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Prof. Antoni B. Chan
Professor
Associate Head, Dept. of Computer Science
Deputy Director, Multimedia Engineering Research Centre (MERC)
BSc MEng Cornell, PhD UC San Diego
SrMIEEE

Video, Image, and Sound Analysis Lab (VISAL)
Department of Computer Science
City University of Hong Kong

Office: Room AC1-G7311, Yeung Kin Man Academic Building (lift 7)
Phone: +852 3442 6509
Fax: +852 3442 0503
Email: abchan at cityu dot edu dot hk

News

• Call for Papers: Special Issue on “Applications of artificial intelligence, computer vision, physics and econometrics modelling methods in pedestrian traffic modelling and crowd safety” in Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. Deadline April 30th, 2023.

Bio

Dr. Antoni Chan is a Professor at the City University of Hong Kong in the Department of Computer Science.  Before joining CityU, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego).  He received the Ph.D. degree from UC San Diego in 2008 studying in the Statistical and Visual Computing Lab (SVCL). He received the B.Sc. and M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 2000 and 2001. From 2001 to 2003, he was a Visiting Scientist in the Computer Vision and Image Analysis lab at Cornell. In 2005, he was a summer intern at Google in New York City. In 2012, he was the recipient of an Early Career Award from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong SAR, China.

Research Interests [more]

Computer Vision, Surveillance, Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition, Computer Audition, Music Information Retrieval, Eye Gaze Analysis

dynamic textures, motion segmentation, motion analysis, semantic image annotation, image retrieval, crowd counting, probabilistic graphical models, support vector machines, Bayesian regression, Gaussian processes, semantic music annotation and retrieval, music segmentation, feature extraction.

• For more information about my current research projects, please visit my lab website.
• Opportunities for graduate students and research assistants! If you are interested in joining the lab, please check this information. Outstanding non-HK students may also consider applying for the HK PhD fellowship.

Recent Publications [more]

