Ed Riseman retires

After 34 years of service with UMass, Ed Riseman retired this fall. Riseman joined the Computer Science Department (then COINS) as Assistant Professor in 1969, and became a full professor in 1978.

Riseman’s research reflects a broad interest in computer vision and artificial intelligence, including knowledge-based image understanding, stereo and motion analysis, autonomous vehicle navigation, learning, three-dimensional reconstruction, image databases, content-based image retrieval and parallel processing, and architectures for computer vision. Emphasis on practical systems is supported by applications of photo-interpretation of aerial images including 3-D building and terrain reconstruction, biomedical image analysis, automated robotic manufacturing and assembly, real-time control of intelligent vehicles, terrain classification and fly-through visualization, and development environments for vision research. He is the author of more than 150 publications in these areas. Riseman’s newest ventures are research in oceanography and new anti-terrorism initiatives.

When Riseman arrived at UMass in 1969, Computer Science was a program in the graduate school. Then-Graduate Dean Ed Moore was fully supportive of the plan to create a Computer Science Department, so he approved the hiring of a junior faculty position. Riseman filled that position. “We could not have made a better choice,” says Professor Emeritus Conrad Wogrin, who was the Acting Chair at the time of Riseman’s hiring. “He came to UMass running and has not stopped for thirty four years.”

Riseman immediately started his research in character recognition upon arrival at UMass. He was willing to define his problem in its most difficult form, the recognition of hand written characters. “When we [the Department and Engineering] bought a new computer, the PDP 15, for the wrong reason, Ed quickly and skillfully used it to build his first lab. What might have been a financial blunder was transformed into a good move,” says Wogrin.

Riseman was instrumental in the establishment and success of the Department’s Computer Vision Laboratory, which he co-directed with Professor Allen Hanson. Riseman and Hanson also founded Amerinex Artificial Intelligence Corporation and Dataviews Corporation (formerly VI Corporation), both visual technology oriented companies located in the Amherst, Massachusetts area. Riseman and Hanson had successful collaborations with nearly every faculty member in the Department over the years, as well as with industry partners such as Martin Marietta, Lockheed, and most recently, Bigelow Laboratory in Maine.

Hanson and Riseman have been a team since they were undergraduate students. The two met while undergrads at Clarkson College and went on to graduate school together at Cornell University. While Hanson and Riseman started their careers at different universities, Riseman at UMass and Hanson at the University of Minnesota, they still collaborated on research, and the two eventually joined forces at UMass. Hanson attributes the Vision Lab’s success to the close working relationship that he and Riseman have had over the past forty years. “We complemented each other extremely well,” says Hanson.

Some of Riseman and Hanson’s research accomplishments include pioneering work on vision understanding systems. Riseman, Hanson, and then student Tom Williams (Ph.D. ‘81) designed one of the first knowledge-based image understanding systems that handled very complex natural images. A landmark book edited by Hanson and Riseman, Computer Vision Systems (Academic Press, New York, 1978), set the tone for much of the area’s research over the following ten years. The Vision Lab participated in the DARPA Unmanned Ground Vehicle Program, in which UMass was one of only two universities to have a military humvee on site for testing. As part of the DARPA RADIUS APGD program, UMass produced the only working aerial imaging system that was utilized at government installations. “The highlights of Ed’s career span both research and university service,” says Hanson. The Vision group was one of the first in the Department to build a lab, so the group’s computers became resources for the entire Department. “Ed tried to do what was best for the Department,” says Hanson. “He was always looking for ways to move the Department forward.”

Riseman was Chair of the Department from 1981 to 1985. “Ed as the department head was a dynamo,” says Wogrin. “At the time, the department had a number of very good people, a broad spectrum of research, and was moderately well funded. What Ed did was to inject a sense of optimism.” During his tenure as Chair, Riseman changed the culture of the Department to become very cooperative, where faculty worked together and respected one another’s views. Riseman recognized that it was key for the Department's growth to increase presence in the area of systems and theory, and he was able to obtain support from the University to build in those areas. Riseman was also instrumental in encouraging faculty to go after large grants that were key to creating a first-class research environment in the Department. “He made faculty at all levels feel that they had a voice in the directions of the Department,” says Professor Victor Lesser. “It is this spirit that lives on in our department, and which makes it special.”

An accomplished researcher and leader, Riseman is also a dedicated teacher. During his tenure at UMass, Riseman was the advisor to 38 Ph.D. graduates (many co-supervised with Hanson). “His greatest legacy is in the students that have been members of the Visions group,” says Hanson.

Riseman is a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a member of AAAI, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), and of the Pattern Recognition Society. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 1969.