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International communities like IAPR can play an important role in the scientific career of every scientist. It was my case, and I would like to tell you, and especially young researchers, about this successful story. I graduated from the Belarusian State University as mathematician in 1978 and immediately started to work in the Institute of Engineering Cybernetics of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. My supervisor gave me the task to vectorise automatically scanned maps. These investigations were just beginning in the world and we, in Soviet Union, started to do it, also. My first paper appeared in 1979, and in 1984, I published my first book entitled “Methods and algorithms for processing of raster graphical information”. I got the PhD degree in 1984 and then the DSc degree in 1990 for research in cartographical image recognition. It was done for military applications, and we could not publish these results widely. My first trip abroad was in 1988 to Italy, where I visited the Institute of Cybernetics of CNR (Napoli) and met Gabriella Sanniti di Baja and Carlo Arcelli. At that time, I first heard about IAPR. As you possibly know, in 1988, ICPR was moved from China to Italy and fortunately many scientists came to Italy for the conference. Some of them also visited Napoli, and I had the opportunity to meet Gunilla Borgefors, Eiji Kawaguchi, and other scientists. I did not attend the 1988 ICPR, but learned well about it. The Soviet Society for Pattern Recognition was accepted as an IAPR member in that year, but then in 1991 Soviet Union stopped its existence and Soviet IAPR society consequently did too. In Autumn 1992, Belarusians received agreement from IAPR to create their own society. We organized all researchers working in the pattern recognition area, had a meeting, prepared all documents, and registered the society in our Ministry of Justice. Then, we applied to join IAPR and, in Spring 1993, the Belarusian society was accepted as an IAPR member, and I became IAPR Governing Board (GB) member. At that time, I was head of the image processing laboratory at the Institute of Engineering Cybernetics of National Academy of Sciences. In 1993, we started to organize the International Conference "Pattern Recognition and Information Processing" that since then is held every two years in Minsk and, starting from 1997, became an IAPR-sponsored conference. At that time, I started to write my first papers in English. In mid-1990s, I wrote several articles in IAPR Newsletter about the state of PR research in countries of former USSR. From 1994 to 2000, I was a member of Publicity & Publications Committee. From 1998 to 2003, I served as the IAPR Newsletter Area Editor. My first book in English was published in 1997 in the USA by SPIE Press. At that time I already had several good journal papers and many proceedings papers. A really important event for my career happened in 1998: at the Brisbane ICPR, I was elected as an IAPR Fellow for contributions to document image analysis and service to IAPR. Simultaneously from 1998, I became a deputy director of my Institute. In 2000, I became a member of IAPR Membership Committee, and in 2002, Chair of that Committee. At that time, several new member societies joined IAPR. For my activity within the IAPR Membership Committee, in 2004, I received an IAPR Certificate of Appreciation. In 2000, a book that I wrote together with T.Pridmore about line-drawing image interpretation was published by Springer. In 2002, I became Director of my Institute. In 2005, I became member of the Presidium of National Academy of Sciences and Chair of Mathematics, Informatics and Physics Division in the National Academy of Sciences. In 2004, I was elected as IAPR second Vice-President, responsible, besides other duties, for the links between IAPR and IFIP (the International Federation for Information Processing). My position as second Vice-President allowed me to understand from the inside all the IAPR activities. In 2006, I was elected as IAPR first Vice-President, responsible for all the IAPR Technical Committees, which required a lot of efforts and time. Based on my scientific and administrative experience, in the summer of 2008, I was nominated as Rector of the National University—Belarusian State University (BSU)—and in the autumn I was actually appointed. BSU is the main university in Belarus and has around 35,000 students and 8,000 staff members. It became immediately clear for me, that this job would require all my time. I was nominated as IAPR Vice-President for a second term. However, by taking into account that I could have devoted too little time to IAPR, I preferred to withdraw my candidature. Summarizing, my career evolved along two parallel paths, allowing me to grow: (1) within the IAPR community, and (2) at the