On 29^th September 2017 Dr. Caroline Conti received from the hands of the Portuguese Minister of Science, Technology, and Higher Education (Prof. Manuel Heitor) the prestigious IBM Scientific Prize, amounting to 15 k€ cash. The ceremony, held at ISCTE-IUL, had also the participation of the President of IBM Portugal (António Raposo de Lima), the head of IT (Prof. Carlos Salema), and the Rector of ISCTE-IUL (Prof. Luís Reto). Additionally, Dr. Costas Bekas from IBM Research-Zurich, gave a talk to the audience.

This was the 27^th edition of the IBM Scientific Prize, which is arguably the most prestigious prize in Computer Science and related fields of Engineering in Portugal, with a list of notable past winners since 1990.  For the first time the award was given to a PhD research work conducted at ISCTE-IUL.

Dr. Caroline Conti’s is entitled “Efficient Solutions for Light Field Coding” and was supervised by Prof. Luís Ducla Soares and Prof. Paulo Nunes, both from the Department of Information Science and Technology (DCTI) of the ISCTE-IUL School of Technology and Architecture (ISTA) and researchers at Instituto de Telecomunicações.

From the Abstract of her work, one can learn that her “work addresses specific challenges and requirements that still need to be overcome for introducing light field applications and services in the consumer market by developing and evaluating various solutions for efficient LF content coding”. With image and video technologies evolving to provide end-users a more immersive and visual experience, light field imaging technology has currently risen up as a practical and prospective approach for future visual applications and services.

Dr. Caroline Conti is now an Invited Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Science and Technology of ISCTE-IUL, and a postdoctoral researcher at IT-IUL.