EAB awards three academics for excellence in European biometric research
On 26 September 2018 the European Association for Biometrics (EAB) awarded young researchers for their outstanding works in the area of biometrics. An international jury chose 3 candidates out of a broad range of submitted high quality papers to present their significant contribution in front of the jury, the EAB members and the public audience.
![[Photo] The EAB award chair, Prof Patrizio Campisi (Università degli Studi Roma Tre), the award winners Ruben Tolosana, Ester Gonzalez Sosa, Rig Das and the jury members Christoph Busch, Michel Kostucki, Javier Ortega, Arun Ross, Josef Kittler, Raymond Veldhuis together with the EAB chairman Alexander Nouak](/images/photos/award2018/2018-eab_award-winners+jury.jpg "The EAB award chair, Prof Patrizio Campisi (Università degli Studi Roma Tre), the award winners Ruben Tolosana, Ester Gonzalez Sosa, Rig Das and the jury members Christoph Busch, Michel Kostucki, Javier Ortega, Arun Ross, Josef Kittler, Raymond Veldhuis together with the EAB chairman Alexander Nouak")
The EAB award chair, Prof Patrizio Campisi (Università degli Studi Roma Tre), the award winners Ruben Tolosana, Ester Gonzalez Sosa, Rig Das and the jury members Christoph Busch, Michel Kostucki, Javier Ortega, Arun Ross, Josef Kittler, Raymond Veldhuis together with the EAB chairman Alexander Nouak
European Biometric Industry Award
This year the European Biometrics Industry Award goes to Ruben Tolosana from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain for the thesis titled Incorporating Touch Biometrics to Mobile Passwords. This work enhances traditional authentication systems based on Personal Identification Number (PIN) and One-Time Passwords (OTP) through the incorporation of biometric information as a second level of user authentication. In the proposed approach, users draw each digit of the password on the touchscreen of the device instead of typing them as usual. The solutions developed in this thesis are already deployed in almost 50% of the Spanish banking sector.
![[Photo] Winner of the EAB Research Award 2018: Rig Das](/images/photos/award2018/2018-eab_award-das.jpg "Winner of the EAB Research Award 2018: Rig Das")
Winner of the EAB Research Award 2018: Rig Das
European Biometric Research Award
This year the European Biometrics Research Award 2018 was divided and has been granted to both Rig Das from Roma Tre University, Italy and equally to Ester Gonzalez Sosa from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain. Rig Das focused in his PhD-thesis Deep Learning for Face and Vein Biometrics on the applications of deep Learning techniques over the physiological biometric traits such as EEG signal and Finger-Vein images along with Facial landmark point localisation in face recognition applications. For each of these three work area a deep learning approach based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) was proposed.
The PhD-thesis Face and Body Biometrics in the Wild: Visible and Beyond of Ester Gonzalez Sosa work addresses the hard problem of face recognition in the wild, which struggles to achieve high performance due to the wide spectrum of variability sources it has to deal with: occlusions, blur, illumination changes, low resolution and distance, among others. A solution is provided using the potential of soft biometrics to complement face evidence in forensic surveillance scenarios and the potential of body information included in long distances scenarios.
![[Photo] Winner of the EAB Industry Award 2018, Ruben Tolosana, together with the winner of the EAB Research Award 2018, Ester Gonzalez](/images/photos/award2018/2018-eab_awards-tolosana_gonzales-sosa.jpg "Winner of the EAB Industry Award 2018, Ruben Tolosana, together with the winner of the EAB Research Award 2018, Ester Gonzalez Sosa")
Winner of the EAB Industry Award 2018, Ruben Tolosana, together with the winner of the EAB Research Award 2018, Ester Gonzalez
The European Research and Industry Awards have in total a value of 4.000,- € stipendium, which is divided amongst the winners. The finalists are also donated a free of charge one year membership of EAB. The European Biometric Research and Industry Awards 2018 are kindly sponsored by Idemia and Fingerprint Cards (FPC). The selection for the research award has been made on the basis of the academic and scientific quality of the submitted works as well as on the quality of their presentations.
A separate selection was made during the final presentation in order to appoint the winner of the industry award. Criteria for this award are next to the scientific level the novelty, impact, applicability and other business aspects. This year’s jury consist of the following members: Christoph Busch, Michel Kostucki, Patrizio Campisi, Javier Ortega, Arun Ross, Josef Kittler, Raymond Veldhuis.
The European Biometrics Research and Industry Award is granted annually to individuals who have been judged by a panel of internationally respected experts to be making a significant contribution to the field of biometrics research in Europe. The intention of the award is to stimulate and promote innovation and research in the field of Identity and Biometrics in Europe.
![[Photo] The winners of the European BViometrics Research and Industry Awards 2018: Ester Gonzalez Sosa, Ruben Tolosana and Rig Das](/images/photos/award2018/2018-eab_award-winners.jpg "The winners of the European BViometrics Research and Industry Awards 2018: Ester Gonzalez Sosa, Ruben Tolosana and Rig Das")
The winners of the European BViometrics Research and Industry Awards 2018: Ester Gonzalez Sosa, Ruben Tolosana and Rig Das
EAB members can find the thesis of the award winners in the Hall of Fame
The call for submissions for the EAB Research and Industry Award 2019 is already available.
