Gene Cheung

Professor York Research Chair (tier 2) Core Faculty of VISTA

I obtained my PhD degree from the EECS department in University of California Berkeley in 2000, and was a senior researcher in Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Japan from 2000 till 2009. I served as assistant, then associate professor in National Institute of Informatics (NII) in Tokyo Japan from 2009 to 2018. I joined the Department of EECS at York University, Toronto, Canada in Fall 2018 as associate professor, where I currently serve as professor and vice-chair of engineering (undergraduate program director). I am a fellow of IEEE (Signal Processing Society). I am a tier-2 York Research Chair (YRC) from 2023-2028. I am a licensed professional engineer (P. Eng.) in Ontario.

I currently serve as senior associate editor for IEEE Signal Processing Letters, and associate editor for  EURASIP Signal Processing: Image Communication, and APSIPA Transactions on Signal and Information Processing. I am a visiting aossicate professor in National Institute of Informatics (NII) in Tokyo, Japan, and Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) in Tokyo, Japan. I serve on the scientific advisory board in Growers Edge since 2021.

See my CV HERE (updated 8/14/2024). See my Google Scholar page HERE. See our new book on Graph Spectral Image Processing, now available in Amazon HERE.

News

• 9/09/2024: 1 ICASSP'25 paper submitted.
• 7/25/2024: 1 TSP paper accepted.
• 6/06/2024; 3 ICIP'24 paper accepted.
• 12/20/2023: JSPS short-term fellowship accepted.
• 12/15/2023: 1 OJSP paper accepted.
• 12/13/2023: 4 ICASSP'24 papers accepted.
• 12/05/2023: 1 TSP paper accepted.
• 8/14/2023: 1 SmartGridComm'23 paper accepted.
• 8/04/2023: 1 Globecom'23 paper accepted.
• 7/01/2023: Selected as York Research Chair (tier-2). See article HERE.
• 6/27/2023: Overview talk on "Graph Signal Processing: Theory and Applications to Imaging and Machine Learning" at York EECS department. See PDF slides HERE and YouTube video HERE.
• 6/21/2023: 1 ICIP'23 paper accepted.
• 5/23/2023: See HERE for my Podcast interview in "This is Lassonde" titled "From Dreams to Virtual Reality".
• 5/18/2023: 1 TSP paper accepted.
• 4/03/2023: 1 IGARSS'23 paper accepted.
• 2/15/2023: 4 ICASSP'23 papers accepted.
  
• 9/24/2022: 1 TIP paper accepted.
  
• 7/30/2022: 1 TSP paper accepted.
  
• 7/25/2022: See HERE for a YFile article on our collaboration with Growers Edge.
  
• 7/01/2022: Started my role as Vice-Chair of Engineering in the EECS department at York University.
  
• 6/20/2022: 2 ICIP'22 papers accepted.
  
• 5/16/2022: 3 EUSIPCO'22 papers accepted.
  
• 3/29/2022: 1 TIP paper accepted.
  
• 2/23/2022: Invited talk at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. Slides avilable HERE.
  
• 2/18/2022: 1 DSLW'22 paper accepted.
  
• 2/03/2022: 1 TCSVT paper accepted.
  
• 1/21/2022: 2 ICASSP'22 papers accepted.
  
• 1/14/2022: YFile article on our research on point cloud processing for VR. See HERE.
  
• 1/13/2022: Mitacs Accelerate funding proposal with GrowersEdge accepted.
  
• 1/06/2022: 1 TIP paper accepted.
  
• 12/31/2021: 1 TPAMI paper accepted.
  
• 12/08/2021: Japanese version of our paper "Unrolling Graph Total Variation for Light Field Image Denoising" has received IE Award in IEICE Image Engineering Research Conference 2021. See HERE.
  
• 8/24/2021: Appointed SAE for IEEE SPL.
  
• 7/26/2021: Lassonde and yFile articles on supervised student Saghar Bagheri's selection as best student paper finalist at ICASSP'21 published. See HERE and HERE.
  
• 7/05/2021: Join us in a discussion on the "Future of Graph Signal Processing" in an APSIPA panel on July 23, 9pm EST. See HERE.
  
• 7/02/2021: Co-edited book on "Graph Spectral Image Processing" available for pre-order in Amazon now. See HERE.
  
• 6/20/2021: 1 TPAMI paper accepted.
  
• 6/11/2021:  Finalist of best student paper award at ICASSP'21. See HERE.
  
• 5/26/2021: 1 ICIP'21 paper accepted.
  
• 4/09/2021: Workshop proposal on "Graph Signal Processing meets Computer Vision" in ICCV'21 accepted.
  
• 4/07/2021: 1 TIP paper accepted.
  
