Dinesh Manocha Receives 2024 Jimmy Lin Award for Innovation and Invention

University of Maryland Distinguished University Professor Dinesh Manocha has been awarded the 2024 Jimmy Lin Award for Innovation and Invention. Manocha, who holds joint appointments in the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, was honored for his patent, "System and Method for Multimodal Emotion Recognition." The award recognizes individuals who have transformed their ideas into innovations through invention and technology commercialization. 

The Jimmy Lin Endowment for Innovation and Invention annually presents the award to faculty, staff and students within the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering who have demonstrated the potential to impact technology fields through their inventions.

Manocha’s research spans several areas, including computer vision, robotics, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction. His work on multimodal emotion recognition has gained attention for its potential applications in human-computer interaction, virtual reality and mental health assessment.

By integrating various sensory inputs, the system could provide more accurate emotion recognition than methods that rely on a single data source. Manocha's patent involves a system that interprets human emotions through multiple sensory inputs, including facial expressions, speech patterns and gestures. This patent is a joint work of former students and research scientists Aniker Bera, Uttaran Bhattacharya, Rohan Chandra, and Trisha Mittal.

Manocha holds 16 patents, with seven more patent applications pending. He has published over 800 research papers and co-authored 11 books and monographs. His work has earned recognition through 20 Best Paper and Test-of-Time awards across various conferences and journals, contributing to advancements in real-time systems, virtual reality and robotics. He has also co-founded three companies, including Impulsonic, which was acquired by Valve. Software systems developed by his group have been licensed to more than 60 companies. 

Manocha has also been an academic advisor to numerous doctoral students, graduating 52 Ph.D. students who have gone on to contribute to both academic and industrial fields. Several of his students have secured prominent positions at leading technology companies and academic institutions.

In addition to his roles within the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering, Manocha is affiliated with several interdisciplinary institutes across the University of Maryland. He is also affiliated with the Institute for Systems Research (ISR), the Maryland Robotics Center (MRC), the Brain and Behavior Institute and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS). 

The Jimmy Lin Endowment for Innovation and Invention was established in honor of Jimmy Lin, a former Electrical & Computer Engineering professor. Previous award recipients have developed technologies ranging from software innovations to hardware designs.

—Story by Samuel Malede Zewdu, CS Communications