Story by Cason Hunwick for the College of Natural Science's News Page. 

University of Texas at Austin computer science researcher Kristen Grauman was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists.

Professor Grauman, who leads the UT Austin Computer Vision Group, focuses on visual recognition, image and video search, video analysis, first-person vision, embodied and multi-modal perception, and interactive machine learning.

"The Blavatnik Awards jury was impressed by her visionary approach to big data and to the role of human interactions in computer vision, and the profound impact her work has had on the field," said Brooke Grindlinger, Chief Scientific Officer for Scientific Programs & Awards at the New York Academy of Sciences. "Her numerous contributions to the most challenging and contemporary problems in object recognition define her as one of the most influential researchers in computer vision today."

Her work includes research on visual systems that interpret scenes using inferences, an approach more efficient and human-like compared to handling vast sums of visual data all at once.

Grauman is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

A Blavatnik Laureate will be selected from among the finalists in the Physical Sciences & Engineering category in July.