PROF. VERED AHARONSON
PROFESSOR IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTING
[email protected]
+357 24694027
Qualifications
Post Doc (Harvard University , US, 2000)
PhD Electrical Engineering- Systems (Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1998)
MSc Physics (Technion, Haifa, Israel 1993)
BSc Physics (Technion, Haifa, Israel, 1990)
Specialization
The application of computer science methods to problems in medicine, including rehabilitation, drug effectiveness and the elderly.
Employment Track
Professor, UCLan Cyprus (2021 – Present)
Associate Professor, UCLan Cyprus (2020 – 2021)
Associate Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, School of Electrical and Information Engineering (2015 – Present)
Associate Professor, Afeka, Tel Aviv Academic College of Engineering. Department of Electrical Engineering, biomedical Engineering and software Engineering (2004 – 2015)
Founder and CTO, NexSig, Neurological Examination Technologies, Ltd (2004 – 2007)
Lecturer, Tel Aviv University, Departments of Electrical engineering-systems and Computer science (2000 – 2003)
Research Interests
Intelligent interfaces for Human-computer interaction, Emotion recognition in speech and facial expressions, Automated detection and monitoring of diseases and disorders from voice, face and gesture analysis.
Roles and Responsibilities (including past roles and responsibilities)
Teaching and Course Leadership
Modules Leadership/Delivery (current and past): Discrete Systems, Neural Networks, Data Networks, Digital Signal, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Advanced Biomedical Signal Processing, Digital Signal Processing for Mobile applications, Information Theory, Telehealth, Seminar on Technologies in Biomedical Engineering, Data Security, Biomedical Measurement, Instrumentation and Imaging, Biomedical signal Processing and Control, Electrical Engineering Design II Project, Fourth Year Laboratory Project
Selective Publications
- Pinkas, G. Karny, Y. Malachi, A. Barkai, G. Bachar, G. and Aharonson, V. (2020). “SARS-CoV-2 Detection from Voice,” IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, doi: 10.1109/OJEMB.2020.3026468.
- Aharonson, V., Babshet, K. and Korczyn, A., (2020). “Towards a computerized estimation of visual complexity in images: data to assess the association of computed visual complexity features to human responses in visual tasks”. Data in brief, 32, p.106108.
- Aharonson, V. Seedat, N. Israeli-Korn, S. Hassin-Baer, S. Postema, M. Yahalom, G. (2020). “Automated stage discrimination of Parkinson’s disease”, Journal of Bio-Integration. Vol 1 (2) p. 1-9.
- Aharonson, V. Coopoo, V. Govender, L. and Postema, M. (2020). “Four Configurations for Low-Cost Eye-Tracking” –IEEE Africa Research Journal 111 (3) 120-124.
- Khan, T. Nowaczyk, S, Anderson, D., Aharonson, V. (2019). “Assessing Parkinson’s disease severity using speech analysis in non-native speakers” –Computer Speech and Language 61 p.101047.
- Aharonson, V. McDonald, A. Schlesinger, I. Korczyn. A. and Dubowsky, S. (2018). “A Practical Measurement of Parkinson’s Patients Gait Using Simple Walker-Based Motion Sensing and Data Analysis “Journal of Medical Device 12(1), 12-20.
- Ovadia-Blechman, Z., Gritzman, A., Shuvi, M., Gavish, B., Aharonson, V., & Rabin, N. )2018)”The response of peripheral microcirculation to gravity-induced changes” Clinical Biomechanics 57 19-25.
- Aharonson, V., Aharonson, E., Raichlin-Levi, K., Sotzianu, A., Amir, O., & Ovadia-Blechman, Z. (2017). A real-time phoneme counting algorithm and application for speech rate monitoring. Journal of Fluency Disorders. 51 60-68
- Blechman, Z. Sheffer, N. , Baltaxe, E. and Aharonson, V. (2016). “The Feasibility of Flat, Portable and Wireless Device for Non-Invasive Peripheral Oxygenation Measurement over the Entire Body”, Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering 9 149-157.
