FRI Day 2019 Marked by Awards

• Posted On: December 05, 2019
• Posted By: tilen

At the Day of the Faculty of Computer and Information Science of the University of Ljubljana, held on December 4, 2019, we awarded the most successful students and staff and highlighted other achievements of the past year.

The award recipients, invited guests, attending students, and staff were first addressed by Dean Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mojca Ciglarič , who in her speech also pointed out the symbolism of the faculty’s ceremonial event taking place one day after the 100th anniversary of the University of Ljubljana: “Computer science and informatics are among the key building blocks of the future. We are the future.”

Students who achieved the best academic results in the past year received a book prize, namely “How to: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems” by Xkcd author Randall Munroe.

In the professional higher education programme Computer and Information Science, the award recipients were:

1. year: Simon Bele ;
2. year: Dominik Bečaj, Anže Luzar ;
3. year: Julijan Jug .

In the university programme Computer and Information Science, the award recipients were:

1. year: Domen Mohorčič, Larsen Cundrič ;
2. year: Benjamin Džubur, Boris Radovič ;
3. year: Timotej Knez, David Nabergoj .

In the Master’s programme Computer and Information Science, the award recipients were:

1. year : Matej Kristan, Peter Mlakar ;
2. year: Rok Šolar.

In the interdisciplinary university programme Computer Science and Mathematics, the award recipients were:

1. year: Tim Poštuvan, Marko Hostnik ;
2. year: Anej Svete, Domen Vreš, Klara Drofenik ;
3. year: Blaž Rojc.

In the interdisciplinary second-cycle programme Multimedia, the award recipient was:

1. year: Uroš Zoretič .

The highest faculty award for students, the Faculty Prešeren Award, was awarded to:

• David Nabergoj for the work Automatic Measurement of Ski Jump Lengths Using Deep Neural Networks (mentor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Matjaž Kukar).
• Kristian Žarn for the work Building 3D Models of Objects from Color Images Using Next-Best-View Planning (mentor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Danijel Skočaj).

Student Gregor Pavlin Poličar received the University Prešeren Award for his work Adding Examples to Reference Embedding t-SNE Removes Differences Between Different Data Sources (mentor: Prof. Dr. Blaž Zupan).

Awards for excellence in teaching in the 2018/2019 academic year , given to educators with the highest student ratings, were awarded to:

• Prof. Dr. Janez Demšar,
• Assist. Prof. Dr. Matjaž Pančur.

The President of the FRI Student Council, Arne Simonič , presented the Student Council Awards for Best Professor and Best Assistant , which were awarded to:

• Assist. Prof. Dr. Dejan Lavbič, Best Professor (Computer and Information Science, university programme),
• Assist. Prof. Dr. Luka Fürst, Best Assistant (Computer and Information Science, university programme),
• Prof. Dr. Janez Demšar, Best Professor (Computer and Information Science, professional programme),
• Senior Lecturer Dr. Igor Rožanc, Best Assistant (Computer and Information Science, professional programme),
• Prof. Dr. Zoran Bosnić, Best Professor (Computer and Information Science, Master’s programme),
• Teaching Assistant Žiga Emeršič, Best Assistant (Computer and Information Science, Master’s programme).

Special recognitions and awards for research work for postgraduate students were awarded to:

• Alan Lukežič for contributions to three major computer vision conferences: CDTB: A Color and Depth Visual Object Tracking Dataset and Benchmark (ICCB 2019), FuCoLoT – A Fully-Correlational Long-Term Tracker (ACCV 2018), and Object Tracking by Reconstruction with View-Specific Discriminative Correlation Filters (CVPR 2019) (mentor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Matej Kristan).
• Gregor Pirš for the paper Bayesian Combination of Probabilistic Classifiers Using Multivariate Normal Mixtures published in the Journal of Machine Learning Research (mentor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Erik Štrumbelj).
• Polona Štefanič for the papers SWITCH Workbench: A Novel Approach for the Development and Deployment of Time-Critical Microservice-Based Cloud-Native Applications and Support for Full Life Cycle Cloud-Native Application Management: Dynamic TOSCA and SWITCH IDE published in Future Generation Computer Systems (mentor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vlado Stankovski).
• Borja Bovcon for the paper The MaSTr1325 Dataset for Training Deep USV Obstacle Detection Models presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (mentor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Matej Kristan).

A special recognition for outstanding research achievement , introduced this year to reward faculty staff as well as postgraduate students, was awarded to:

• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Danijel Skočaj and Domen Tabernik for the paper Deep Learning for Large Scale Traffic Sign Detection and Recognition published in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.

A special commendation for collaboration with industry was awarded to Prof. Dr. Marko Bajec, for successful knowledge transfer to the market and strengthening cooperation between the faculty and companies.

The Dean’s Award for work in professional services was awarded to Maja Kerkez for her dedicated work in the dean’s office and for fostering a positive atmosphere at the faculty.

A special commendation for promoting the faculty and computer science was awarded to Assist. Prof. Dr. Luka Fürst and Assist. Dr. Marko Poženel, for spreading enthusiasm for computer science through workshops at the FRI Summer School and the Code Week.

We also presented all recipients of university awards presented by the Rector during the University Week:

• Golden Plaque: Prof. Dr. Zoran Bosnić ,
• Golden Plaque for a group: Bioinformatics Laboratory (for Orange),
• Ceremonial Certificate for young higher education teachers and associates: Assist. Prof. Dr. Slavko Žitnik ,
• title of Professor Emeritus: Prof. Dr. Nežka Mramor Kosta ,
• University Prešeren Award: Gregor Pavlin Poličar ,
• Ceremonial Certificate for students for outstanding academic achievements: Luka Kolar ,
• Recognition for special student achievements: Aljaž Švigelj, Gregor Robert Krmelj and Miha Hribar (for the Lia game and tournament),
• Recognition for professional staff: Vesna Gračner , Head of the FRI International Office.

The event also featured a musical interlude by sound artist Miha Ciglar , founder of the Institute for Sonic Arts Research, who works at the intersection of art and technology. He presented an innovative speaker that allows him to almost literally shape sound with his hands or direct it through space.

Photos are available in the Facebook gallery (photographer: Andrej Križ).

Congratulations once again to all award recipients!