Zuzana Kúkelová works at the Department of Cybernetics in the Visual Recognition Group led by Prof. Jiří Matas. She is looking for efficient ways to solve complex mathematical equations that help robots and computers to "see" better. Dr. Kúkelová's work focuses on so-called camera geometry. She uses polynomial equations to solve questions about how technology understands where things are in space. The results of her research are finding applications in, for example, autonomous driving, 3D reconstruction and mixed reality.
Zuzana Kúkelová graduated from Comenius University in Bratislava. She received her PhD for her thesis on Algebraic Methods in Computer Vision at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague, and subsequently was a postdoctoral fellow at Microsoft Research in Cambridge. She is the author of articles at major international conferences and in refereed journals in the field of computer vision. Currently, she is an investigator of the GACR Junior STAR grant, which supports excellence in emerging outstanding scientists whose projects are expected to have a non-negligible scientific impact on a global scale.
"The Neuron Prize is first and foremost a great honour and recognition for me. It is both my personal recognition and at the same time a recognition of the scientific work and issues that my colleagues and students and I are working on. At the same time, this award is a great motivation for me for the future and a confirmation that my path is the right one and that I should continue it," said Zuzana Kúkelová, who considers the award a great commitment to strive to do truly excellent science.
The Neuron Prize for Promising Scientists is awarded to Czech scientists for their achievements to date and as an encouragement for further work. The prize comes with a financial award of CZK 500,000 and is decided by a scientific council in seven fields - mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, computer science and social sciences.
Dr. Kúkelová thus joined the laureates working at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of CTU who have received the Neuron Prize in Computer Science in the past - they are prof. Daniel Sýkora from the Department of Computer Graphics and Interaction and doc. Viliam Lisý from the Department of Computer Science. She is the first ever female recipient of the award in the field of computer science since 2017.
Which moment in her scientific career does the new laureate consider a turning point or how does her workplace at Charles Square look like? You can read Zuzana Kúkelová's answers to the 7 questions in her profile on the Neuron Foundation website.
Photo source: the Neuron Foundation