005, for
    • Bauckhage, C., Tsotsos, J.K., Bunn, F.E., Detecting Abnormal Gait.
  • NSERC Tier I Canada Research Chair in Computational Vision, Oct. 1, 2003 – Sept. 30, 2024.
  • Gold Student Poster Award, 12th Canadian Conference on Intelligent Systems, Calgary, May 29, 2002, for
    • B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios, J. K. Tsotsos, Detection of Hand Gestures Utilizing an Omni-directional Video Sensor for a Remote Teaching Application.
  • Best Paper Nomination, 8th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence: Methodology, Systems, Applications, Sozopol, Bulgaria, Sept. 21-23, 1998, for
    • Ye, Y., Tsotsos, J.K., Knowledge granularity and action selection.
  • CITO 1997 Innovation Award for Leadership in Product Development  (with W. J. MacLean), Center for Information Technology Ontario, Province of Ontario Centers of Excellence
  • Best Papers at Conference, Int. Symposium on Intelligent Robotic Systems, Lisbon, Portugal, July 1996, for
    • Tsotsos, J.K., Intelligent Control for Perceptually Attentive Agents: The S* Proposal,  Also in Special Issue of Best at Conference of Robotics and Autonomous Systems Journal, 21-1, July 1997.
  • Canadian Pacific/Unitel Ltd. Fellow, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, 1990-1995
  • David Marr Prize Award (Honorable Mention), 1st Int. Conference on Computer Vision, London, UK 1987, for
    • Tsotsos, J.K.,  A ‘Complexity Level’ Analysis of Vision. Also in David Marr Prize Special Issue International Journal of Computer Vision, 2(1), Sept. 1988.
  • Fellow, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Society Program, 1985-1990.
  • Canadian Heart Foundation Research Scholarship, 1981 - 1984
  • Ontario Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1979 - 1981

Academic Career (chronological order)

  • Instructor, Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science, Atkinson College, York University, 1977-1978
  • Assistant Professor, Dept. of Medicine (Cardiology), University of Toronto, 1981-1984
  • Assistant Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Toronto, 1980-1985
  • Founder, Computer Vision Research Group, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Toronto, 1980
  • Visiting Assistant Professor, Fachbereich Informatik, University of Hamburg, Germany, summer 1981
  • Founder, Research in Biological and Computational Vision Technical Report Series (RBCV-TR), University of Toronto, 1984 - 96
  • Assistant Professor, Dept. of Engineering Science, University of Toronto, 1984-1985
  • Associate Professor (status), Dept. of Medicine (Cardiology), University of Toronto, 1984-1999
  • Associate Professor with Tenure, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Jul. 1985 – Jun. 1990
  • Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Jul. 1990 – Dec. 1999
  • Visiting Professor, Multimedia Systems Institute of Crete, Technical University of Crete, Greece 1992
  • Associate Chair, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Jul. 1996 – Dec. 1999
  • Visiting Scientist, Centre for Advanced Studies, IBM Canada, Toronto Labs, 1996 – 2002
  • Professor with Tenure, Dept. of Computer Science, York University, Jan. 2000 – present
  • Director, Centre for Vision Research, York University, Jan. 2000 – Nov. 2006
  • Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Jan. 2000 – 2023
  • Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences, University of Toronto, Jul. 2000 – present
  • Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Western Ontario, 2001 – 2002
  • Faculty Fellow, Centre for Advanced Studies, IBM Canada, Toronto Labs, 2002 – 2003
  • Visiting Professor, INRIA Sophia-Antipolis, NeuroMathComp Laboratory, France, summer 2007
  • Adjunct Scientist, Toronto, Rehab Institute, University of Toronto, Apr. 2011 – Apr. 2013
  • Visiting Professor, Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Jan. – Jun. 2014
  • Founding Director, Centre for Innovation in Computing @ Lassonde, Jul. 2014 – Jun. 2024
  • 180+ completed trainees (Post-Doctoral, Doctoral, Master’s, Bachelors, research associates, research interns)

Selected Editorships and Conference Roles

  • Vision Research, Consultative Board Member, 2018 – present
  • Image & Vision Computing Journal, Advisory Editor, 2009 – present
  • Section Editor, Computer Vision: A Reference Guide, General Editor K. Ikeuchi, 2021
  • Frontiers in Computer Science – Computer Vision, Associate Editor, 2021 – 2022
  • Computer Vision and Image Understanding, Area Editor, 1993 – 2019
  • Cognitive Processing, Associate Editor, 2015 – 2019
  • Image & Vision Computing Journal, North American Editor, 1998 – 2004
  • Image & Vision Computing Journal, Editorial Board Member, 2004 – 2009
  • General Chair, 7th IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, September 1999, Corfu, Greece
  • Computational Intelligence, Associate Editor, 1986 – 2005      
  • AI & Medicine, 1987 – 1989

Assorted Points of Interest

  • Laboratory for Active and Attentive Vision
  • Google Scholar Page
  • Wikipedia Page
  • Academic Ancestry Page  
  • 65th Birthday Spoken Festschrift and Celebratory Symposium
  • The archival home page for the 7th IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV’99) that I chaired in Corfu, Greece in 1999 can be found here.
  • Patents:
    • Jenkin, M.R.M., Tsotsos, J.K., Large-Scale, Touch-Sensitive Video Displays, US Patent #6,118, 433, Sept. 12, 2000.
    • Jenkin, M.R.M., Tsotsos, J.K., Large-Scale, Touch-Sensitive Video Displays, US Patent  #6,377,228, April 23, 2002.
    • Ye, Y., Tsotsos, J.K. et al. Automatically Determining the Awareness Settings among people in Distributed Working Environment, US Patent #7,028,07, April 11, 2006.
    • Fazl-Ersi, E., Tsotsos, J.K., System and Method for Face Recognition, US Patent # 9940506, Apr. 10, 2018
  • Selected Books:
    • Kotseruba, I., Tsotsos, J.K., The Evolution of Cognitive Architectures, Oxford University Press (in press).
    • Tsotsos, J.K., A Computational Perspective on Visual Attention,The MIT Press, May 2011
    • Itti, L., Rees, G., Tsotsos J.K. (editors), Neurobiology of Attention, Elsevier/Academic Press, 2005
    • Badler, N.I., Tsotsos, J.K. (editors), Motion: Representation and Perception, Elsevier/North Holland, 1986