| HOME | PERSONNEL | PROJECTS | PUBLICATIONS | FAQ | INTERNAL |
|
| HOME | PERSONNEL | PROJECTS | PUBLICATIONS | FAQ | INTERNAL |
|
|
Q: I'm interested in your research area and would like to become one of your graduate students. What should I do?
A: You should browse the web page descriptions of some of our group's current projects, and apply to the graduate program in Electrical and Computer Engineering at McGill University, specifying your interest in working with me in Human-Computer Interaction or Computer Vision as part of the Intelligent Systems research group.
If you're a scholarship student (or expect to receive an NSERC or equivalent) and live within reasaonble proximity to Montreal, please contact me directly to arrange a time to visit our lab.
Q: What qualifications do I need to become a graduate student in your group?
A: First, you should have excellent grades; the department's minimum threshold is a CGPA of 3.0 out of 4 or a GPA of 3.2 out of 4.0 for the last two full-time academic years, but in general, we accept only students with much stronger records. There are GRE and TOEFL requirements for non-Canadian applicants. See the department web page for details. You should also posess a solid background (e.g. an undergraduate degree) in Electrical and Computer Engineering or Computer Science, have strong programming skills in C and/or Java, and have excellent communication skills.
For students wishing to enter the Ph.D. program, you should have relevant experience in a core subject area pertinent to the research project of interest and ideally, a number of publications.
Q: What sort of funding is available to support my studies?
A: We provide funding to a limited number of graduate students every year through research grants and contracts. However, other than cases where a prospective student already has a scholarship (see below), we are unlikely to provide support for M.Eng. students. Qualified Canadian applicants are strongly encouraged to apply for NSERC or FQRNT scholarships. Additional scholarships are also available, based on academic merit. See the following funding documents and the McGill Fellowships and Awards web page. All incoming Ph.D. students are also eligible for the McGill Engineering Doctoral Award (MEDA), which is determined largely by excellence of your academic and research record.
Ph.D. students are likely to receive differential fee waivers, which reduce international tuition to the equivalent of Canadian fees. Graduate students may also obtain some financial support by working a limited number of hours as Teaching Assistants. Further information is available from the ECE Graduate Studies page.
Q: How do I choose a thesis project?
A: There are generally a number of reasonably well defined projects in my lab that are directly suitable for a M.Eng. or Ph.D. thesis. However, I encourage students to spend (at least part of) their first semester working on a few small projects in parallel to help decide what fits best with their intersts.
Q: What courses should I take as a graduate student in your group?
A: In ECE, M.Eng. students take six graduate courses. (For Ph.D. students, course work, if any, is determined in consultation with your thesis committee.) In general, most students in my group register for the following, unless they have already taken equivalent graduate-level courses:
There are no hard-and-fast rules for how to split your course load between semesters. Some students try to get as many courses as possible out of the way early in their studies so that they can concentrate on thesis research later; others spread the load more evenly over three or four semesters. Regardless, the trick is often dealing with scheduling constraints, as most of the "interesting" courses tend to be slotted in the winter ('B') term, and you're unlikely to be able to manage more than 3 courses in any one semester, in particular as you'll be expected to begin some preliminary thesis research shortly after the start of your studies.
If you're a new M.Eng. student joining my group, you should consult the listing of graduate courses being offered for the coming year and make tentative selections before arriving at McGill. You can revise this during the "course add/drop" period in the first few weeks of the term, in consultation with your supervisor. Further information regarding the program regulations is available from the department web site.
For new graduate students whose first language is not English, I strongly recommend you taking one of the technical writing courses offered by the university. Previous students have found these courses immensely valuable, in particular when it comes to help in composing research papers and theses.
Q: How much vacation time do I have as a graduate student or post-doc?
A: McGill's Vacation Policy states that "Graduate students and Postdocs should normally be entitled to vacation leave equivalent to university holidays and an additional total of fifteen (15) working days in the year. Funded students and Postdocs with fellowships and research grant stipends taking additional vacation leave may have their funding reduced accordingly."
Q: I am interested in doing an undergraduate design project or honour's thesis or summer internship under your supervision. Do you have any suitable projects available?
A: Yes. Please see the description of our ongoing research projects as well as the listing of specific projects suited for advanced undergraduate or Master's students. We also accept a number of summer intern students each year, but cannot provide any funding unless you obtain an NSERC summer internship (eligiblity critieria: Canadian citizen and permanent resident). Students should check with their department advisors for information on these awards.
Q: I'm a graduate student at [University X] and wish to conduct part of my thesis research in your lab as a visiting graduate student.
A: If you have strong marks and have identified a research interest that is closely aligned with current SRE lab activities, I would be happy to discuss your application. McGill requires that all visiting students follow the application process as described here for graduate student trainees.
Q: I am an international undergraduate student and wish to conduct a summer internship under your guidance.
A: If you have strong marks, an interest in the research areas of my group, and an ability to learn the necessary tools quickly, I would be happy to consider your application. However, I cannot provide any funding to support your travel or stay in Montreal. If you're still interested, please contact me, indicating that you understand that no financial assistance will be offered.
Q: What other professors are doing research in the Intelligent Systems area at McGill?
A:
Tal Arbel: Object recognition, recognition based on motion signatures, active vision, active recognition, Bayesian inference, statistical models, statistical pattern recognition, as well as medical imaging, neurology and neurosurgery, image registration.
James Clark: Active Vision, Visual Attention, Spatial Representations in Vision, Sensori-motor Systems
Frank Ferrie: Artificial perception, active vision, environmental modeling, shape representation, visual reconstruction, recognition, visualization, robotics
Martin Levine: Face recognition, Content-based image retrieval, Visual focus of attention, Object recognition
Last update: 27 November 2010