Computer Scientist Lends Multimedia Expertise

The Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Multimedia has named UT Dallas computer scientist Balakrishnan Prabhakaran to its executive council and appointed him editor-in-chief of the organization’s online magazine.

An associate professor of computer science at the University’s Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, Dr. Prabhakaran hopes he’ll be able to make a greater impact than ever on the development of multimedia research in these new roles.

“This is a great honor and certainly shows Dr. Prabhakaran’s leadership in his field,” said D.T. Huynh, head of the Jonsson School’s Computer Science Department.

ACM is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society. Its Special Interest Group on Multimedia is dedicated to the generation and dissemination of information on multimedia computing, communication, storage and applications.

Multimedia is a burgeoning academic field thanks to the spread of digital technology for developing, sharing, viewing and searching for music, video, film and images. The special interest group’s online magazine is expected to play an important role in enhancing communications among multimedia experts worldwide.

Dr. Prabhakaran’s research interests include content-based retrieval of 3D models and motion sequences; streaming of 3D animations and deformable 3D models; content protection and authentication of 3D objects; quality-of-service guarantees for streaming in wireless ad-hoc and mesh networks; and collaborative virtual environments.

The annual ACM International Conference on Multimedia attracts hundreds of experts a year to discuss developments in the field. The 2009 conference will be held in October in Beijing.