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For Prospective PhD Students

I receive too many inquiries from prospective graduate students to respond to you all personally, so I created this page to try and answer some common questions. Comments here reflect my personal opinion, not necessarily department or university policy.

If you are interested in coming to UCSB as a Ph.D. student and possibly working with me, here are the main things you should know: 

• My main area of research is in computer vision, especially (although not exclusively) as it related to human-computer interaction.  That is, I am interested in building and understanding vision systems that “watch” people in order to identify them, track them, or understand their gestures or activity. 

• I am also interested in how this area of research integrates with other perceptual and intelligent technologies, such as speech I/O, haptics, user modeling, etc.  If your primary interest is in one of these related areas, your best course would be to work with someone else as a thesis advisor and collaborate with my group. 

• I am always interested in finding motivated students to join our Ph.D. program.  For my group, I look for students with the following background (these are not all requirements, but the more you satisfy the better): 

  • B.S. or M.S. in computer science or electrical engineering

  • Coursework and understanding of signal processing, image processing, pattern recognition, computer graphics, and computer vision

  • Good programming skills and experience (especially important for those with an EE background)

  • Solid math background, solid probability and statistics background  

  • Background in artificial intelligence, human and biological vision, multimedia, and HCI are also helpful  

  • Publications and/or significant experience in computer vision research or building real-time vision/imaging systems  

• If you are wondering whether or not you should apply, consider the above criteria

• The application deadline is typically January 1st to be considered for fellowships and assistantships (check the CS web site to confirm)

• Until that time, there is nothing I can do to help your chances.  After January 1st, I will see all the applications in which I was specified as a potential advisor.  So, if you might be interested in working with me, be sure to mention it in your application.  

• I encourage you to send me your resume, statement of research interests, and any relevant publications.  Even though I may not respond directly, I will look through these to help guide my selections.  If I have questions or comments, I will contact you.  

Funding / Research and Teaching Assistantships

• PhD students: Generally, PhD students in the CS department are funded for the duration of their degree via teaching assistantships (usually in the first year or two) and then research assistantships (once they've joined an advisor's research project). Some, of course, have external fellowships that they bring with them. It does not help to ask "Do you have RA openings for me?", as these decisions are usually not made for students until after they have been in the department for some time.
• Most faculty choose students for RA positions after the student has taken, and performed extremely well in, the professor's course.
• MS students: Generally, MS students do not receive departmental funding. There are occasionally TA or RA positions available for MS students, but not very many.

Also be sure to peruse the online information about applying to the CS department.

Other things to look at:

• Student links
• Interesting courses
• Cognitive Science at UCSB
• Vision Science at UCSB
• Computer Science Department
• Media Arts and Technology Program
• Pictures from Santa Barbara