Résumé

Hee-Kap Ahn
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology)
San 31, Hyoja-dong, Nam-gu, Pohang, Gyeongbuk
Republic of Korea (zip 790-784)
phone : +82-54-279-2387
fax : +82-54-279-2299
e-mail : heekap@postech.ac.kr
www : http://www.postech.ac.kr/~heekap
married, two sons.

Research Interest

I am interested in most areas of computational geometry, the study of design and analysis of algorithms on geometry and optimization problems. Computational geometry has evolved from a sub-discipline of theoretical computer science, but it has developed in several directions and forged links with other application areas with interest in geometric computing, such as computer aided (geometric) design (CAD), computer aided manufacturing (CAM), robotics, computer graphics, virtual reality, computer vision, bioinformatics (computational biology) and geographic information systems (GIS). Geometric problems that I have studied lately include fundamental problems from the area of computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), such as verification of manufacturability of a given CAD-model. Due to the geometric nature of manufacturing processes, this research tends to lead to interesting geometric questions.

Besides the work on manufacturing, I have been working on approximation algorithms for geometric optimization problems, that is, an interesting paradigm for the design of algorithms that returns near-optimal solutions efficiently. Most natural optimization problems, including those arising in important application areas, are NP-hard, therefore, their exact solution is prohibitively time consuming and research into approximability of these problems becomes a compelling subject in computer science. Approximation algorithms are often surprisingly simple yet practical and efficient.

I also have a keen interest in shape matching. Shape matching is an important ingredient in shape retrieval, recognition and classification, alignment and registration, and approximation and simplification. In a typically large database of shapes, for example, shape retrieval searches for all shapes similar to a query shape. Recently I have been working on the design of algorithms to compute the similarity between shapes, which lead to papers in journals and conferences including ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry.

Educational Qualifications

Ph.D.

in Computer Science with a topic in Theoretical Computer Science
December 2001 at Utrecht University in the Netherlands
Title of thesis : Geometric Aspects of the Casting Process
Dissertation committee : Professors Jan van Leeuwen(chair), Mark Overmars (advisor), Otfried Cheong (co-advisor), Mark de Berg, Prosenjit Bose, Siu-Wing Cheng, Peter van Emde Boas, Doaitse Swierstra, Arno Siebes

Master of Science

in Computer Science
February 1998 at Pohang University of Science & Technology (POSTECH) in Korea
Title of thesis : Casting with two-part cast: Opposite and Non-opposite cast removal
Dissertation committee : Professors Otfried Schwarzkopf (advisor), Mark de Berg, Myung-Soo Kim

Bachelor of Engineering

in Computer Engineering
February 1996 at Kyungpook National University in Korea

Awards

• Best Paper Award at 11th International Symposium on Spatial and Temporal Databases (2009)
• Research Fellowship(AIO) from Utrecht University (2000-2001)
• Postgraduate Scholarships from Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (1997-2000) and Pohang University of Science & Technology (1996-1997)
• Scholarship for academic excellence from Kyungpook National University (1992-1995)

Professional experience

• Since September 2010, I have been associate professor at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, POSTECH in Korea.
• Since September 2008, I have been an adjunct professor at the Department of Mathematics, POSTECH in Korea.
• From July 2007 to August 2010 I was assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, POSTECH in Korea.
• From March 2006 to July 2007, I was assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Sejong University in Korea.
• From February 2004 to February 2006, I was research assistant professor at Computer Science Division, Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in Korea, as a replacement of military service.
• From October 2001 to January 2004, I was scientific researcher at Imaging Media Research Center, Korea Institute of Science & Technology in Korea, as a replacement of military service.
• From September 2000 to December 2001, I was a graduate student (Ph.D. candidate) and Research Assistant ('AIO') at Institute of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University in the Netherlands
• From September 1997 to August 2000, I was a graduate student (Ph.D. candidate) and Research/Teaching Assistant at Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in Hong Kong
• From March 1996 to August 1997, I was a graduate student and Research/Teaching Assistant at Department of Computer Science, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) in Korea

Research visits.

I have visited research groups on Computational Geometry for periods of one to four weeks. So far, I have visited the following universities:

• King Abdullah University of Science & Tech.(KAUST), Saudi Arabia, on invitation by Dr. Antoine Vigneron (2011, 2012)
• Bayreuth University, Germany, on invitation by Dr. Christian Knauer (2010)
• Kyoto University, Japan, on invitation by Dr. Naoki Katoh (2010)
• Tohoku University, Japan, on invitation by Dr. Jinhee Chun and Dr. Takeshi Tokuyama (2009, 2010, 2012)
• Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011), on invitation by Prof. Dr. Siu-Wing Cheng
• Freie Universität Berlin (2004, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2012), on invitation by Dr. Christian Knauer
• Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (2004), on invitation by Prof. Dr. Tetsuo Asano.
• Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (2000, 2002), on invitation by Dr. Chan-Su Shin and Prof. Sung-Yong Shin
• Freie Universität Berlin (1999 and 2001), on invitation by Prof. Dr. Helmut Alt
• Carleton University (1999), on invitation by Prof. Dr. Prosenjit Bose
• Utrecht University (1998), on invitation by Dr. René van Oostrum

Invitations to workshops and seminars.

