Do you fancy yourself as a 'genius' in mobile photography? Then the credit should go to Dr Shree K Nayar, whose extensive research led to the creation of cameras offering new forms of visual information.
Nayar, who hails from Thiruvananthapuram, is now the third Indian-origin winner of the prestigious Okawa Prize for “his ground-breaking work on computer vision and computational imaging”.
The T C Chang Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, Nayar heads the Columbia Vision Laboratory (CAVE), which develops computational imaging and computer vision systems.
Nayar is also the grandson of Pattom Thanu Pillai, Kerala's second Chief Minister and also Travancore's first Prime Minister after India's Independence.
The awards ceremony will be held in Tokyo in March 2023. Instituted by The Okawa Foundation for Information and Telecommunications, the prize comprises a gold medal and a citation.
The Okawa Prize has been awarded every year since 1992. Until 1995, it was awarded to only one Japanese scientist every year.
From 1996, the prize honours two scientists — one Japanese and one international candidate.
Only two Indian-origin scientists have won it before Nayar — Dr Raj Reddy (2004) and Dr JK Aggarwal (2007).
Nayar's research is focused on three areas - the creation of novel cameras that provide new forms of visual information, the design of physics-based models for vision and graphics, and the development of algorithms for understanding scenes from images.
“It is estimated that more than one billion smartphone users worldwide are using his technology on a daily basis,” a Columbia University statement said.
It was Nayar’s brainwave of creating assorted pixels for high-dynamic-range (HDR) imaging that has enabled smartphone cameras to leapfrog in terms of the quality of the photos they capture.
It was in the nineties that Nayar began revolutionising the field of computational imaging, a field that combines unconventional optics with advanced image processing algorithms to produce immersive and interactive visual information.
Nayar lives and teaches in New York.
The Okawa Prize has been bestowed on him for “the invention of innovative imaging techniques and their widespread use in digital photography and computer vision.”
Though a Thiruvananthapuram native, Nayar did his schooling in Delhi. His father R M Nayar, whose engineering mind had rubbed off on him, had retired as the chairman of Electronics Trade and Technology Development Corporation Ltd, New Delhi.
Nayar graduated in electrical engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, and completed his post graduation from North Carolina State University. He then took forward his research at The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, for three years before joining Hitachi as a visiting research scientist for a year.
In 1990, he was awarded a PhD by Carnegie Mellon University, following which he moved to Columbia University, where he works now.
Nayar has received the David Marr Prize twice (1990 and 1995), the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in 1992, the National Young Investigator Award in 1993, the NTT Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award in 1994, the Keck Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1995 and the Columbia Great Teacher Award in 2006.
He has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors and the Indian National Academy of Engineering.
In February, 2008, at the young age of 45, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering—the highest honour for an engineer in the United States.
(With inputs from The Week)
