Biography
Ryan Farrell is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science department at Brigham Young University (BYU). He previously worked as a research scientist at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI), a non-profit research institute affiliated with UC Berkeley, having completed his master's and doctorate degrees at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Research Interests
My research focuses on the emerging field of fine-grained visual categorization (FGVC), where, instead of recognizing objects at a coarse level (e.g. bird or car), we tackle the difficult task of training a computer to find the highly-localized and often subtle characteristics (differences in shape, coloration, etc.) that allow precise identification at the level of fine-grained or "subordinate-level" categories (e.g. genus/species, make/model/year). Overcoming this key challenge bridges the divide between objects in the visual world around us and the vast wealth of digital information about them.Teaching Interests
Introductory Computer Science, Algorithms and Data Structures, Competitive Programming, Computer Vision, Machine Learning.Education
- Ph.D., Computer Science , University of Maryland, College Park (2011)
- M.S., Computer Science , University of Maryland, College Park (2006)
- B.S., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) , University of California, Berkeley (2001)
Honors and Awards
- NSF CAREER Award, National Science Foundation (NSF) (2017 - 2022)
- Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award (3-10 Years), College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (CPMS), Brigham Young University (BYU) (2018 - 2018)
Memberships
- IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) (2005 - Present)
- ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) (2001 - Present)
Professional Citizenship
- Conference-Related Role, ICCV 2023 (2022 - Present)
- Conference-Related Role, WACV 2022 (2021 - Present)
- Conference-Related Role, ICCV 2025 (2025 - 2025)
- Committee/Council Chair, WACV Steering Committee (2023 - 2025)
- Conference-Related Role, CVPR 2025 (2024 - 2025)
- Conference-Related Role, ECCV 2024 (2024 - 2024)
- Conference-Related Role, WACV 2024 (2023 - 2024)
- Conference-Related Role, WACV 2023 (2022 - 2023)
- Conference-Related Role, ECCV 2022 (2022 - 2022)
- Conference-Related Role, CVPR 2022 (2021 - 2022)
- Editor, Associate Editor, IEEE Journal of Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence (PAMI) (2020 - 2022)
- Conference-Related Role, CVPR 2021 (2020 - 2021)
- Conference-Related Role, WACV 2021 (2020 - 2021)
- Conference-Related Role, ECCV 2020 (2020 - 2020)
- Conference-Related Role, WACV 2020 (2018 - 2020)
- Conference-Related Role, CVPR 2019 (2018 - 2019)
- Other, 6th Workshop on Fine-Grained Visual Categorization (2018 - 2019)
- Conference-Related Role, ICVGIP 2018 (2018 - 2018)
- Other, 5th Workshop on Fine-Grained Visual Categorization (2017 - 2018)
- Conference-Related Role, CVPR 2018 (2015 - 2018)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, CVPR 2018 (2017 - 2018)
- Other, 1st Workshop on Visual Wildlife Monitoring (2017 - 2017)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, ICCV 2017 (2017 - 2017)
- Other, 4rd Workshop on Fine-Grained Visual Categorization (2016 - 2017)
- Grant Proposal Reviewer, External, National Science Foundation (NSF) (2017 - 2017)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, CVPR 2017 (2016 - 2017)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, ECCV 2016 (2016 - 2016)
- Conference-Related Role, CVPR 2016 (2015 - 2016)
- Other, ICCV 2015 (2014 - 2015)
- Conference-Related Role, SIBGRAPI 2015 (2014 - 2015)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, ICCV 2015 (2015 - 2015)
- Other, 3rd Workshop on Fine-Grained Visual Categorization (2014 - 2015)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, CVPR 2015 (2014 - 2015)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, IJCV (Journal) (2014 - 2014)
- Other, CVPR 2014 (2013 - 2014)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, ECCV 2014 (2014 - 2014)
- Grant Proposal Reviewer, External, National Science Foundation (NSF) (2014 - 2014)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, CVPR 2014 (2013 - 2014)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, T-PAMI (Journal) (2013 - 2013)
- Other, ICCV 2013 (2012 - 2013)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, ICCV 2013 (2013 - 2013)
- Other, Second Workshop on Fine-Grained Visual Categorization (2012 - 2013)
- Other, CVPR 2013 (2012 - 2013)
- Reviewer, Ad Hoc Reviewer, CVPR 2013 (2012 - 2013)