Xanadu Halkias
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Columbia University, Dept of Electrical Engineering

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I was born in Athens, Greece, where I lived until 2002. There I developed my affinity for dolphin-kind, as they would swim alongside ferries on the way to the islands. I did my undergrad at National Technical University of Athens. My Masters Thesis was "Digital Processing of Kirlian Images," with Petros Maragos. I was very fortunate to learn image morphology from the guy who wrote the book on it. This thesis was the beginning of my work on fusing advanced electrical engineering techniques with challanging subjects from the right-brain.

I came to Columbia University in January, 2003, and I received my M.S. degree soon after. I am currently a Ph.D candidate. While my concentrations were on statistical pattern recognition and signal processing, I also took the opportunity to learn from diverse subjects such as Computational Neuroscience and bioinformatics. I also spent some time working on content-based analysis of audio and video. One of the most rewarding classes I took was Communication Theory with Professor Coffman. I wholly recommend this class to any new graduate student!

I have been working for Professor Dan Ellis at LabROSA. My concentration is bioacoustical marine mammal research. This is one of those projects that is as close to my heart as it is to my brain. I'm very thankful that Prof. Ellis is willing to take this risk with me.

Today I live on the upper west side, where my apartment is inhabitated by a rodent of the canus familiaris kind (a.k.a. a dog). Her name is Frany, though Rob, my quantum entanglement, prefers to call her by her more formal "Doggy". She helps us in our research by pressing the delete button at the most appropriate times, and by demanding attention at the precise second where a breakthrough is coming. She has taught us that some animal behavior is truly intelligent, some is based on sheer hunger, and sometimes it is impossible to tell the difference. Naturally, she has her own homepage here.

 
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