Sujitha Catherine Martin

Honda Research Institute, USA
70 Rio Robles
San Jose, CA 95134

Email: smartin at honda hyphen ri dot com
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Now: I am a research scientist at Honda Research Institute, USA (HRI), working on driver situational awareness and explainable artificial intelligence.

Before 2017: I was a PhD student in the Laboratory of Intelligent and Safe Automobiles (LISA) in University of California, San Diego under the guidance of Professor Mohan M. Trivedi. My thesis was on Vision based, Multi-cue Driver Models for Intelligent Vehicles. I also did about a year of postdoctoral research in LISA.

My research interests are in semantic perception, modeling and cognitive/decision logic design for intelligent systems with emphasis on holistic information acquisition in applications such as intelligent vehicles (from driver assistive to full autonomy), human-computer interaction, biometrics, security and surveillance, autonomous robotics, and smart meeting rooms.

My Ph.D work at UCSD has been highly focused on looking-in at the driver and deriving higher level semantic information from non-contact, non-intrusive camera sensing array. Some works include, part hardware and part software solution of multi-camera framework for continuous head movement estimation, context-based gaze-zone estimation for gaze behavior modeling and prediction, and temporal modeling of head, eyes and hands for prediction of secondary tasks and maneuvers. The novelty and contributions of these works stem not from trying to solve a generic machine vision problem but from the motivation to address problems and challenges specific to on-road, safety critical driving conditions.

At HRI, one of my research interests has been on situtational awareness, by focusing on two research questions: what is the the driver aware of and what should the driver be aware of. Addressing these questions has direct value in advanced driver assistance systems (e.g. alerting driver to missed information) and for autonomous vehicles (e.g. human-like scene awareness to make human-centric control decisions). More recently, my research interests include exploring the synergy of knowledge (e.g. existing written rules, practices, experiences) and data in the age of data-driven approaches.

Doctor of Philosphy, Electrical Engineering, Fall 2016
University of California, San Diego (UCSD), La Jolla, CA
Thesis: Vision-based, Multi-cue Driver Models for Intelligent Vehicles
Advisor: Mohan M. Trivedi

Bachelors of Science, Electrical Engineering, June 2010
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA
One term study abroad at the Unviersity of Cambridge, UK

High School Diploma, June 2006
Cerritos High School, Cerritos, CA
Valedictorian (ranked 1st in the graduating class)