First-Person Report: Xuebing Zhou     

What project/theme are you currently working on?

The main area of research of my department is biometrics, including 3D face recognition, privacy and security enhancing technology, benchmark and evaluation of various biometric systems and liveness detection. My research focuses on privacy protection techniques for biometric system. These privacy protection techniques can prevent revelation of any privacy related information such as gender, race, genetic information, disease and so on, during the use of biometric system. Additionally, linking of different applications with the same biometric feature can be avoided. It makes biometric system resistant to numerous attacks on stored and transported biometric data.

Currently I am working on two projects funded by EU commission - 3D FACE and HIDE. In 3D FACE project, an automatic 3D face recognition system has been developed to enable biometric border control, while the privacy and security perspective are maintained. In the HIDE project (Homeland Security, Biometric Identification & Personal Detection Ethics), a platform devoted to ethical and privacy issues of biometrics and personal detection technologies, which addresses transnational (European) and international problems, will be set up.

What fascinates you about your work?

At Fraunhofer IGD I have freedom of research. I have the opportunities to contact various experts from different areas and to network with industry partners, which motivate me to generate and implement new ideas. Collaboration and competition with the partners in the projects propel my research activities. I have very nice colleagues and I enjoy working here.

What are your plans for your academic career?

I would like to finish my doctoral dissertation "Privacy Protection Technology for biometric Systems". After that, I would like to keep up my activities in research works and broaden the research area to multimedia.

What are the reasons you chose Germany for research?

As I intended to study in a foreign country, USA and Germany were the countries that came to mind first. Germany has a high level of education, that is why I came here nine years ago. After my study, I was very excited about the research topics offered by Fraunhofer IGD and I was fascinated by the working environment there.

What do you think about Germany as a science and research location?

Germany is well known for scientific and engineering work. The preciseness of the research manner makes Germany competitive worldwide. International collaborations help Germany to keep the leadership in many areas.

How do you like living and working in Germany? What kind of experiences have you had?

The tempo of life here is relatively slow. I am enjoying getting to know Germany and the European culture and mentality. The research conditions are optimal and I can fully concentrate on my research work.

academics.com :: June 2008