Name: Seong Jae Hwang
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Computer Science
What are your research interests?
Understanding the complex mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases is crucial for discovering methods of prevention and treatment, and this often needs complex models that can properly leverage and analyze the underlying information from modern data. My research focuses on developing statistical machine learning and deep neural network methods for analyzing complex data in machine learning, computer vision, and medical imaging. Currently, one of the main topics of interest is in characterizing the development of Alzheimer’s disease with neuroimaging data and related pathologies such as amyloid.
Why did you chose to come to SCI?
There are multiple reasons. After I visited Pitt and met people at SCI, I was certain that if I come to SCI I would be working with good, genuine people. Also, as I learned more about SCI, it became evident that SCI highly encouraged collaborative and interdisciplinary research, and a school with such a view on computer science was exactly what I sought for.
How does your teaching/research align with SCI’s mission?
As a computer scientist with interdisciplinary research topics broadly ranging from neuroimaging to computer vision, I often look for answers to real-world problems that are extremely difficult without polymathic efforts with related fields such as neuroscience. Thus, I see my research well aligning with the school’s mission, but I also want students to realize how they can also be a part of the mission as well. My goal is to help students learn more about interesting problems beyond classical computer science and realize how SCI could become a crucial part of practically anything.