• Japan-Korea Joint Workshop on Optimized Extraction of Geometric Information, Yamagata, Japan (2012)
• Korean Workshop on Computational Geometry at Hokkaido, Japan (2011)
• Korean Workshop on Computational Geometry at Dagstuhl, Germany (2010)
• Invited Lectures at Winter School on Algorithms and Combinatorics (2010)
• Invited talk at Colloquium of Dept. Computer Science, Bayreuth Univ., Germany (2010)
• Dagstuhl Seminar on Geometric Networks, Germany (2009)
• Invited talk at Colloquium of Dept. Computer Science & Engineering, Chonbuk Univ. (2009)
• Talk at PMI Phylogenetic Combinatorics Seminar, POSTECH (2009)
• International Workshop on Discrete and Computational Geometry (2009)
• Talk at The 30th PNU-PMI Algebraic Combinatorics Seminar, PNU (2009)
• NICTA Workshop on Computational Geometry, Sydney, Australia (2008)
• Invited talk at Colloquium of Dept. Computer Science & Engineering, POSTECH (2006/2007)
• Dagstuhl Seminar on Geometric Networks and Metric Space Embeddings (2006) in Germany
• Workshop on Computational and Combinatorial Line Geometry (2006) in France(Ouessant Island)
• Invited talk at School of Computational Sciences, KIAS (2005)
• International Workshop on Discrete and Computational Geometry (2005) in Japan
• Colloquium of Dept. Computer Science & Engineering in POSTECH (2004)
• Dagstuhl Workshop on Computational Geometry and Geometric Networks (2004) in Germany
• Invited talk at Voronoi diagram Research Center in Hanyang University (2004)
• Invited talk at Dept. Computer Engineering in Kyungpook National University (2004)
• Korean Workshop on Computational Geometry (2002 - 2009)
• Dagstuhl Seminar on Computational Geometry (2001 and 2003) in Germany
• Utrecht Workshop on Computational Geometry (2000) in The Netherlands
• Workshop on Computational Geometry at HKUST (1997) in Hong Kong

Languages

I am fluent in Korean (my first language) and English.

Professional service

Board members.

I am currently a board member of Asian Association for Algorithms and Computation (AAAC)

Journal editorship.

I am currently an editorial board member of

• Journal of Computational Geometry (JoCG) (2009-)
• Journal of Information Science and Engineering (JISE) (2011-)
• Journal of Information Processing (JIP) (2012-)

Program committees.

I'm currently a PC member of

• AAAC 2012 (Asian Association for Algorithms and Computation)
• WALCOM 2012 (Workshop on Algorithms and Computation).

I was a PC member of

• COCOON 2011, (17th Annual International Computing and Combinatorics Conference)
• FAW-AAIM 2011, (Joint Meeting of 5th International Frontiers of Algorithmics Workshop and 7th International Conference on Algorithmic Aspects of Information and Management)
• CATS 2011 (17th Computing: the Australasian Theory Symposium)
• WALCOM 2011 (Workshop on Algorithms and Computation)
• SoCG 2010 (26th Annual Symposium on Computational Geometry)
• AAAC 2008-2010 (Asian Association for Algorithms and Computation)
• FAW 2009 (International Frontiers of Algorithmics Workshop)
• ISAAC 2006 (17th Annual International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation)
• AAIM 2006 / 2007 (Annual International Conference on Algorithmic Aspects in Information and Management)

SoCG is the only top conference in computational geometry, and ISAAC is one of the premier theoretical computer science conferences.

Refereeing.

I have been a referee for several journals, mainly in the field of computational geometry, including

• Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications(CGTA),
• Algorithmica,
• Discrete Computational Geometry(DCG),
• International Journal of Computational Geometry and Applications(IJCGA),
• Journal of Discrete Algorithms(JDA),
• Computer Aided Geometric Design(CAGD),
• Computers & Graphics,
• Mathematics of Operations Research,
• International Journal on Foundations of Computer Science, and
• European Journal of Operational Research.
• Journal of Combinatorial Optimization (JoCO)
• GeoInformatika (GEIN)

I have also acted as a sub-referee for conferences, including

• ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG),
• ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA),
• European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA),
• International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC),
• International Computing and Combinatorics Conference (COCOON),
• IFIP International Conference on Theoretical Computer Science (IFIP TCS), and
• AAAC Annual Meeting (AAAC).

Organization.

