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Sina Farsiu

Anderson-Rupp Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Biomedical Engineering
Box 3802 Med Ctr, Durham, NC 27710
CIEMAS 2575, Durham, NC 27708

Overview


I am the director of the Vision and Image Processing (VIP) Laboratory. Along with my colleagues, we investigate how to improve early diagnostic methods and find new imaging biomarkers of ocular and neurological diseases in adults (e.g. age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, Glaucoma, Alzheimer) and children (e.g. retinopathy or prematurity). We also develop automatic artificial intelligence machine learning and deep learning algorithms to detect/segment/quantify anatomical/pathological structures seen on medical images.

On another front, we study efficient signal processing based methods to overcome the theoretical and practical limitations that constrain the achievable resolution of any imaging device. Our approach, which is based on adaptive extraction and robust fusion of relevant information from the expensive and sophisticated as well as simple and cheap sensors, has found wide applications in improving the quality of imaging systems such as ophthalmic SD-OCT, digital X-ray mammography, electronic and optical microscopes, and commercial digital camcorders. We are also interested in pursuing statistical signal processing based projects, including super-resolution, demosaicing, deblurring, denoising, motion estimation, compressive sensing/adaptive sampling, and sensor fusion.

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Anderson-Rupp Professor of Biomedical Engineering · 2023 - Present Biomedical Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering · 2021 - Present Biomedical Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Professor in Computer Science · 2021 - Present Computer Science, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering · 2022 - Present Pierre R. Lamond Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences · 2012 - Present Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, University Institutes and Centers

In the News


Published November 2, 2025
Preserving Sight With a Gene Therapy Implant
Published March 1, 2019
AI Technique Opens Door for Accelerated Progress in Neuroscience Research
Published November 20, 2018
A smartphone and new software could help save infants born preterm

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Recent Publications


Spatial Coherence Loss: All Objects Matter in Salient and Camouflaged Object Detection.

Journal Article Pattern recognition · May 2026 Generic object detection is a category-independent task that relies on accurate modeling of objectness. We show that for accurate semantic analysis, the network needs to learn all object-level predictions that appear at any stage of learning, including the ... Full text Cite

Robust registration under large image misalignment using an iterative step-aware transformer with application to corneal confocal microscopy

Journal Article Biomedical Optics Express · April 1, 2026 Corneal confocal microscopy (CCM) captures high-resolution images of the subbasal nerve plexus (SNP), but its small field of view limits visualization of larger anatomical landmarks such as the corneal whorl, which may aid in disease differentiation. Intra ... Full text Cite

Deep Learning-Based Classification of Slit-Lamp Photograph Quality in Microbial Keratitis.

Journal Article Ophthalmology science · April 2026 ObjectiveMicrobial keratitis (MK) is one of the leading causes of blindness in low- and middle-income countries that often requires timely diagnosis and subsequent treatment. Literature has shown that poor-quality slit-lamp photos (SLPs) can negat ... Full text Cite
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Recent Grants


Defining the underlying causes of retinal degeneration in CRB1 disease

ResearchCo-Principal Investigator · Awarded by Foundation Fighting Blindness, Inc · 2024 - 2029

Quantitative assessment of glaucomatous conventional outflow dynamics

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Eye Institute · 2019 - 2029

Automated Quantitative Ulcer Analysis (AQUA): Diagnosing Organism Types

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by University of Michigan · 2024 - 2028

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Education


University of California, Santa Cruz · 2005 Ph.D.
University of Tehran (Iran) · 2001 M.S.
Sharif University of Technology (Iran) · 1999 B.S.