• 3/29/2021: Invited talk at Simon Fraser University. Slides available HERE.
  
• 3/09/2021: Invited talk at Cisco Systems Inc.
• 2/22/2021: SOSCIP project application approved.
• 2/19/2021: Invited talk at University of Kentucky.
  
• 2/01/2021: Visiting professorship at Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology (TUAT) approved.
• 11/24/2020: Elevated to IEEE Fellow starting 01/2021.
  
• 11/24/2020: Appointed Associate Member in MMSP-TC in SPS.
  
• 10/25/2020: Part 2 & 3 of ICIP'20 tutorial on "Graph Spectral Image Processing" now available HERE and HERE.
  
• 10/21/2020: NSERC Alliance Grant with Cisco approved.
  
• 10/05/2020: Selected for top reviewer recognition (top 3%) in ICIP'20.
  
• 6/23/2020: Dataset for joint demosaicking / rectification of  fisheye camera images available HERE.
  
• 3/06/2020: source code for graph sampling based on Gershgorin disc alignment is now available for free download HERE.
• 12/20/2019: Matlab source code of 3D point cloud denoising based on low-dimensional manifold model is now available for free download HERE.
• 12/09/2019: 1 TIP paper accepted.
  
• 10/17/2019: short tutorial on linear algebra in Fields/VISTA Mathematics of Vision Workshop 2019. See slides HERE.
• 10/16/2019: invited talk in Professional Engineers Ontario, Willowdale-Thornhill Chapter on "Graph Signal Analysis: Imaging, Learning, Sampling". See slides HERE.
  
• 5/30/2019: Lassonde article on my DAS award is HERE.

Research Interests

• Graph Signal Processing
• Image Representation & Processing
• Graph Spectral Machine Learning
  

Awards & Recognitions

• 1 of 8 finalists for best student paper award at ICASSP'21 (of 3610 submitted papers).
  
• Best student paper award at ICIP'17 (first prize chosen from over 2000 submitted papers).
• Microsoft Research Blog article on my research on image processing, February 2017.
  
• IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) Japan Best Paper Award 2016.
  
• Best student paper award at IVMSP'16.
• Distinguished lecturer in APSIPA 2016-2017.
  
• 1 of 8 best paper finalists in ICME'15 (of 524 submitted papers).
  
• MMTC Distinguished Service Award 2014.
  
• 2 papers selected as top 10% accepted paper recognition at ICIP'14.
  
• 1 of 3 PIs in Microsoft CORE9 program chosen for 1-year funding extension, June 2014.
  
• NII Graduate Student Award 2013-2014 for co-advised graduate student Zhi Liu.
• Best student paper award at ICIP'13 (1 of 3 chosen from 2102 submitted papers).
• 2 papers selected as top 10% accepted paper recognition at ICIP'13.
• The Graduate University for Advanced Studies Sokendai President's Award 2013 for co-advised graduate student Yunlong Feng.
• ICM English Session Encouragement Award 2012 for co-advised graduate student Yunlong Feng.
  
• Best reviewer award in VCIP'12 (6 of 200+ reviewers).
  
• Best paper runner-up award in ICME'12 (of 609 submitted papers).
  
• The Graduate University for Advanced Studies Sokendai President's Award 2012 for co-advised graduate student Zhi Liu.
• Best poster award in PCSJ'11.
• One of 5 best paper finalists in ICIP'11 (of 2245 submitted papers).
  
• One of 22 best paper finalists in ICME'11 (of 744 submitted papers).
  
• Best student paper award for co-advised graduate student Zhi Liu in StreamComm'11.
• Top 10% paper award in MMSP'09, MMSP'11, MMSP'12, MMSP'13.
  
• French newspaper atelier.fr published a news article on our community streaming research 5/19/2009.

Education

University of California, Berkeley, CA           May 2000
Doctor of Philosophy:   Electrical Engineering
Advisor:   Professor Steven McCanne

University of California, Berkeley, CA           May 1998
Master of Science:   Electrical Engineering
Advisor:   Professor Avideh Zakhor

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY           May 1995
Bachelor of Science:   Electrical Engineering

External Funding

Lassonde Innovation Fund (LIF) in York University (2024)

JSPS Short-term (two-month) fellowship (2024)

Mitacs Accelerate Grant "Prediction of Crop Yields via Graph Signal Analysis" with GrowersEdge (2023)

Mitacs Accelerate Grant "Prediction of Crop Yields via Graph Signal Analysis" with GrowersEdge (2022)

SOSCIP Project "Hybrid Graph Spectral / Data-driven Semi-Supervised Learning for Robust Classification" with Cisco (2021-2022)

NSERC Alliance Grant "Distributed Graph-based Semi-supervised Classifiers: Sampling and Interpolation" with Cisco (2020-2023)

NSERC Discovery Grant "Graph Spectral Imaging: Sampling, Representation and Restoration" (2019-2023)

NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement Award (2019-2021)

Kandao Technology 2018-2019.

