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Contact
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Michal Sofka, PhD
4Catalyzer
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Summary
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Michal is a Principal Scientist at 4Catalyzer.
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Between 2013 and 2015, Michal worked at
Cisco Systems
in the
Security Business Group.
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Previously, Michal worked at
Siemens Corporation, Corporate Research
in the
Image Analytics and Informatics group headed by Dr.
Dorin Comaniciu.
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Michal did his doctoral work with professor
Chuck Stewart in the
Computer Vision Group
in the Department of Computer Science
at RPI.
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Passion: Innovating to transform ideas into solutions.
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Over 15 years of experience in image analysis and computer vision; over 7 years of industrial experience from top R&D labs.
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Senior Scientist and Technical Leader on research and development projects; coordinated multi-cultural international team of scientists, developers, and interns; led strategic planning of core technology directions.
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Conducted cutting edge research in the area of computer vision for industrial applications; expertise in machine learning, object detection and segmentation, feature-based registration, uncertainty modeling, and curvilinear structure extraction. Pioneered data analysis research in the area of network security; focus on threat detection and classification, machine learning, clustering, weakly-supervised techniques, and behavioral analytics.
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Outstanding publication record in leading international journals (TMI, MedIA, PAMI) and conferences (CVPR, IPMI, MICCAI); strong patenting activity; published 7+ journal articles, 22+ conference articles, 18+ patents.
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Excellent software development and prototyping skills (C/C++, Matlab, Java); integration with software libraries and large systems; individual contributor and team leader; mentoring and coaching of team members; exceptional communication and interpersonal skills.
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Education
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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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Troy, NY
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Doctor of Philosophy, Computer Science
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August 2008
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Master of Science, Computer Science
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May 2006
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Union College
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Schenectady, NY
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Master of Science, Electrical Engineering
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June 2001
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Czech Technical University
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Prague, Czech Republic
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Electrical Engineering (Undergraduate Student)
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1996 - 1998, 1999 - 2000
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Union College
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Schenectady, NY
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Electrical Engineering (Exchange Student)
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1998 - 1999
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Industrial and Academic Experience
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4Catalyzer
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Team Leader
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2016 -
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Cisco Systems
Security Business Group
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Sr. Technical Leader
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2015 - 2016
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Spearheaded the innovation in the analysis of encrypted network traffic. Designed novel algorithms for the representation of network traffic. Evaluated inventions through internal committee memberships to expand technological portfolio.
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Technical Leader
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2013 - 2015
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Grew an R&D team in the area of large scale machine learning for threat analytics. Defined R&D goals and targets. Devised strategic roadmap for generating impactful intellectual property. Maintained and expanded university relationships. Built new data-driven classification algorithms for cybersecurity. Developed new machine learning techniques constrained by scarce or expensive labeling.
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Siemens Corporation, Corporate Research
Imaging and Computer Vision
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Princeton, NJ
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R&D Project Manager
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2011 - 2013
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Managed research and development projects for various Siemens business units and external customers. Lead multi-cultural international teams. Prepared proposals for project acquisition. Monitored targets, carried out software deliveries, and maintained customer relations. Contributed to the strategic decisions by defining research, development, and product goals. Group leader: Dorin Comaniciu.
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Research Scientist
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2008 - 2011
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Developed innovative industrial strength systems for image analysis (automatic detection of ultrasound anatomies and organ segmentation in CT and MR). Designed a learning-based algorithm leveraging expert knowledge embedded in a large annotated databases of medical images. Built architecture and lead development of machine learning library for object detection and segmentation (150K+ lines of C++ code in July 2012). Supervised interns. Group leader: Dorin Comaniciu.
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Temporary Technical Employee
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Jan. 2004 - Aug. 2004
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Designed, analyzed, validated, and maintained algorithms for
automatic composing of Magnetic Resonance Images and
Angiograms (two patents granted). Supervised an undergraduate intern.
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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Department of Computer Science
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Troy, NY
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Research Assistant
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2003 - 2008
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Implemented innovative and robust solutions to research problems
in the areas of retinal vessel extraction, uncertainty in point
and image registration, multimodal and illumination invariant
keypoint descriptors, and location registration and recognition
for mapping regions in CT scans. Published 8 papers and wrote
70K+ lines of C++ code. Supervised undergraduate research students.
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Teaching Assistant
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2001 - 2005 (4 semesters)
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Led labs of 60 students in 2 groups; graded and designed homework assignments, projects, and exams; held office hours; supervised exams; and provided help outside the class.
Served as a master TA the last semester.
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Union College
Department of Electrical Engineering
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Schenectady, NY
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Union College, Department of Electrical Engineering
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2000 - 2001
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Tutored students; provided guidance on assignments; held review sessions; and helped students to master the coursework
material. Computer assistant in the Curricular Support group.
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Technical Expertise and Interests
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Machine Learning: Leveraging large annotated databases; discriminative learning; effective sampling techniques; applications in image analysis and network security.
Image Segmentation: Machine learning-based estimation of boundaries of structures and curve-linear segments; efficient centerline tracing; statistical shape models; interactive segmentation editing.
Object Detection: Multi-object detection; hierarchical detection networks.
Registration: Robust and automatic feature-based registration
in the presence of physical and illumination changes, noise,
outliers, occlusions and missing structure; uncertainty
modeling for correspondence estimation; statistical models in image registration; alignment verification.
Point Matching: Initialization of registration algorithms; keypoint detectors, descriptors and matching; feature extraction and scale space.
Medical imaging: Whole body image analysis; computer-assisted diagnosis and treatment planning; automatic measurements and quantification.
Data: Experience with range data (LIDAR), visible spectrum and infra red (IR) imagery, computed tomography (CT), Ultrasound (US), magnetic resonance (MR) images and angiograms (MRA).
Network Data: Netflows and proxy log records.
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Software Development Skills
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Expert in C/C++ (multi-platform and compiler independent development) with strong debugging, optimization, and integration skills; proficient in Matlab; versed in Java.
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Practical experience in software engineering and collaborative product development of large projects, version control systems, regression testing, continuous integration, and nightly builds.
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Familiar with scripting languages Bash, Python, Lua.
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Exposure to MapReduce, HBase, Mahout, Scala.
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Mentor and Supervisor
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Daguang Xu (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA), 2013
Adam Harrison (University of Alberta, Canada), 2012
Enrico Kuhn (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany), 2011
Vimal Singh (University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA), 2011
Jens Wetzl (University of Erlangen, Germany), 2010
Neil Birkbeck (University of Alberta, Canada), 2010
Kristof Ralovich (Technical University Munich, Germany), 2009
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Professional Activities
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Referee and Reviewer
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Journals:
IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging (TMI)
Medical Image Analysis (MedIA)
IEEE Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI)
Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU)
IEEE Transactions on Image Processing (TIP)
IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (TBE)
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Conferences:
IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)
IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV)
European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV)
International Conference on Medical Image
Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI)
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Publications and Research
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Please see a separate page dedicated to publications
and research projects.
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