Christopher Metzler Receives Board of Visitors Junior Faculty Award  

Christopher Metzler, an assistant professor of computer science with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, has been honored with the 2024 Board of Visitors Junior Faculty Award from the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS). The $2,500 award, presented annually in the fall, acknowledges the exceptional accomplishments of early-career faculty members in teaching and research.  

The award is open to assistant professors with primary appointments in CMNS who have not yet received tenure. Recipients must demonstrate outstanding performance in at least one area of faculty responsibility while maintaining proficiency in others.  

“It’s an honor to receive this award,” Metzler said. “This recognition reflects the great work of my students over the past few years.”  

Metzler leads the UMD Intelligent Sensing Lab, where his team applies advances in machine learning and statistical signal processing to enhance computational imaging and sensing systems. These systems are integral to applications ranging from medical diagnostics and scientific imaging to weather forecasting and defense technologies.  

“If successful, our work could dramatically enhance these systems' capabilities at essentially zero cost,” he explained.  

One of the lab’s current focuses is imaging through scattering media, an application that could significantly impact medical diagnostics.  

“Our ultimate goal is to get to non-invasive imaging through tissue using visible light, which could enable biopsy-free cancer diagnosis,” Metzler said.  

Metzler also plans to expand his research into new applications of sensing technologies, with a focus on healthcare and scientific imaging. These efforts aim to push the boundaries of what is possible with computational imaging and sensing.  

Before joining UMD, Metzler was an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford's Computational Imaging Lab. His academic achievements include receiving a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award and being an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a Department of Defense NDSEG Fellow and a NASA Texas Space Grant Consortium Fellow.

Metzler earned his doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from Rice University in 2019. During his studies, he focused on developing novel computational techniques for imaging systems. 

—Story by Samuel Malede Zewdu, CS Communications