I was a member of the organizing committee of

• 23rd ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG) 2007, Gyeongju, South Korea.
• 16th ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG) 2000, Hong Kong.
• Korean workshop on computational geometry (KWCG). I started and organized an international workshop on Computational Geometry in Jeju island in August 2002, and in Seoul in August 2003 (together with Dr. Chan-Su Shin). Since then it became an annual event under this name. I organize it again in 2008 at POSTECH, with Otfried Cheong and Antoine Vigneron.
• Dagstuhl Workshop on Computational Geometry and Geometric Networks, Germany. 2004 (with Alexander Wolff, Christian Knauer, René van Oostrum and Chan-Su Shin.)

Research projects

I am currently the research director of

• Science Research Center (SRC-NRF). Surface Matching and Space Tessellations (2011/09/06 - 2018/08/31) - 1,000,000USD
• National Research Foundation. Adaptive Computational Geometry (2009/05/01 - 2013/04/30) - 150,000USD
• National Research Foundation. Algorithmic Aspects of Geometric Uncertainty (2010/05/01 - 2014/04/30) - 150,000USD
• NRF/JSPS Korea-Japan binational Research Grant. Finding objects in geometric data: Theoretical algorithms for geometric matching, segmentation and covering (2010/07/01 -2012/06/30) - 24,000USD

I was the research director of

• Hyundai Mobis Research Center. Fast and Stable algorithms for path finding (2009/12/1 - 2010/11/31) - 50,000USD
• Postech BSRI. Geometric Shape Approximation and Matching (2008/5/1 - 2009/2/28) - 20,000USD
• KRF/DAAD Korea-Germany Binational Research Grant. - GEnKO : Korea-Germany Partnership Program Geometric Shape Approximation (2008/1/1 - 2010/12/31) - 26,000USD
• Korea Research Foundation. Geometric Shape Matching in 3D: Design of efficient matching algorithms under rigid motions (2007/8/1 - 2009/7/31) - 40,000USD
• Postech BSRI. Geometric Shape Matching (2007/9/1 - 2008/2/28) - 20,000USD
• Korea Research Foundation. Approximation algorithms for shape matching in 3 dimensional space (2006/7/1 - 2007/6/30) - 20,000USD

At KAIST I was involved in

• KOSEF - Korea France STAR grant. Combinatorial Geometry of Lines in Space (2005/8/1 - 2007/7/31).
• Korea Research Foundation. Event-driven Online Crowd Simulation (2004/9/1 - 2006/2/28)
• Korea Science & Engineering Foundation. Design of Algorithms for Distributed Networks (2004/2/1 - 2006/2/28)

At KIST I was involved in

• MIC Research Grant. 3D Cyber Museum Technology (2001/10/1 - 2003/2/28)
• MOST Research Grant. Evaluation of Car Prototypes using CAVE-like Systems (2001/12/1 - 2002/11/30) and Interactive Immersive Virtual Environment Technology (2002/1/1 - 2004/7/31)
• MCT Research Grant. Virtual Heritage Experience Platform (2002/12/1 - 2003/10/31)
• KIST Research Grant. Responsive Cyber Space Technology (2002/1/1 - 2003/12/31)

At HKUST I was involved in

• DAAD/RGC Germany/Hong Kong Joint Research Scheme. Geometric shape matching and Chinese character recognition (1999/4/1 - 2000/3/31).
• RGC Competitive Earmarked Research Grant. Efficient Algorithms for Measuring the Similarity of Graph Drawings (1999/9/1 - 2001/8/31), Feasibility of randomized geometric algorithms (1998/8/1 - 2001/7/31)

At POSTECH I was involved in

• POSCO fund grant. A Geometric Basis for Manufacturing (1996/5/1 - 1997/4/30).
• KME Korean/US Joint Research Grant. Algorithms for Industrial Part Handling and Manufacturing (1996/8/1 - 1997/7/31)

Teaching experience

At POSTECH I have taught

• Discrete and Computational Geometry - EECE508 (2011)
• Randomized Algorithms - EECE701D (2011)
• Algorithms - CSED331 (2010/2011)
• Approximation Algorithms - EECE701C (2010)
• Discrete Geometry - EECE701B (2009)
• Computational Geometry - EECE701A (2008)
• Research Project A/II - CSED499 (2008)
• Algorithm Design and Analysis - CSED431 (2007/2008/2009)

At Sejong Univ. I taught

• Data Structures (2007)
• Advanced Algorithms (graduate course, 2006)
• Algorithms (2006)
• Discrete Mathematics (2006)
• C Programming (2006/2007)
• Programming Languages (2006)

At HKUST I was a teaching assistant of the following courses.

• Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming - COMP151 (1999/2000)
• Computational Geometry - COMP573 (1998)
• Design and Analysis of Algorithms - COMP271 (1998)

At POSTECH I was a teaching assistant of the following courses.

• Programming Practice - COMP231 (1997)
• Computational Geometry - COMP632 (1997)
• Data Structures and Algorithms - COMP233 (1996)
• Algorithm Analysis - COMP531 (1996)