Meet the Team

Irfan Essa (Instructor): Dr. Essa is the Senior Associate Dean at the College of Computing and a Distinguished Professor in the School of Interactive Computing. He is also the Inaugural Executive Director of the new Interdisciplinary Research Center on Machine Learning at Georgia Tech. Essa has been a professor at Georgia Tech since 1996, joining GT after many years at MIT (GA Tech of the North) getting his MS, PhD, and also working there as a Research Faculty. He has been involved in the development of Georgia Tech’s OMSCS Program since its inception and developed two courses for the program: CS6475 Computational Photography and CS 6476 Computer Vision. Dr. Essa has taught Computational Photography on-campus since mid-2000s and has offered a Computational Photography course in the past via the Coursera Platform, but this OMSCS version has many more advanced topics.  Website: prof.irfanessa.com, Twitter: @irrfaan
Kim Sirichoke (Head TA): Kim graduated from the OMSCS program in May 2017. She completed this course during its first offering in Spring 2015 and has been TAing for 6475 since Summer 2015. She received her undergrad degree from the University of Florida, where she majored in Computer Science and minored in Mathematics. After graduating in 2013, Kim was accepted into the OMSCS program in January 2014 as part of its first inaugural class.
Robert Kerner (TA): Bob is an OMSCS graduate and took CP in the Spring of 2018.  He has an MSEE, BSEE and  BSCPE so forgive him if he sounds like an engineering geek. Bob has re-imagined his basement as an electronics lab and has a passion for embedded IoT.  Don’t be afraid to ask about electronic applications of Computational Photography!
Xian Hadia (TA): Xian is a board-certified electrical engineer and PhD student under Professor Raphaël Pestourie. Her research deals with the use of machine learning to aid in engineering design and applications – specifically in the field of electromagnetism. For this class, she has relevant knowledge in signal processing and image sensors.
Jeffrey Lin (TA): Jeffrey took Computational Photography in Spring 2018 and started to TA in Fall 2018. Before OMSCS, he graduated from Ohio State University with a B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering. In his free time, Jeffrey loves to play basketball, snowboard, and spend time with his wife and daughter!
Michael Smith (TA): Michael took Computational Photography in the Fall of 2019. He completed his undergraduate in Electrical Engineering at the University of Central Florida. Outside of TAing this course, he works in the space side of the aerospace industry, on satellites. Michael really enjoyed Computational Photography, and thinks you will too!

Varun Agrawal (TA): Varun is a PhD student in Computer Science under Prof. Frank Dellaert at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. He is affiliated with the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines and the Machine Learning Center. His areas of research are Computer Vision, Robotics, and Machine Learning. Before starting his PhD, Varun was a Masters student in Computer Science at Georgia Tech where he worked on multiple projects which included helping computers understand visual attributes of objects in images, enabling robots to track industrial parts in real time, and writing industrial robot drivers to make working with them easier. He was the recipient of the Marshall D. Williamson Fellowship. In a previous life, he spent a stint at Microsoft Corp’s Hyderabad office, contributing to the Bing search engine and Enterprise Volume Licensing pipelines. He completed his B.Tech degree in Computer Science and Engineering from NIT Surat where he was president of the ACM Chapter and the Chief Editor of the college newsletter. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, basketball, music, and hacking.
David Joyner (Course Developer): David is the Executive Director of OMSCS and Online Education at Georgia Tech, as well as an Instructor in the OMSCS program. He earned his PhD from Georgia Tech in 2014. He has a pet tiger and fights sharks in his free time.
Arpan Chakraborty (Course Developer): Arpan completed his PhD at NC State in 2014, with a focus on biologically-inspired computer vision. He was also the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Instructor at Udacity.
Aaron Gross (Video Production): Aaron was the Video Production Specialist for this course, helping with script reviews and video editing. He received a bachelors in Mass Media Arts at UGA and was also the Production Manager for the MSCS Online Program.