The Computational Biomedicine Lab, University of Houston, is seeking to promote your creativity, independent thinking, and innovative research ideas by funding short-term research projects during the summer of 2011. Our intention is to provide internships to motivated and creative students (both undergraduates and graduates) and an opportunity to propose, support and implement individual or team research projects. We will provide guidance, infrastructure and funding for innovative projects of up to 3 months in duration, for teams of 1 to 3 students. Applications are encouraged from a variety of disciplines, including, but not limited to, data mining, machine intelligence, computer vision, computer graphics, computer engineering, game design and animation, biomedical engineering, imaging, human-computer interaction, smart interfaces, and ubiquitous computing. All research mini-project proposals are required to lead to a prototype system to be demonstrated within the time-frame of proposed project completion.

Areas of interest
Recently there has been an increased focus of public, commercial and academic attention on interfaces and motion-controlled computers, e.g., Microsoft’s Kinect controller for gaming applications. In that respect, we are especially interested on using face/gesture/body motion and depth sensing for 3D scene reconstruction and human-computer interaction, with applications on rehabilitation and to assist elders and people with disabilities. Example topics and areas include, but are not limited to:

• Face Reconstruction, using Kinect sensor data, for persons with disabilities.
• Kinect-based applications for rehabilitation purposes and/or edlerly.
• Pain expression recognition.

Application process
Eligible applicants are undergraduate and graduate students, currently enrolled in programs at the University of Houston. Prospective applicants should prepare a 5-page summary of their project describing their goals, work-plans, and project requirements. Applicants should be enthusiastic and support the proposed research by mentioning the importance (why did you decide to be involved with the specific problem/application?), effectiveness (how feasible do you think is your idea?) and qualifications for pursuing it (what skills does your team have to achieve the project objectives?). A strong project description application should cover the followings topics:

• Purpose, goal and objectives
• (optional) Short review or relevant methods
• Research/implementation plans
• Team organization and member roles
• Tentative time-plan towards completion
• (optional) Data and equipment that will be required
• Budget

Awards & Deadlines
The applications will be evaluated as soon as they are submitted. For further information and feedback concerning initial ideas, please contact Prof. I. Kakadiaris (ioannisk@uh.edu), with subject line "StudentProjects-CBL: (your name)". For immediate consideration, submit the 5-page project description and CV’s of the team members.

Deadline for the submission of the applications (research project proposals) is May 15, 2011.