AIML Co-Director Professor Anton van den Hengel awarded prestigious fellowship
Professor Anton van den Hengel, AIML Co-Director
Story written by Dr Sarah Keenihan, AIML
AIML’s Co-Director Professor Anton van den Hengel was named as a 2020 Fellow of the Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) in an online ceremony.
“ATSE brings together Australian experts in applied science, technology and engineering to provide impartial, practical and evidence-based advice on how to advance Australian prosperity,” said Professor van den Hengel.
“Part of their mission is to make a contribution to the debate taking place in Australia about the role of science and technology in society, and in our future.”
“I’m honoured to have been admitted as a Fellow of an organisation such as this, particularly at a time when the debate in Australia is so critical to our success,” he said.
Professor van den Hengel’s particular avenue of machine learning research is about the intersection of language and image analysis.
“That’s a powerful place to be, because images are a form of information that occur naturally – they’re not symbolic, they’re completely real,” Professor van den Hengel said.
“Whereas language is an artificial and symbolic form of information that tells is a lot about the way that people think.”
“To be able to bring those two different kinds of information together gives us an insight into the way that the human mind works in all of its strengths and frailties,” he said.
Recording of new Fellows announcement on Thursday 26th of November 2020
ATSE appoints fellows each year, selected from a competitive application process to recognise Australia’s leaders in science, technology and engineering.
“Our fellowship is comprised of technologists, scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, directors and leaders,” said Kylie Walker, CEO at ATSE.
“The work of our fellows has shaped the present and the future, and our 2020 new fellows are no exception.”
“Each has made significant contributions to growing Australia’s applied science, technology and engineering capability,” she said.
The full list of 2020 Fellows is available on the ATSE website.