• Human Attention-Guided Explainable AI for Object Detection.
  Guoyang Liu, Jindi Zhang, Antoni B. Chan, and Janet H. Hsiao,
  In: Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, to appear July 2023.
• TWINS: A Fine-Tuning Framework for Improved Transferability of Adversarial Robustness and Generalization.
  Ziquan Liu, Yi Xu, Xiangyang Ji, and Antoni B. Chan,
  In: IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), to appear 2023.
• Optimal Transport Minimization: Crowd Localization on Density Maps for Semi-Supervised Counting.
  Wei Lin and Antoni B. Chan,
  In: IEEE/CVF Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), to appear 2023 (highlight).
• DropMAE: Masked Autoencoders with Spatial-Attention Dropout for Tracking Tasks.
  Qiangqiang Wu, Tianyu Yang, Ziquan Liu, Baoyuan Wu, Ying Shan, and Antoni B. Chan,
  In: IEEE/CVF Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), to appear 2023.
• ODAM: Gradient-based Instance-Specific Visual Explanations for Object Detection.
  Chenyang Zhao and Antoni B. Chan,
  In: Intl. Conf. on Learning Representations (ICLR), Rwanda, to appear May 2023.
• Bayes-MIL: A New Probabilistic Perspective on Attention-based Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Images.
  Yufei Cui, Ziquan Liu, Xiangyu Liu, Xue Liu, Cong Wang, Tei-Wei Kuo, Jason Xue Chun, and Antoni B. Chan,
  In: Intl. Conf. on Learning Representations (ICLR), Rwanda, to appear May 2023.
• Jobs-housing balance and travel patterns among different occupations as revealed by Hidden Markov mixture models: the case of Hong Kong.
  Feiyang Zhang, Becky P.Y. Loo, Hui Lan, Antoni B. Chan, and Janet H. Hsiao,
  Transportation, April 2023.
• Visual attention to own- versus other-race faces: Perspectives from learning mechanisms and task demands.
  Janet H. Hsiao and Antoni B. Chan,
  British Journal of Psychology, to appear 2023.
• Clustering Hidden Markov Models With Variational Bayesian Hierarchical EM.
  Hui Lan, Ziquan Liu, Janet H. Hsiao, Dan Yu, and Antoni B. Chan,
  IEEE Trans. on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS), 34(3):1537-1551, March 2023 (online 2021).
• A Lightweight and Detector-Free 3D Single Object Tracker on Point Clouds.
  Yan Xia, Qiangqiang Wu, Wei Li, Antoni B. Chan, and Uwe Stilla,
  IEEE Trans. on Intelligent Transportation Systems, to appear 2023.
• Variational Nested Dropout.
  Yufei Cui, Yu Mao, Ziquan Liu, Qiao Li, Antoni B. Chan, Xue Liu, Tei-Wei Kuo, and Xue Chun,
  IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), to appear 2023.
• Optimal planning of municipal-scale distributed rooftop photovoltaic systems with maximized solar energy generation under constraints in high-density cities.
  Haoshan Ren, Zhenjun Ma, Antoni B. Chan, and Yongjun Sun,
  Energy, 263(Part A):125686, Jan 2023.
• Improved Fine-Tuning by Better Leveraging Pre-Training Data.
  Ziquan Liu, Yi Xu, Yuanhong Xu, Qi Qian, Hao Li, Xiangyang Ji, Antoni B. Chan, and Rong Jin,
  In: Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), Nov 2022.
• An Empirical Study on Distribution Shift Robustness From the Perspective of Pre-Training and Data Augmentation.
  Ziquan Liu, Yi Xu, Yuanhong Xu, Qi Qian, Hao Li, Rong Jin, Xiangyang Ji, and Antoni B. Chan,
  In: NeurIPS 2022 Workshop on Distribution Shifts: Connecting Methods and Applications (DistShift), Nov 2022.
• Precise Augmentation and Counting of Helicobacter Pylori in Histology Image.
  Yufei Cui, Yixin Chen, Zhifeng Shuai, Fang Peng, Yanbo Lv, Luoning Zheng, Xue Liu, Antoni B. Chan, Tei-Wei Kuo, and Chun Jason Xue,
  In: NeurIPS 2022 Workshop on Medical Imaging meets NeurIPS (MedNeurIPS), to appear 2022.

Selected Publications [more]

