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Professor Alan Bovik and his research team were recognized for algorithms that optimize streaming media at the 72nd Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy® Awards. While winners were announced earlier this year, the awards were presented in a virtual ceremony livestreamed on November 4. The team included WNCG alumni Kalpana Seshadrinathan, Rajiv Soundararajan, and Hamid Sheikh; all three researchers completed doctoral programs at the University of Texas at Austin, where they were advised by Bovik. 

The UT Austin Villa Robotics Team recently won third place at the RoboCup@Home 2017 competition, in the category of Domestic Standard Platform League. The competition was held in Nagoya, Japan. Robocup was originally founded by Japanese researchers to develop robots that could play soccer well enough to eventually defeat world champion players. The idea was playfully implemented in order to fuse robot engineering with artificial intelligence and development. Now the original goal of the competition has expanded to include other areas and goals of robotics.

In January 2016, WNCG welcomed two new faculty to its ranks - the husband and wife dynamic duo of research, Profs. Andrea and Edison Thomaz. “It is an incredibly exciting time to be at UT Austin,” Prof. Edison Thomaz states. “And WNCG exemplifies the type of forward-thinking that makes UT stand out. Having graduated from UT myself many ages ago, I could not pass up the opportunity to come back, contribute and be part of this transformation.”