Karan Sikka

Research Interests
Not Limited to: 1.Computer Vision; 2.Machine Learning; 3.Augmented Reality
: Publications; 1. K.Sikka, N.Sinha, P.K Singh and A.K Mishra, "A Fully Automated Algorithm under Modified FCM Framework for Improved MR Image Segmentation", Magn Reson Imaging (Elsevier); vol. 27, iss. 7, pp. 994-1004, Jan. 2009. Link; 2. P.K Singh, N.Sinha, K.Sikka and A.K Mishra, "A Hybrid Methodology for the Segmentation of SAR Images of Flood Inflicted Regions", Int J Remote Sens (Taylor & Francis). (under print)Link; 3. K.Sikka and T.M Deserno, "Comparison of Algorithms for Ultrasound Image Segmentation without Ground Truth", Proceeding SPIE 2010; 7627. (Accepted October 2009) Link

Academic Internships: 1. Summer Internship (May-July 2009) - DAAD - German Academic Exchange sponsored internship (WISE'09 program) at Department of Medical Informatics, RWTH Aachen under Prof. Dr.rer.nat. Dipl.-Ing. Thomas M. Deserno (geb. Lehmann).
2. Summer Internship (May-July 2008) - Internship under Prof. Amit Kumar Mishra, Assitant Professor, IIT Guwahati, India.
Research Projects: 1. Grozi- Grocery shopping assistant, Dr. Serge Belongie, Associate Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, UCSD (undergoing)- Assist the blind in grocery shopping using a real time object detection framework. Focus on recognizing in-vitro images (objects in natural settings) using in-situ instances (images obtained from web).
2. Content Based Image Retrieval, Dr Kannan Karthik, Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE, IIT Guwahati (Undergraduate thesis): Focused on employing image features (rather than textual keys) for searching large image databases. This work culminated with the fusion of low level (region based features) and high level features (image annotations) encoding context to tackle intra-class variability in low level image features.: 3. Evaluation of clustering algorithms for partitioning abdominal ultrasound images, Dr. Thomas M Deserno, Professor, Dept. of Medical Informatics, RWTH Aachen, Germany (May, 2009 - July, 2009) -Mathematical framework was developed for comparing segmentation maps from different clustering techniques on ultrasound images without the application of ground truth.; 4. PSOC based ECG signal acquisition and processing, Dr Amit Kumar Mishra, Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE, IIT Guwahati (Design Project) (Jan, 2009 - April, 2009) -A low-power portable device was designed for displaying ECG signal and heart beat on a 128*64 LCD. Filtering and processing was based on a single microcontroller cum FPGA chip called PSOC - Programmable System-on-Chip by Cypress.; 5. Segmentation of SAR Images though texture (via Wavelets) and intensity information, Dr Amit Kumar Mishra, Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE, IIT Guwahati (Sept, 2008 - Nov, 2008) - SAR images, sent by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), were segmented for automatically delineating flood regions. Texture and intensity cues were merged for fuzzy classification of the information rich SAR images.; 6. Segmentation of Brain-MRI(Magnetic Resonance Imaging) Images, Dr Amit Kumar Mishra, Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE, IIT Guwahati (May, 2008 - July, 2008)- Automated Segmentation algorithm was developed for Brain MRI Images using fuzzy c-mean (FCM) to tackle domain problems like image inhomogenity and clustering noise.
: Skill-Set; Programming: C, C++, Python, Latex.; Matlab including toolboxes such as Signal Processing, Image Processing, Simulink etc.; Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows, Unix

Scholarships/Achievements: 1. Jacobs Scholarship UCSD- three year fellowship- highest form of recognition for any PhD candidate in ECE Dept.
2. DAAD- German Academic Exchange Service, Undergraduate Internships, 2009.: 3. Silver Cetificate, National Science Olympiad.
: Positions of Responsibility; The following lists the positions I have assumed so far. These have imbibed in me the qualities of a team leader, a team player, time management, stress management among others :; 1. GENERAL SECRETARY, CEPSTRUM- Electronics Society, IIT Guwahati (2009-2010)
I was heading the society for conducting talks by professors, industry experts and students. Regular workshops and talks are conducted to increase the technical awareness among the students. During this time I also initiated the intra-department research groups at IIT Guwahati.: 2.CORE TEAM, MARKETING, TECHNICHE 2008- Annual Techno-Management fest, IIT Guwahati (2008-2009)
Part of the 10 member core team to execute entire planning for one of the biggest technical fest of India. I was actively involved in arranging corporate sponsorship by working on extensive branding and new publicity avenues. Our team succeeded in achieving sponsorships from more than 40 companies.: 3. PRESIDENT, CODE, Computer Club, Apeejay School Noida, India (2005-2006)
Led the club and organized one of the biggest interschool computer symposium CODE-05 (in surrounding regions), with more than 10 events and participation from more than 30 schools.: Co-Curriculars
1. Organized Search Strings, Quiz show, Techniche 2008, participation of over 140 teams.: 2. Organized Manual Robotics, Techniche 2007, with over 130 teams participating.
3. Presented lectures on Manual and autonomous robotics as member of robotics club.: 4. Quizmaster to numerous interschool quizzing events.
5. Served on Editorial Board, In-phase, Electronics Magazine, IIT Guwahati.: I have tried to be as precise and accurate while listing the above information.

Karan Sikka

University of California San Diego

Electrical and Computer Engineering