- Tetariy, E Gishri, M., Bar Yosef, Y, Aloni-Lavi, R. Aharonson,V. Ofer, I. Moyal, A. (2016). “Cross-language phoneme mapping for phonetic search keyword spotting using multiple source languages”, Artificial Intelligence Research. 5(2) 24-30.
- Gritzman, A.D., Aharonson, V., Rubin, D.M., Pantanowitz, A., (2016). “Automatic computation of histogram threshold for lip segmentation using feedback of shape information”, Signal, Image and Video Processing 10(5), 869-876.
Selective Research Funding/ Grant Capture
- Automated detection and monitoring of Parkinson’s disease from hand movement, gait and speech, National Research Foundation (NRF), South Africa, 2016 – 2019.
- Mitigating the Effects of Parkinson’s Disease using a Smart Walker, MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), 2012 – 2015.
- Natural Dialog system for Soldier-robot Interaction by Voice, Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDRD) of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Israel, 2010 – 2011.
- Phonetic Search in New Languages via Automated Transformation Tools, Israeli Ministry of Commerce Grant (knowledge transfer), 2011 – 2013.
- Efficient Search Algorithm for Word Sequence matching to a Sequence of Phonemes, Israeli Ministry of Commerce Grant (knowledge transfer), 2009.
- Network of Excellence HUMAINE (Human-Machine Interaction Network on Emotion) -EU’s Sixth Framework Programme, in the IST (Information Society Technologies) Thematic Priority IST-2002-2.3.1.6 , 2004 – 2008).
Supervision of Projects/PhDs
- (MSc) Automated Discrimination of Tremor Severity in Movement Disorder Patients Based on Machine Learning of Hand-Drawn Spirals (K.S., 2020)
- (MSc) Dynamic Modelling of Human Contact Patterns in South African Households Using Wearable Proximity Sensor Data (M.M., 2019)
- (MSc) Pattern complexity computation for cognitive testing (K.B., 2019)
- (MSc) The removal of Electromyographic noise from Electroencephalography by spatially constrained wavelet enhanced independent component analysis (G.E., 2019)
- (MSc) Quantifying the response of Parkinson disease patients to treatment using walker mounted sensors kinematic signals (D.B., 2018)
- (MSc) Automated quantitative discrimination of Parkinson’s Disease stages using signal processing and machine learning (N.S., 2018)
- (PhD) Lip Segmentation for Automated Lip-Reading Speech Recognition (A.G., 2017)
- (MSc) Optimisation of pre-set forearm EMG electrode combinations using principal component analysis (K.F., 2018)
- (MSc) Hand movements measurements and analysis for the characterization of Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases (S.W., 2016)
- (MSc) A biomarker for the detection of movement disorder types (K.K., 2016)
Consultancy and CPD Training
- Israeli government ministry of Transport, “Sky order” project. Consulting Research on the evaluation and optimization of air traffic in Ben Gurion airport (2010).
- Consulting Research Inbal – an Israeli government projects company. Topic: the effect of solar energy farm on military flight activities in the desert (2009).
- NexSig, Neurological Examination Technologies, Ltd. Founder and CTO (2004 – 2008).
- A. Academy of Music, Tel-Aviv University, Israel (1980-1982).
- Airline Transport Pilot, Israel (5078) (1995 – 2007).
- CE-500, CE-650, CL-600 jet ratings, USA (3427579) (2007 – 2011).
- Offshore Skipper license (98763) (2012 – 2013).
- Airline Traffic pilot, South Africa (0272492612) (2014 – 2015).
Scholarships/Awards
NRF Rated Researcher Award, National Research Foundation (NRF), South Africa (2016 )
Other Scholarly and Outreach Activities
- Israel’s National effort for COVID19 detection from voice (2020), Recruited to lead the voice processing part in the Israeli national, including the ACLP, Israelis companies and elite military research units. The projects involved a collaboration with two major hospitals in Israel: Rabin and Sheba medical centers, 2020
- Reviewer for numerous journals and conferences
- Founder and chair of conferences and workshops
- Intelligent Man Machine Interaction” (IMMI) workshop at Tel Aviv University, Afeka Speech Recognition Day and Afeka Conference for Speech Technologies in Healthcare
