Michael Cormier

PhD - Artificial intelligence and machine learning

Michael Cormier
Was your undergraduate in CS? If not, what did you study?
I have a bachelor's degree in computer science from St. Francis Xavier University.

Why did you choose graduate studies and why did you choose graduate studies in CS?
I chose to pursue graduate studies because of my interest in research. During my undergraduate degree, I had the opportunity to perform research in computer vision, and I found it so fascinating that I decided to continue my education.

What is your research area and why did you choose it?
My research area is computer vision and applications of machine learning techniques to problems in computer vision.

Who is your supervisor and why did you choose to work with him/her?
I chose to work with my supervisor, Professor Richard Mann, because his research interests aligned well with my own.

Why did you choose Waterloo for graduate studies? If you did your undergraduate at Waterloo, why did you stay?
There were several reasons why I chose to move to the University of Waterloo for graduate studies. The research environment at the Cheriton School of Computer Science is excellent; there are a wide variety of research groups, interaction and collaboration is encouraged, and the general atmosphere is friendly and open. The city is also a pleasant place to live.

What sort of research/projects are you working on?
I am currently working on incorporating structural assumptions into three-dimensional reconstruction of certain types of image data from a single image. This project has applications to X-ray images and some types of astronomical data.

What classes are you taking? What has been your favourite class so far?
I am currently taking classes in algorithms (CS 860 - Patterns in Words) and artificial intelligence (CS 886 - Theory of Clustering). Between my master's degree and my (ongoing) doctoral degree, I have taken courses on topics including experimental procedures in system performance evaluation, numerical methods for image processing, computer vision, and both theoretical and applied machine learning. Of the courses I have taken so far, CS 886, Applied Machine Learning has been my favourite — the course project led to my MMath thesis topic!