administrative level in my country. Of course, my main achievements are the scientific ones. My area of research started from graphics recognition, namely map processing, then extended to processing of engineering drawings, remote sensing images, medical images, etc. Up to now, I have published 13 authored/co-authored books in Russian, English, and Polish, 40 edited/co-edited books and proceedings, more than 130 journal papers, and several hundred conference papers. These scientific results were also obtained due to my deep involvement in the IAPR community. Many papers have been published together with my Italian, Japanese, British, Polish, Russian, etc. colleagues. I would also add that IAPR helped me to understand and what working at an administrative international level. Moreover, the positions I had within IAPR are well-appreciated in my native country and are very useful for the CVs of all scientists. Concluding, I would strongly recommend for young researchers to be become involved with their IAPR Member Societies. This will definitely give them many benefits. |
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Getting to know… Sergey V. Ablameyko, IAPR Fellow |
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Other articles in the Getting to Know...Series:
Getting to know...Herbert Freeman, IAPR Fellow
From Document Analysis to Anti-Phishing by Wenyin Liu, IAPR Fellow
In Memoriam…Piero Mussio, IAPR Fellow by Paolo Bottoni and Stefano Levialdi
Image Analysis with Discrete Tools by Gabriella Sanniti di Baja
Has the time for telepresence finally come? by Larry O’Gorman
Biometrics: The key to the gates of a secure and modern paradise by Nalini K. Ratha
Recognition of Human Activities: A Grand Challenge by J.K. Aggarwal
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How IAPR helped me to become Rector of the Belarusian National University |
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By Sergey V. Ablameyko, IAPR Fellow (Belarus) |
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Professor Sergey V. Ablameyko, IAPR Fellow
ICPR 1998, Brisbane, Australia For contributions to document image analysis and for service to IAPR. |
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Sergey V. Ablameyko graduated from Belarusian State University (BSU), Minsk (1978) with a Diploma in Mathematics. In 1984 he got his PhD in the field of Information Processing Systems from the Institute of Cybernetics, Ukrainian Academy of Science and, in 1990, his DSc degree in the same institution. At present Prof. Ablameyko is the academician of the National Academy of Science (since June 2009), Chairman of the UIIP Academic Council of awarding of PhD and DSc degrees, and Chairman of the BSU Scientific Council. He combines scientific research (image analysis, pattern and graphics recognition, digital geometry, knowledge-based systems, geographical information systems and medical imaging) with organization and editorial activities being the head of BSU (since 2008). He is on the Editorial Board of Pattern Recognition Letters, Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, Machine Graphics and Vision and other international and national journals. He is Editor-in-Chief of two national journals. Moreover, he leads a number of international projects in image analysis and GIS and national programs and projects in Informatics and Image Processing. He also manages several Russian-Belarusian joint Programs in Space, Supercomputers and GRID-technologies (each Program has a budget higher than US$10 million). Sergey is a Senior member of IEEE, Fellow of IAPR, Fellow of Belarusian Engineering Academy, Academician of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. In the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), he was a First Vice-President of IAPR (2006-2008), President of Belarusian Association for Image Analysis and Recognition. His publications include more than 350 scientific works, of which nine are authored/co-authored books, 34 edited books and proceedings, and more than 180 refereed papers (in English). Nine PhD dissertations and two DSc dissertations have been prepared and defended under the supervision of Sergey V. Ablameyko. Sergey is a regular member and chair/co-chair of various conferences, forums, and congresses devoted to computer and engineering problems. For his active participation in the scientific life of his country and in the world research continuum, he was awarded numerous national honors such as the State Prize of Belarus (highest national scientific award), 2002, Award of the National Academy of Sciences for the best scientific work, 2007, Belarusian Medal of F.Skoryna, Russian Award of Friendship and many other awards. He also won several international grants as a visiting scientist in research centers of Italy, Finland, Australia, Japan, and Germany and so on. |
