Friday Q&A: Longin Jan Latecki of Temple University Summer Research Program

Temple University computer science professor Dr. Longin Jan Latecki (center, facing camera) speaking about his research with colleagues and students.

If you ever want a robot to be able to get you coffee, they have to be able to see.

So, really, Dr. Longin Jan Latecki, a computer science professor at Temple University, is doing us all a favor. Latecki, whose research focuses on the half-century-old concept of computer vision, is one of 22 Temple faculty who are participating in the university’s inaugural Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP).

The program gives students the chance to earn up to a $4,000 stipend, funded by an equal match between the College of Science and Technology and the researcher’s grant.

Latecki is originally from Poland and is one of two professors working on more than one project for SURP. He came to Temple in November 2001, after stints at the Technical University of Munich and the University of Hamburg, both in the storied German university community.

SURP, which includes faculty from Temple’s CST, the College of Engineering and the School of Medicine, aims to bolster the research chops of Temple undergraduates. More than 270 students applied for the program, and some 150 interviewed with faculty for just 40 available positions during a university event held on March 31.

Below, Latecki, who is also leading a project on the interaction of light with matter, talks to Technically Philly about SURP, his computer vision research and what it takes to get a robot to get me some damn coffee.

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Penn: Top IT workplace bringing tech-learning to Nicaragua

Photo of Optimus Prime prowling Penn's campus from SlashFilm.com, as linked at bottom.

Technology lovers at the University of Pennsylvania had at least two points of pride this week, a ranking and an act of good works.

Computerworld released its annual 100 Best Places to Work in IT list, naming Philadelphia’s Ivy League school No. 4, ranking it the best for benefits and second for diversity.

It comes near a university announcement that researchers from the school’s Graduate School of Education plan to introduce laptop computers and a technology-based curriculum to students and teachers in a rural community school for the children of coffee-farm workers in Nicaragua, beginning in July.

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Shop Talk: Obama Girl’s Leah Kauffman on Phrequency.com redesign

Updated: 5:33 p.m. 6/10/09 with additional attribution

This is part of an irregular series of our Shop Talk department, called The Redesign.

On a Friday afternoon in early May, Leah Kauffman dons a t-shirt to show off her gang affiliation.

A pair of hands screenprinted on the bright red tee are positioned similarly to the Bloods street gang hand signal. Fingers on the right hand are contorted into the shape of the letters ‘b,’ ‘l’ and ‘o.’ The left hand is flipped upside-down, and the index finger curled, creating a hanging “g.”

‘Blog,’ it reads.

At first glance, it’s easy to miss. But it makes sense. Kauffman runs Philly.com’s Phrequency, a news portal that covers the movers, shakers and rattlers of Philly’s music community.

In April, Phrequency was redesigned with a more streamlined, blog-esque interface; dropping the clunky, genre focus that forced users to choose hip-hop or punk, R&B or jazz, for a content-oriented design that doesn’t split hairs on artists who span all of those.

It was a move that Kauffman had wanted to make for months.
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Regional entrepreneurship foundation takes major players on its advisory board

A slew of big names were named to the advisory board of the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship to Youth.

All told, 13 new members were appointed, including former RedLasso CEO Kenyon Hayward, RoseAnn B. Rosenthal, the longtime president of Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and Temple University President Ann Weaver Hart, according to a press release.

The regional incarnation of the New York City-based nonprofit is headquartered at Temple and follows the group’s mission of providing entrepreneurship education programs to young people from low-income communities.

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