Biography
Prof. Paul F. Whelan
B.Eng. (Hons) (Dublin), M.Eng. (Limerick), Ph.D. (Cardiff), C.Eng., SMIEEE, FIET
Personal Chair
Professor of Computer Vision
School of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering & Computing
Advanced needs driven image segmentation, and associated quantitative analysis (specifically mathematical morphology, colour-texture analysis) research with applications in computer/machine vision and medical imaging (specifically computer aided detection and diagnosis focusing on translational research). This is done within an engineering framework focusing on the automatic extraction of key image features with a view to quantitative analysis, classification and/or tracking of key information within an image or sequence of images.
Paul Whelan received his B.Eng. (First Class Honours) degree in Electronic Engineering from the National Institute for Higher Education Dublin / DCU, an M.Eng. degree from the University of Limerick (Electronic & Computer Engineering) and his Ph.D. (Computing Mathematics/Computer Vision) from the Cardiff University (UK). During the period 1985-1990 he was employed by Industrial and Scientific Imaging Ltd and later Westinghouse (WESL), where he was involved in the research and development of industrial vision systems. He was appointed to the School of Electronic Engineering, Dublin City University (DCU) in 1990 and established the Vision Systems Laboratory and its associated Vision Systems Group in 1990 with a focus on machine vision research.
In 1999, Paul began to broaden his research interest into the field of biomedical image analysis and this was reflected by the founding of the Centre for Image Processing & Analysis (CIPA) in 2006. Paul currently serves as its director, and at its peak it had 26 researchers and 5 adjunct faculty and has secured over €7 million in competitive research funding. In 2005, Paul was award a Personal Chair, as (full) Professor of Computer Vision. He was the research convenor (director) for the School of Electronic Engineering (2001-2010) and a member of the Faculty of Engineering and Computing Research board. He was an elected member of the DCU Governing Authority (2006-2011) [Professor/Associate Professor Constituency] and was the DCU institutional nominee on the Royal Irish Academy Committee (RIA) for Engineering Sciences (2009-2013).
Paul has personally secured over €6.7 million (as PI) in competitive grant income, and has successfully developed a royalty bearing license of his biomedical technology. CIPA members have spun-out two start-up companies: Jaliko Ltd (focusing on the removal of aberrations in digital imaging systems) and ExRayLab Ltd (NDRC Launchpad spinout focusing on minimally invasive spinal surgical simulators). Paul has filed 7 patents since 2007 (resulting in 3 technology licenses) and was the winner of the DCU INVENT (ICT/Engineering Section) Invention Disclosure Award in 2007 & 2008 and the a DCU INVENT Commercialization Award for Jaliko Ltd in 2010.
As well as publishing over 170 peer reviewed full papers; Prof. Whelan has co-authored 2 monographs namely "Intelligent Vision Systems for Industry" (1997-Springer) and "Machine Vision Algorithms in Java: Techniques and Implementation" (2000-Springer, reprinted in 2001). He has also co-edited 3 books including "Selected Papers on Industrial Machine Vision Systems" (1994-SPIE). His research interests include image segmentation, and its associated quantitative analysis (specifically mathematical morphology, colour-texture analysis) with applications in computer/machine vision and medical imaging (specifically computer aided detection and diagnosis focusing on translational research). Prof Whelan was the winner of the DCU Presidents Research Award in 2011 for his work as “an exceptional engineer who has established himself as an internationally leading figure in image processing and analysis”
Paul was responsible for the establishment and on-going management (1995-2000) of the Internet based Remote Access to Continuing Engineering Education (RACeE) initiative for the School. He is also responsible for the VSG's NeatVision / IPA Toolbox Project (freely distributed java and MATLAB compatible based image analysis and software environments for computer vision and computer aided diagnostic application development with over 3000 users worldwide). He has been active in the development of a range of new taught programmes and modules, most recently as a member of the programme design team for the innovative 3U consortium (DCU, RCSI, NUIM) MEng in Healthcare Technologies.
Paul has graduated 16 Ph.D. and 3 M.Eng. research students, as well as supervising over 36 MEng (Taught) students. He has acted as external examiner for Ph.D/Masters research theses on more than 19 occasions (nationally and internationally). He has managed and mentored 13 post doctoral research staff, 2 junior faculty, 18 research assistants/engineers and 1 clinical coordinator. He has given over 40 invited talks internationally and has hosted research visits from 12 international institutions. Paul has acted as an international expert evaluator for 11 funding agencies.
Paul’s research has been funded by Industry (Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Amdahl, Technology Systems International Ltd.), EU-FP5 IST Accompanying Measures, EOLAS/British Council, Private Donors, Martin Ryan Marine Science Institute (NUIG), IRCSET, Mater Hospital, Temple Street Children's Hospital, Higher Education Authority (HEA) [PRTLI I-RINCE, IV-NBIPI] , Enterprise Ireland (EI - C+, Tech Dev, POC, ARGS), EU-FP7 [Marie Curie Actions—Intra-European Fellowship], Wellcome Trust (Molecules, Genes and Cells Committee) and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI - PI & RFP).
Paul was a founding PI and served on the executive board of RINCE - an Irish national research institute focused on innovation in engineering (a €10.4 million HEA-PRTLI I initiative). He is also a founding PI of the NBIP - National Biophotonics & Imaging Platform (a €30 million HEA-PRTLI IV initiative), co-director of NBIP@DCU and coordinator of the NBIP Imaging Technology Core. He was also an original PI in the Nano-Bioanalytical Research Facility (a €23.8 million HEA-PRTLI V initiative).
Paul is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), a Senior Member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Member of the IAPR and a Chartered Engineer. He is also a member of a range of computer vision related conference program committees and acts as a reviewer for the main computer vision journals. He served on the IEE Irish centre committee (1999-2002) and as the first national representative and member of the governing board (1998-2007) of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) and the inaugural President (1998-2007) of the Irish Pattern Recognition and Classification Society.
Publications can be downloaded via the CIPA publications archive.
Prof. Paul F Whelan, May 2013