• Understanding the role of eye movement consistency in face recognition and autism through integrating deep neural networks and hidden Markov models.
  Janet H. Hsiao, Jeehye An, Veronica Kit Sum Hui, Yueyuan Zheng, and Antoni B. Chan,
  npj Science of Learning, 7:28, Oct 2022.
• PRIMAL-GMM: PaRametrIc MAnifold Learning of Gaussian Mixture Models.
  Ziquan Liu, Lei Yu, Janet H. Hsiao, and Antoni B. Chan,
  IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), 44(6):3197-3211, June 2022 (online 2021). [code]
• Wide-Area Crowd Counting: Multi-View Fusion Networks for Counting in Large Scenes.
  Qi Zhang and Antoni B. Chan,
  International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV), 130(8):1938-1960, May 2022.
• On Distinctive Image Captioning via Comparing and Reweighting.
  Jiuniu Wang, Wenjia Xu, Qingzhong Wang, and Antoni B. Chan,
  IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), to appear 2022.
• Kernel-based Density Map Generation for Dense Object Counting.
  Jia Wan, Qingzhong Wang, and Antoni B. Chan,
  IEEE Trans. Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), 44(3):1357-1370, Mar 2022.
• On Diversity in Image Captioning: Metrics and Methods.
  Qingzhong Wang, Jia Wan, and Antoni B. Chan,
  IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), 44(2):1035-1049, Feb 2022.
• A Generalized Loss Function for Crowd Counting and Localization.
  Jia Wan, Ziquan Liu, and Antoni B. Chan,
  In: IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Jun 2021. [supplemental]
• Eye Movement analysis with Hidden Markov Models (EMHMM) with co-clustering.
  Janet H. Hsiao, Hui Lan, Yueyuan Zheng, and Antoni B. Chan,
  Behavior Research Methods, 53:2473-2486, April 2021.
• Visual Tracking via Dynamic Memory Networks.
  Tianyu Yang and Antoni B. Chan,
  IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), 43(1):360-374, Jan 2021. [code]
• Incorporating Side Information by Adaptive Convolution.
  Di Kang, Debarun Dhar, and Antoni B. Chan,
  International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV), 128:2897-2918, July 2020.
• Density-Preserving Hierarchical EM Algorithm: Simplifying Gaussian Mixture Models for Approximate Inference.
  Lei Yu, Tianyu Yang, and Antoni B. Chan,
  IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), 41(6):1323-1337, June 2019.
• Beyond Counting: Comparisons of Density Maps for Crowd Analysis Tasks - Counting, Detection, and Tracking.
  Di Kang, Zheng Ma, and Antoni B. Chan,
  IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (TCSVT), 29(5):1408-1422, May 2019.
• Eye Movement Patterns in Face Recognition are Associated with Cognitive Decline in Older Adults.
  Cynthia Y.H. Chan, Antoni B. Chan, Tatia M.C. Lee, and Janet H. Hsiao,
  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25(6):2200-2207, Dec 2018.
• Maximum-Margin Structured Learning with Deep Networks for 3D Human Pose Estimation.
  Sijin Li, Weichen Zhang, and Antoni B. Chan,
  International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV), 122(1):149-168, March 2017.
• Counting People Crossing a Line using Integer Programming and Local Features.
  Zheng Ma and Antoni B. Chan,
  IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (TCSVT), 26(10):1955-1969, Oct 2016. [appendix]
• Understanding eye movements in face recognition using hidden Markov models.
  Tim Chuk, Antoni B. Chan, and Janet H. Hsiao,
  Journal of Vision, 14(11):8, Sep 2014.
• Clustering hidden Markov models with variational HEM.
  Emanuele Coviello, Antoni B. Chan, and Gert R.G. Lanckriet,
  Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR), 15(2):697-747, Feb 2014. [code]
• Clustering Dynamic Textures with the Hierarchical EM Algorithm for Modeling Video.
  Adeel Mumtaz, Emanuele Coviello, Gert R.G. Lanckriet, and Antoni B. Chan,
  IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), 35(7):1606-1621, Jul 2013. [appendix]
• Counting People with Low-Level Features and Bayesian Regression.
  Antoni B. Chan and Nuno Vasconcelos,
  IEEE Trans. on Image Processing (TIP), 21(4):2170-2177, May 2012.
• Generalized Gaussian Process Models.
  Antoni B. Chan and Daxiang Dong,
  In: IEEE Conf. Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Colorado Springs, Jun 2011. [supplemental]
• Layered dynamic textures.
  Antoni B. Chan and Nuno Vasconcelos,
  IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), 31(10):1862-1879, Oct 2009.
• Modeling, clustering, and segmenting video with mixtures of dynamic textures.
  Antoni B. Chan and Nuno Vasconcelos,
  IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), 30(5):909-926, May 2008.
• Modeling music as a dynamic texture.
  Luke Barrington, Antoni B. Chan, and Gert R.G. Lanckriet,
  IEEE Trans. on Audio, Speech and Language Processing (TASLP), 18(3):602-612, Mar 2010.
• Supervised learning of semantic classes for image annotation and retrieval.
  Gustavo Carneiro, Antoni B. Chan, Pedro J. Moreno, and Nuno Vasconcelos,
  IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), 29(3):394-410, Mar 2007.