NTT 2017-2018.

Sisvel Technology FY'16.

Microsoft CORE12 FY'16. 1 of 4 PIs chosen for 1-year funding extension.

JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research FY'15-FY'17.

KDDI Research FY'13.

Samsung Research Japan FY'13, FY'14.

Microsoft CORE9 FY'13. 1 of 3 PIs chosen for 1-year funding extension.

Microsoft CORE7 FY'11. See HERE for details.

JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) FY'11-FY'13.

FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IRSES "QoSTREAM--Video Quality Driven Multimedia Streaming in Mobile Wireless Networks" 02/2012-02/2016.

Invited Talks

"Graph Signal Processing & Learning for Image Applications," invited talk in Green IoT Workshop, Osaka, Japan, June 2024.

"Graph Signal Processing: Theory and Applications for Imaging & Machine Learning (pdf) (YouTube)," EECS department, York University, June 2023.

"Efficient Signed Graph Sampling via Balancing and Gershgorin Disc Perfect Alignment (pdf)," hosted by Prof. Yuichi Tanaka in Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Tokyo, Japan, July 2022.

"Spectral Graph Learning: Algorithm and Application to Image Coding & Graph Convolutional Nets," hosted by Prof. Irene Cheng in University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, April 2022.

"Spectral Graph Learning: Algorithm and Application to Image Coding & Graph Convolutional Nets  (pdf)," hosted by Prof. Yuichi Tanaka in Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Tokyo, Japan, February 2022.

"Graph Learning, Sampling & Filtering for Image & Signal Estimation (pdf)," hosted by Prof. Ivan Bajic in Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada, March 2021.

"Graph Learning, Sampling & Filtering for Image & Signal Estimation," hosted by Dr. Wai-tian Tan in Cisco Systems Inc, USA, March 2021.

"Graph Learning, Sampling & Filtering for Image & Signal Estimation," hosted by Prof. Samson Cheung in University of Kentucky, USA, February 2021.

"Graph Signal Analysis: Imaging, Learning, Sampling (pdf)," hosted by Prof. Zhou Wang in University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada, June 2019.

"Fast Graph Sampling using Gershgorin Disc Alignment," hosted by Prof. Yuji Nakatsukasa in Oxford University, Oxford, UK, May 2019.

"Fast Graph Sampling using Gershgorin Disc Alignment," hosted by Dr. Thomas Maugey in Inria, Rennes, France, April 2019.

"Graph Signal Analysis: Imaging, Learning, Sampling," hosted by Prof. Ashish Khisti in University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, April 2019.

"Graph Spectral Image Compression & Restoration," invited keynote in PCSJ/IMPS 2018, Shizuoka-ken, Japan, November 2018.

"Graph Spectral Image Processing (pdf)," hosted by Prof. Xiao-Ping Zhang in Ryerson University Toronto, Canada, November 2018.

"Graph Spectral Image Processing," hosted by Dr. Yuan Yuan in Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China, September 2018.

"Recent Advances in Graph Spectral Image Processing (pdf)," invited talk in Graph Signal Processing Workshop, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, June 2018.

"Graph Signal Processing for Image Compression & Restoration," hosted by Prof. Lu Fang in Tsinghua University Shenzhen Campus, Shenzhen, China, December 2017.

"Semi-Supervised Graph Classifier Learning with Negative Edge Weights (pdf)," hosted by Prof. Wei Hu in Peking University, Beijing, China, November 2017.

"Semi-Supervised Graph Classifier Learning with Negative Edge Weights," hosted by Prof. Yao Wang in NYU Polytechnic Institute, New York, USA, June 2017.

"Graph Signal Processing for Image Compression & Restoration," hosted by Prof. Chia-Wen Lin in National Tsinghua University, Tsinchu, Taiwan, May 2017.

"Semi-Supervised Graph Classifier Learning with Negative Edge Weights  (pdf)," hosted by Prof. Enrico Magli in Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy, May 2017.

"Inverse Imaging Problems using Graph-Signal Smoothness Priors (pdf)," hosted by Prof. Jiaying Liu in Peking University, Beijing, China, September 2016.

"Inverse Imaging Problems using Graph-Signal Smoothness Priors", hosted by Prof. Michael Ng in Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, August 2016.

"Interactive Media Navigation using Merge Frames (pdf)", hosted by Dr. Dinei Florencio in Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA, July 2016.

"Graph Signal Processing for Image Compression and Restoration, part 1 (coding), part 2a (denoising), part 2b (soft decoding)" tutorial in IEEE ICME 2016, Seattle, USA, July 2016.

