5^th Workshop on Maritime Computer Vision (MaCVi)

MaCVi @ WACV 2027

Tuesday, January 5, 2027, afternoon (Orlando local time), per WACV’s draft schedule. Exact times and room to be confirmed.

People

Meet the team behind MaCVi @ WACV 2027: workshop organisation, research papers, benchmark challenges, evaluation infrastructure and community support.

General Co-Chairs

Workshop direction, coordination and continuity of the MaCVi community.

Benjamin Kiefer (LOOKOUT / University of Tübingen)
Dr. Benjamin Kiefer is a co-founder and CTO of LOOKOUT, a startup aiming to bring autonomy to the recreational boat market by means of the latest computer vision techniques. He was previously a PostDoc at the University of Tuebingen. He initiated MaCVi in 2023 and continues to coordinate the initiative across its WACV and CVPR editions. He led the computer vision team of a large state-funded research project called Avalon, which developed unmanned aerial vehicles for maritime search and rescue. His work has resulted in several publications in the domain of vision aboard UAVs in the maritime context. He has been a teaching assistant for over seven years, teaching lectures in maths, technical informatics and deep learning.

Uma Mudenagudi (KLE Technological University)
Dr. Uma Mudenagudi received her M.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees from IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi, respectively. She is the Dean of Research and Development at KLE Technological University, India, and the Founding Director of the Center for Visual Intelligence (CEVI) Lab. Her research interests span computer vision and visual intelligence, with a focus on image restoration and enhancement, underwater and low-light image analysis, representation learning, multimodal learning, and physics-informed learning. She has led multiple Government of India- and industry-sponsored research projects as Principal Investigator and has published more than 150 papers in reputed international conferences and journals. Her work bridges fundamental and applied research, with an emphasis on developing physics-aware learning and representation methods for real-world visual and multimodal data.

Program Chairs

Scientific programme, paper-review oversight and invited talks.

	Xiaomin Lin (University of South Florida) Dr. Xiaomin Lin is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of South Florida, with affiliated appointments in the Bellini College of AI, Cybersecurity and Computing and the Institute for AI + X. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland under Prof. Yiannis Aloimonos, and directs the ERA Lab (Embodied Robotics and Autonomy), focusing on robotics and multimodal perception for underwater, agricultural, and healthcare applications. As Program Chair, he also leads local coordination for MaCVi @ WACV 2027, including reviewer recruitment, publicity, and speaker invitations.
	Chen Chen (University of Central Florida) Dr. Chen Chen is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Artificial Intelligence, University of Central Florida, and an IEEE Senior Member. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2016. His research focuses on multimodal learning, computer vision, and efficient learning systems, spanning large-scale foundation models, human-centric AI, and federated learning, with applications in healthcare, public safety, and agriculture.
	Chaitra Desai (MAHE) Dr. Chaitra Desai is an Assistant Professor at the School of Computer Engineering, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Bengaluru. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from KLE Technological University, and her research spans computer vision, computational imaging, and physics-informed machine learning, with a focus on underwater vision, physics-based image formation modeling, and image restoration and enhancement in challenging visual environments.
	Sneha Varur (KLE Technological University) Sneha Varur is a Ph.D. scholar in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at KLE Technological University, Hubballi. Prior to academia, she spent over a decade in industry, including as a Service Delivery Specialist at IBM. Her research focuses on deep learning, physics-informed machine learning, and computational imaging, particularly underwater image formation modeling and restoration.

Challenge Teams

Maritime Visual Odometry

Harin Kumar Nallaguntla (UC San Diego / San Diego State University)
Challenge Co-Chair & Technical Lead

Harin is a Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego and San Diego State University, working on robotics, control and autonomy. He leads the technical development of the Maritime Visual Odometry challenge, including dataset preparation, the public starter, reproducible baselines and the evaluation pipeline. He also supports participant questions and the challenge report.

Embedded Underwater Restoration for Segmentation (EURS)

Nikhil Akalwadi CEVI, KLE Technological University EURS Co-Lead & Community Platform

Co-leads EURS, including evaluation and embedded deployment. He also develops the MaCVi Discord automation, supports participants and maintains team and author-metadata tooling.

Sampada Malagi CEVI, KLE Technological University EURS Co-Lead & Publicity

Co-leads EURS and its embedded evaluation pipeline, supports participants, contributes to the challenge report and helps publicise the workshop and competitions.

Diver3D 3D Sonar Diver Detection

Trung Tien Dong University of South Florida Diver3D Challenge Lead

Leads Diver3D, covering dataset and submission preparation, the detection metric, evaluation tools, participant support and the challenge report.

Scientific Challenge Support

Scientific guidance on benchmark design, evaluation protocols, underwater perception and embedded vision.

	Yi Sheng (University of South Florida) Dr. Yi Sheng is an Assistant Professor in the USF Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing, which she joined in 2025. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from George Mason University, and her research applies AI to medical technology, developing energy-efficient AI systems for medical applications on resource-constrained edge devices.
	Ramesh Ashok Tabib (KLE Technological University) Dr. Ramesh Ashok Tabib received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Center for Visual Intelligence (CEVI), KLE Technological University. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering and Director of CEVI, with research interests in representation learning and 2D-3D data creation, and over 12 years of academic research and teaching experience.
	Sujatha C (KLE Technological University) Dr. Sujatha C is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at KLE Technological University, Hubballi. She received her Ph.D. from Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belagavi, and her research spans image and video analysis, machine learning, and multimodal learning with a focus on cognitive tasks, with over 60 papers authored in international conferences and journals.
	Tusar Kanti Mishra (MAHE) Dr. Tusar Kanti Mishra is an Associate Professor at the School of Computer Engineering, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Bengaluru. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from NIT Rourkela and was a recipient of the Erasmus-Mundus research fellowship at the ALICE Lab, University of Groningen. His research interests span pattern recognition, computer vision, and document image analysis, across more than 21 years in academia.

Shared Infrastructure and Deployment

Jan Lukas Augustin Helmut Schmidt University Infrastructure Chair

Coordinates the shared evaluation platform and supports challenge leads. His work includes the website, submission infrastructure, and team and author-metadata workflows.

Arpit Vaishya LOOKOUT Web Infrastructure & Challenge Deployment

Arpit is a software engineer working on 3D perception and marine autonomy. He supports deployment of the Maritime Visual Odometry challenge, integrating uploads, scoring, database records and the leaderboard, and verifying the end-to-end submission flow.

Advisory Members

Advising on edge vision, tracking, autonomous-boat perception, marine robotics, and challenge continuity.

Arnold Wiliem Shield AI Embedded Vision Advice & Review Coordination

Contributes expertise in small-object perception and edge AI, advises on challenge continuity, and supports reviewer recruitment and paper-review coordination.

Matej Kristan University of Ljubljana Tracking & Autonomous-Boat Perception

Brings expertise in visual tracking and autonomous-boat perception, and experience from the VOT and previous MaCVi benchmark initiatives.

Janez Perš University of Ljubljana Maritime Perception & Challenge Continuity

Brings expertise in visual tracking, machine vision and autonomous systems, together with experience organising previous MaCVi editions.

Mingi Jeong Virginia Tech Marine Autonomy & Review Coordination

Contributes expertise in autonomous surface vessels and robust aquatic perception, and helps coordinate reviewer recruitment and the workshop's paper-review process.

Alberto Quattrini Li Dartmouth College Marine Robotics & OpenReview Coordination

Contributes expertise in marine robotics and active perception, coordinates the OpenReview venue and review workflow, and supports reviewer recruitment.

5th Workshop on Maritime Computer Vision (MaCVi)