Google Scholar
Microsoft Academic
orcid.org/0000-0002-2886-2513
Scopus ID: 14015159100

Recent Project Pages [more]

Recent Datasets and Code [more]

Modeling Eye Movements with Deep Neural Networks and Hidden Markov Models (DNN+HMM)

Dolphin-14k: Chinese White Dolphin detection dataset

Crowd counting: Zero-shot cross-domain counting

CVCS: Cross-View Cross-Scene Multi-View Crowd Counting Dataset

Crowd counting: Generalized loss function

Teaching

• CS 4487 – Machine Learning (undergraduate) — 2015A-2018A.
• CS 5487 – Machine Learning: Principles & Practice (postgraduate) — 2012A-2022A.
• CS 5489 – Machine Learning: Algorithms & Applications (postgraduate) — 2020B-2023B
• CS 6487 – Topics in Machine Learning (postgraduate) — 2019B.
• GE 2326 – Probability in Action: From the Unfinished Game to the Modern World — 2015B-2017B.
• GE 1319 – Interdisciplinary Research for Smart Professionals — 2013B-2017B.
• CS 5301 – Computer Programming — 2012A-2014A.
• CS 2363 – Computer Programming — 2009A-2011A.
• CS 3306 (B) – Contemporary Programming Methods in Java — 2010B.
• CS 4380 (B) – Web 2.0 Technologies — 2011B, 2012B.
• Multimedia Subject Group leader
• Research Mentoring Scheme Coordinator
• Final Year Project Coordinator (2016-2022)
• MSCS Project and Guided Study Coordinator (2016-2022)
• BScCM Deputy Programme Leader (2020-2022)

Service

• Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (2023-now)
• Action Editor, Transactions on Machine Learning Research (2022-now)
• Guest Editor, Special Issue on “Applications of artificial intelligence, computer vision, physics and econometrics modelling methods in pedestrian traffic modelling and crowd safety”, Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies (2022-23)
• Senior Area Editor, IEEE Signal Processing Letters (2016-2020)
• Associate Editor, IEEE Signal Processing Letters (2014-2016)
• Conference Area Chair
  • CVPR – 2020, 2023
  • ICCV – 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021
  • ECCV – 2022
  • NeurIPS – 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
  • ICML – 2021, 2022, 2023
  • ICLR – 2021, 2023
  • ICPR – 2020
  • Pacific Graphics – 2018
• Conference Senior PC
  • AAAI – 2021, 2022
  • IJCAI – 2019-20
• Conference Program Committees
  • CVPR – 2012-2019, 2021, 2022
  • ICCV – 2011, 2013, 2023
  • ECCV – 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018
  • ACCV – 2011, 2014, 2016
  • ICML – 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020
  • NIPS – 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019
  • ICLR – 2022
  • Siggraph (tertiary)- 2018
• Journal Reviewing
  • IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI)
  • IEEE Trans. on Image Processing (TIP)
  • Intl. Journal Computer Vision (IJCV)
  • IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (TCSVT)
  • IEEE Trans. on Neural Networks (TNN)
  • IEEE Trans. on Multimedia
  • IEEE Trans. Intelligent Transportation Systems
• Organized Events
  • CogSci 2022 Hong Kong Meetup & Symposium: Computational Approaches to Psychological Research, Aug 2022.

Awards and Honors

• Top 2% Most Highly Cited Researchers (Ioannidis et al. 2019. Plos Biology), 2020-22
• The President’s Award, City University of Hong Kong, 2016.
• Early Career Award, Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, 2012.
• NSF IGERT Fellowship: Vision and Learning in Humans and Machines, UCSD, 2006-07.
• Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, ECE Department, UCSD, 2005-06.
• Office of the President Award, UCSD, 2003.
• Henry G. White Scholorship, Cornell University, 2001.
• Knauss M. Engineering Scholorship, Cornell University, 2001.
• GTE Fellowship, Cornell University, 2001.

Mailing Address:

Prof. Antoni Chan,
Department of Computer Science,
City University of Hong Kong,
Tat Chee Avenue,
Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong.