in typical Dutch weather
Please note that I moved to the University of Manchester.
My origin
I come from Poland (see also history in brief). My hometown Wroclaw is a nice and historical city of a moderate size (check also this page if you plan to visit Wroclaw). I was born there and I spent most of my life there. Wroclaw is located in the south part of Poland called Silesia.
Poland is an interesting country. Concerning nature, we have nearly everything: the Baltic sea, lakes (e.g. Mazurian Lakes), plains, uplands, hills, mountains, (like the Tatra (1) (2) mountains, Sudety or Bieszczady), caves, forests and national parks. Concerning people, we are very friendly, sincere and helpful. We are a brave nation and we always have plenty ideas. We are also unconventional and independent thinkers.
If you are going to visit Poland, do not forget to see the Polish official web side. I hope you will find it helpful.
Some facts about me...
I am nowadays 19. Each year I simply change the number system in which I represent my age. That is why I am getting wiser, but not older ;-).
I graduated from the Wroclaw University; Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, in computer science. I was also a research assistant there. Then, I moved to The Netherlands, where I was living in a lovely and charming Delft. For a little while now I have been living in Chester (see also here), in the Cheshire county (yes, this is the region Lewis Caroll comes from), UK.
I like to learn, I like to discover and I like to understand things. I have an inquiring mind. I love codes, puzzles and mysteries, even ... if I may not be able to solve them. I want to develop my spirituality and my consciousness. Please have a look at my curriculum vitae, if you are interested.
Work
Please note that I moved to the UK. I am now a research fellow in the Machine Learning and Optimization group at the University of Manchester. I was awarded an EPSRC fellowship in theoretical computer science.
My base was the Information and Communication Theory (ICT) group in the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science at the Delft University of Technology. Before, I was a member of the Quantitative Imaging group (called Pattern Recognition group then) at the same university.First, I was involved in a research project on multidimensional scaling techniques for Shell Exploration and Production in Rijswijk. Then, I did my PhD research. This was a project devoted to featureless or dissimilarity-based pattern recognition.
I studied both theoretical aspects and practical applications. As a result of our scientific endeavors, my mentor, Bob Duin, and I published a book on this subject entitled The Dissimilarity Representation for Pattern Recognition. Foundations and Applications (see also Google-Books). Our book provides both theory and practice into the use of generelised kernel representations, including indefinite kernels (or their representations in pseudo-Euclidean spaces) in pattern recognition. Then, I became a postdoc in the ICT group and worked on this subject further on. Now, I am with the University of Manchester, UK.
In general, my interests include pattern recognition (PR), machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence, neuroscience, psychology and computational biology. My work is mostly in the fields of PR and ML, with the emphasis on representation and generalization. My key questions refer to the issue of representation and to the meaning of proximity in learning from examples (see also here ). I am also interested in a variety of learning paradigms, novelty detection, domain learning, active learning, transductive learning, leraning with non-iid data, as well as combining classifier systems and information fusion. I am keen to understand embeddings, (non-)linear mappings, indefinite kernels and the theory of Banach, Hilbert and Krein spaces.
See my publication list if you like.
Some activities
I am in the Program Committee of CIP-2008 and ICPR-2008.Reviewer for the journals: PAA, PR, PRL, TPAMI, TSMC, TNN, TSP, JMLR.
Reviewer for international workshops and conferences: ICPR, MCS, S+SSPR, PRIS, ICANN, CAIP, CIP and NIPS.
Awards
2008: Pattern Recognition Society Best Paper Award for 2006 (bestowed in Nov 2008): Prototype Selection for Dissimilarity-based Classifiers (Pattern Recognition, vol. 39, issue 2, 189-208, 2006).
2007: DAAD-ARC research grant
2006: EPSRC fellowship
2005: Award for the Best Presentation at the International Conference on Computer Recognition Systems, funded by the Association for Image Processing in Poland.
Meet the Neurootjes team of all times
Bob Duin
Interested in Pattern Recognition?
Great! Please have a look at:
our PRTools software.
Would you like to use/learn Matlab?
Personally, I find MatLab a great tool.
I once wrote a Matlab manual for the students of physics. The idea was to teach them some concepts of programming by using Matlab. Maybe you like it as well. Clik here (67 pages).
Life
Life is a unity between work, responsibilities, obligations, interests, fun and hobbies. It is a path of asking questions and looking for answers. However, this would be nothing without people. You learn and build your understanding while talking, listening, participating in common activities and sharing responsibilities with others. You become more open and creative through discussions. This is what we do, as well. One of our common interest is the study of consciousness, whose (related) issues we discuss.
My links
My private page
If you are a curious person (note that curiosity is the main characteristics of scientists, engineers and women), please have a look here. Additionally, I can tell you that I love
One of my mottos
Live in a dignified way and help others live so
Challenge to face
"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away", Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
My address in Manchester:
Dr Elżbieta Pękalska
School of Computer Science
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL
United Kingdom
+44 (0)161 275 6194
+44 (0)161 275 6202
If you have a message:
me: pekalska [at] cs.man.ac.uk
Associations:
Last modified: November 2008
