Associate Professor Kristen Grauman has earned a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for her research in computer vision from President Barack Obama.

Kristen was nominated by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) after winning an ONR Young Investigator Program award for "Interactive Visual Search and Summarization.” That research explores interactive methods for pinpointing relevant image or video content in large databases.  The project entails developing novel forms of semantic user feedback as well as summarization algorithms that automatically generate human-understandable synopses of visual content.She studies computer vision and machine learning, with a focus on visual recognition and search.

Kristen is one of three faculty members from The University of Texas at Austin who have been selected to receive Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers—the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their research careers.

She is among 102 recipients who will receive their awards at a Washington, D.C., ceremony later this year. These recognition awards pay tribute to the honorees’ past and ongoing accomplishments.

The University of Texas at Austin recipients and their areas of research are:

“The impressive achievements of these early-stage scientists and engineers are promising indicators of even greater successes ahead,” President Barack Obama said about the 102 recipients. “We are grateful for their commitment to generating the scientific and technical advancements that will ensure America’s global leadership for many years to come.”

The recipients are employed or funded by various federal departments and agencies that join together annually to nominate those whose early accomplishments show the greatest promise for ensuring America’s pre-eminence in science and engineering and contributing to the awarding agencies' missions.