Sandia National Labs Academic Alliance Collaboration Report 2020-2021

Tian Ma, a distinguished R&D computer scientist, is a nationally recognized leader in research and engineering, particularly, remote sensing systems. With 17 years of experience at Sandia, he is known for his expertise in detection algorithms and as a pioneer in the field of tracking systems, especially in nuclear nonproliferation. His work on state-of-the-art algorithms for operational systems have solved U.S. government technical challenges and provided new, much needed mission-enabling capabilities. In real-time remote sensing applications, data are continuously flowing into the system; Ma’s research focuses on detecting objects of interest, tracking the motion, and classifying the types of object in near-real-time. Currently, Ma is the PI for an LDRD project on “Robust Scalable Detection and Tracking for Wide Area Surveillance.” Ma collaborated with several U of Illinois science and engineering faculty including Ramavarapu Sreenivas from Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, Minh Do from Electrical and Computer Engineering, Gul Agha from Computer Science, and Jagadeesh Yedetore and Heather Filippini with the U of Illinois Applied Research Institute. These partnerships have involved nine graduate and five undergraduate university students. In 2020, Ma expanded his collaboration with Professor Venugopal Veeravalli to investigate the theory of the quickest change detection on heterogenous sensor networks.

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2020-2021 Collaboration Report