Dr. Ferda Ofli | Hamad Bin Khalifa University
Hamad Bin Khalifa University

FACULTY BIOGRAPHIES

Dr. Ferda Ofli

Dr. Ferda Ofli


Senior Scientist
Social Computing
Qatar Computing Research Institute

  • Phone44 451 227
  • Office locationRC-B1-1182D

Biography

Dr. Ferda Ofli is a senior scientist in Qatar Computing Research Institute's Social Computing group since 2014. Before joining QCRI, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Teleimmersion Lab working with Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy at the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA from 2010 to 2014. He received BSc degrees both in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Computer Engineering, and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey, in 2005 and 2010, respectively. Dr. Ofli pursued his PhD work in the Multimedia, Vision and Graphics Laboratory (MVGL) at Koc University under the supervision of Prof. Engin Erzin, Prof. Yucel Yemez and Prof. Murat Tekalp. Dr. Ofli's research interests cover computer vision, machine learning, and multimedia signal processing. He is a senior member of IEEE and ACM with over 60 publications in refereed conferences and journals including CVPR, ECCV, and PAMI. He won the CVPR Outstanding Reviewer Awards in 2020 and 2021, the ISCRAM Best CoRe Paper Award in 2020, the ISCRAM Best Insight Paper and Best Paper Runner-up Awards in 2019, the ISCRAM Best Paper Runner-up Award in 2017, the Elsevier JVCI Best Paper Award in 2015, and the IEEE SIU Best Student Paper Award in 2011. He also received the Graduate Studies Excellence Award in 2010 for his outstanding academic achievement at Koc University.

 

 


Research Interests

Dr. Ofli's research interests span computer vision, machine learning and multimedia signal processing. His current research focuses on using deep learning techniques on Internet image data, created and annotated by online communities, to improve object recognition and scene understanding. Specific areas of interest include (i) understanding health habits from profile pictures and food photos, and (ii) extracting actionable information from imagery content for crisis response and management.
 

  • Computer Vision
  • Machine Learning
  • Multimedia Signal Processing

Experience

Senior Scientist

Social Computing Group, Qatar Computing Research Institute; Doha, Qatar.

2019 - Present
  • Scientist

    Social Computing Group, Qatar Computing Research Institute; Doha, Qatar.

    2014 - Present
  • Postdoctoral Researcher

    Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences; University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.

    2010 - 2014
  • Research Assistant

    College of Engineering; Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey.

    2005 - 2010
  • Teaching Assistant

    College of Engineering; Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey.

    2005 - 2010

Education

PhD in Electrical and Electronics Engineering

Koc University; Istanbul, Turkey

2010
  • BSc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering

    Koc University; Istanbul, Turkey

    2005
  • BSc in Computer Engineering

    Koc University; Istanbul, Turkey

    2005

Selected Publications

  • Dim Papadopoulos, Enrique Mora, Nadiia Chepurko, Kuan-Wei Huang, Ferda Ofli, Antonio Torralba

    Learning Program Representations for Food Images and Cooking Recipes; IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR); 2022.

    2022
  • Ingmar Weber, Muhammad Imran, Ferda Ofli, Fouad Mrad, Jennifer Colville, Mehdi Fathallah, Alissar Chaker, Wigdan S. Ahmed

    Non-traditional Data Sources: Providing Insights into Sustainable Development; Communications of the ACM (CACM), 64(4):88–95, 2021.

    2021
  • Ethan Weber, Nuria Marzo, Dim Papadopoulos, Aritro Biswas, Agata Lapedriza, Ferda Ofli, Muhammad Imran, Antonio Torralba

    Detecting natural disasters, damage, and incidents in the wild; European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV). 2020.

    2020
  • Pakhee Kumar, Ferda Ofli, Muhammad Imran, Carlos Castillo

    Detection of Disaster-Affected Cultural Heritage Sites from Social Media Images Using Deep Learning Techniques; ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH). 2020.

    2020
  • Muhammad Imran, Ferda Ofli, Doina Caragea, Antonio Torralba

    Using AI and Social Media Multimodal Content for Disaster Response and Management: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Directions; Information Processing and Management (IPM). 2020.

    2020
  • Javier Marin, Aritro Biswas, Ferda Ofli, Nicholas Hynes, Amaia Salvador, Yusuf Aytar, Ingmar Weber, Antonio Torralba

    Recipe1M+: A Dataset for Learning Cross-Modal Embeddings for Cooking Recipes and Food Images, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI)

    2019
  • Dim Papadopoulos, Youssef Tamaazousti, Ferda Ofli, Ingmar Weber, Antonio Torralba

    How to Make a Pizza: Learning a Compositional Layer-based GAN Model, IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR); 2019.

    2019
  • Xukun Li, Doina Caragea, Cornelia Caragea, Muhammad Imran, Ferda Ofli

    Identifying Disaster Damage Images Using a Domain Adaptation Approach, International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM); 2019.

    2019
  • Firoj Alam, Ferda Ofli, Muhammad Imran

    CrisisMMD: Multimodal Twitter Datasets from Natural Disasters, International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), 2018.

    2018
  • Firoj Alam, Ferda Ofli, Muhammad Imran

    Processing Social Media Images by Combining Human and Machine Computing during Crises, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction (IJHCI); 2018.

    2018
  • Nazia Attari, Ferda Ofli, Muhammad Awad, Ji Lucas, Sanjay Chawla

    Nazr-CNN: Fine-Grained Classification of UAV Imagery for Damage Assessment, IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics (DSAA); 2017.

    2017
  • Dat T. Nguyen, Ferda Ofli, Muhammad Imran, Prasenjit Mitra

    Damage Assessment from Social Media Imagery Data During Disasters, International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM); 2017.

    2017
  • Amaia Salvador, Nicholas Hynes, Yusuf Aytar, Javier Marin, Ferda Ofli, Ingmar Weber, Antonio Torralba

    Learning Cross-modal Embeddings for Cooking Recipes and Food Images, IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR); 2017.

    2017
  • Enes Kocabey, Mustafa Camurcu, Ferda Ofli, Yusuf Aytar, Javier Marin, Antonio Torralba, Ingmar Weber

    Face-to-BMI: Using Computer Vision to Infer Body Mass Index on Social Media, International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM); 2017.

    2017
  • Ferda Ofli, Yusuf Aytar, Ingmar Weber, Raggi al Hammouri, Antonio Torralba

    Is Saki #delicious? The Food Perception Gap on Instagram and Its Relation to Health; International World Wide Web Conference (WWW).

    2017
  • Ferda Ofli, Patrick Meier, Muhammad Imran, Carlos Castillo, Devis Tuia, Nicolas Rey, Julien Briant, Pauline Millet, Friedrich Reinhard, Matthew Parkan, Stephane Joost

    Combining Human Computing and Machine Learning to Make Sense of Big (Aerial) Data for Disaster Response; Big Data Journal (Big Data); 2016.

    2016