"Merge Frame Design for Interactive Media Streaming Applications," hosted by Prof. Pascal Frossard in EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, March 2016.

"Merge Frame Design for Interactive Media Streaming Applications," hosted by Prof. Vladimir Stankovic in University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, March 2016.

"Graph Signal Processing for Image Compression and Restoration," tutorial in APSIPA ASC, Hong Kong, December 2015.

"Depth Image Coding and Processing: part 1 (introduction), part 2 (coding), part 3 (denoising)," invited tutorial in COST Training School, 3D-AVCom 2015, Lisbon, Portugal, July 2015.

"Graph-based Depth Image Processing (pdf)," hosted by Dr. Ketan Tang in DJI, Shenzhen, China, May 2015.

"Non-intrusive Apnoea / Hypopnoea Detection System via MS Kinect captured Depth Video Analysis (pdf)," hosted by Prof. Jie Liang in Simon Fraser University, November 2014.

"3D Imaging: signal processing and applications," hosted by Prof. Lu Fang in University of Science and Technology of China, September 2014.

"Graph Laplacian Regularizer for Inverse Image Problems," hosted by Prof. Antonio Ortega in University of Southern California, August 2014.

"Graph Signal Processing for Image Compression & Restoration," hosted by Prof. Ivan Bajic in Simon Fraser University, March 2014.

"Graph Signal Processing for Image Compression & Restoration," hosted by Prof. Vladimir Stankovic in University of Strathclyde, Feb 2014.

"3D Visual Communication: Media Representation, Transport and Rendering," plenary talk at IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing, October 2013. Slides in pdf can be found here.

"Compact Representation of Dynamic 3D Scene for Immersive Visual Communication," hosted by Dr. Giuseppe Valenzise in Telecom ParisTech, March 2013.

"Compact Representation of Dynamic 3D Scene for Immersive Visual Communication," hosted by Prof. Oscar Au in Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,  Feb 2013.

"Compact Representation of Dynamic 3D Scene for Immersive Visual Communication," hosted by Prof. Lei Zhang in Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Dec 2012.

"Eye-gaze Prediction via Joint-Analysis of Gaze Patterns and Visual Media," hosted by Prof. Ivan Bajic in Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, March 2012.

"Transform Domain Sparsification of Depth Maps for Depth-Image-Based Rendering," hosted by Dr. Yasuyuki Matsushita in Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, China, Oct 2011.

"Sparse Representation of Depth Maps for Efficient Transform Coding," hosted by Prof. Jie Liang in Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, Feb 2011.

"Optimizing Multiview Image / Video Coding and Streaming," hosted by Prof. Lei Zhang in Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Dec 2010.

"Network Video Systems: Error-resilience & Interactivity", hosted by Prof. Gary Chan in Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Dec 2009.

Selected Publications (complete listing)

Cheng Yang, Gene Cheung, Wei Hu, "Signed Graph Metric Learning via Gershgorin Disc Alignment," submitted to IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, June 2020. (arXiv) (code)

Yuanchao Bai, Fen Wang, Gene Cheung, Yuji Nakatsukasa, Wen Gao, "Fast Graph Sampling Set Selection Using Gershgorin Disc Alignment," vol. 68, pp. 2419-2434, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, March 2020. (arXiv) (software)

Chinthaka Dinesh, Gene Cheung, Ivan Bajic, "Point Cloud Denoising via Feature Graph Laplacian Regularization," vol. 29, pp. 4143-4158, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, January 2020. (arXiv)

Jiahao Pang, Gene Cheung, "Graph Laplacian Regularization for Image Denoising: Analysis in the Continuous Domain," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 26, no.4, pp.1770-1785, April 2017. (arXiv) (software)

Xianming Liu, Gene Cheung, Xiaolin Wu, Debin Zhao, "Random Walk Graph Laplacian based Smoothness Prior for Soft Decoding of JPEG Images," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing,  vol.26, no.2, pp.509-524, February 2017. (arXiv) (software)

Wei Dai, Gene Cheung, Ngai-Man Cheung, Antonio Ortega, Oscar Au, "Merge Frame Design for Video Stream Switching using Piecewise Constant Functions (accepted version)," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol.25, no.8, pp.3489-3504, August 2016.

Wei Hu, Gene Cheung, Antonio Ortega, Oscar Au, "Multiresolution Graph Fourier Transform for Compression of Piecewise Smooth Images (accepted version)," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol.24, no.1, pp.419-433, January 2015.

Gene Cheung, Antonio Ortega, Ngai-Man Cheung, "Interactive Streaming of Stored Multiview Video using Redundant Frame Structures," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol.20, no.3, pp.744-761, March 2011.