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My name is George Azzopardi and I am associate professor in pattern recognition embedded in the Information Systems group of the Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

My research team, consisting of five ongoing PhD students and a post-doc, is engaged in fundamental and interdisciplinary research. The PhD students Peter van der Wal (in collaboration with CogniGron) and Sabatino Esposito (in collaboration with the University of Salerno), along with post-doc Guru Swaroop Bennabhaktula, focus on fundamental research. They are developing deep-learning algorithms inspired by the visual system of the brain, aiming to enhance their robustness and generalization capabilities, particularly for unseen (out-of-distribution) corruptions. The other three PhD students, Anusha Aswath, Steven Ndung’u Machetho, and Rafael Martínez García Peña, are involved in interdisciplinary projects. Anusha is developing algorithms for segmenting (sub)cellular structures in electron microscopy images, in collaboration with the Biomedical Science of Cells & Systems, UMCG. Steven is working on algorithms for classifying and retrieving sources in radio astronomy images, in collaboration with ASTRON and the University of Stellenbosch. Rafael is developing a computer-aided diagnosis system for hyperkinetic movement disorders from videos, in collaboration with the Movement Disorders department at UMCG. The post-doc Guru Swaroop Bennabhaktula is also engaged in forensic image analysis, working with the Dutch Driving Authority (RDW) to develop algorithms that verify the authenticity of face images and hence preventing illicit manipulations such as face morphing attacks. Guru and I were honored with the Ben Feringa Impact Award in 2023, and in 2024 I received an Impact Award from ENLIGHT for our research in this direction.

Other roles:

  1. Coordinator of the theme Applied AI at the Jantina Tammes School of Digitisation, Technology and AI.
  2. Leader of the Working Group 4 of the GLITSS Cost Action

Associate editor of 1. Pattern Recognition, 2. Pattern Recognition Letters, 3. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 4. SN Computer Science, & 5. Frontiers in Robotics and AI – Robot and Machine Vision

Other affiliation: University of Malta Download CV


With my current PhD candidates!



Research Interests
Core
  • Brain-inspired visual pattern recognition
  • Information retrieval
  • Predictive analysis
  • Anomaly detection
Applications
  • Medical, forensic, radio-astronomy and first-person image analysis
  • Smart farming
  • Sport science
  • Blockchain
Career

    🏆  2024 - Winner of an Enlight Impact Award, Enlight European University
    🏆  2023 - Winner of the Ben Feringa Impact Award, University of Groningen    2024 - to date: Associate professor with ius promovendi (Adjunct hoogleraar, 1FTE), University of Groningen
    2021 - 2023: Assistant professor (1FTE), University of Groningen
    2017 - 2021: Joined appointment
      Tenure track assistant professor (0.8FTE), University of Groningen
      2019 - 2021: Senior AI Scientist (0.2FTE), Ziel NL, Groningen
      2017 - 2019: Senior AI Scientist (0.2FTE), KAIOS, Groningen
    2015 - 2017: Lecturer (1FTE), University of Malta (Malta)
    2012 - 2015: Joined appointment
      Researcher (0.2FTE), University of Groningen
      Scientific Innovator (0.8FTE), TNO
    2013: PhD cum laude in Computer Science, University of Groningen. Download thesis
    2008: MSc Advanced Methods in Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London (UK)
    2007 - 2008: Algorithmic developer, Iteanova (Malta)
    2006: BSc (Hons) Computer Science and Information Systems, Goldsmiths College, University of London (UK)
    2004: Certificate in Banking and Financial Services, Chartered Institute of Bankers (Malta)
    2000 - 2007: Software developer, Bank of Valletta (Malta)