Peter William McOwan
Peter McOwan | |
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| Born | 8 February 1962 Falkirk, Scotland |
| Died | 29 June 2019 (aged 57) Glasgow, Scotland |
| Alma mater | |
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| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Applications of high-resolution computer generated holograms in optical beam shaping and image display (1990) |
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Peter William McOwan was a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London. His research interests were in visual perception, mathematical models for visual processing, in particular motion, cognitive science and biologically inspired hardware and software and science outreach.
Biography
Public Engagement
As Vice President for Public Engagement and Student Enterprise at Queen Mary, University of London, McOwan was involved in a number of projects to enhance understanding and interest in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. These include:
- being a co-founder of Computer Science for Fun that promotes Computer Science in schools with its website, free magazines and booklets with Paul Curzon
- partner of the OurSpace project that documents the space experiences of video game developer and astronaut, Richard Garriott.
As a result of this work in 2011 he was awarded the IET Mountbatten medal[4], and was elected a National Teaching Fellow by the Higher Education Academy in 2008.
Interest in Magic
McOwan was a keen amateur magician and was particularly interested in tricks based on Mathematics. He co-authored The Manual of Mathematical Magic with Matt Parker, a free book that explains a number of magic tricks, the mathematics behind them and its use in the modern world.
Key Publications
Professor McOwan is coauthor of over 120 papers across a wide range of disciplines, having accumulated over 5000 citations as of 2019. The most cited articles include:
- Facial expression recognition based on local binary patterns: A comprehensive study[5]
- A real-time automated system for the recognition of human facial expressions [6]
- A computational model of the analysis of some first-order and second-order motion patterns by simple and complex cells [7]
References
- ^ Anderson, Andrew (2003). Sensorimotor neural systems for a predatory stealth behaviour camouflaging motion. libraries.london.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of London.
- ^ Anderson, Keith (2004). A real-time facial expression recognition system for affective computing. libraries.london.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of London.
- ^ Sherwood, Adam Christopher (2005). Measurement of spatial orientation using a biologically plausible gradient model. libraries.london.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of London.
- ^ "The Mountbatten Medallists, The Institution of Engineering and Technology". Retrieved 19 November 2019.
- ^ Shan, C; Gong, S; McOwan, Peter (4 May 2009). "Facial expression recognition based on Local Binary Patterns: A comprehensive study". Image and Vision Computing. 27 (6): 803–816. doi:10.1016/j.imavis.2008.08.005. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
- ^ Anderson, Keith; McOwan, Peter (February 2006). "A real-time automated system for the recognition of human facial expressions". IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B (Cybernetics). 36 (1): 96–105. doi:10.1109/TSMCB.2005.854502.
- ^ Johnston, Alan; McOwan, Peter; Buxton, Hilary (1992). "A computational model of the analysis of some first-order and second-order motion patterns by simple and complex cells". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences. 250 (1329): 297–306. doi:10.1098/rspb.1992.0162.