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College of Sciences & Technology

CSET Faculty - Dvijesh J. Shastri

DR. DVIJESH J. SHASTRI

Dvijesh J. Shastri

Associate Professor

Office: S717
713-221-7903
shastrid@uhd.edu

Scholarships

Dr. Dvijesh Shastri is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Houston – Downtown. He specializes in affective computing, human behavior analysis, and data analytics. He has developed many computer vision and image processing algorithms that capture physiological signals from thermal imagery and associate them with human psychological states; these algorithms offer a novel toolkit for human behavior analysis. He has developed a novel non-contact way of measuring emotional perspiration responses from the face, which is a completely different approach from the contact-based clinical standard of measuring perspiration from fingers. This method allows realistic psychophysiological studies where subjects can operate naturally. His research on contact-free polygraph machine was demonstrated on primetime CNN news, Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room, and broadcasted on the Discovery Science channel in 2009. Dr. Shastri has co-authored more than twenty-five publications in premier conference and journals. He has been PI and CO-PI for multiple internal and external grants. He received a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Sardar Patel University in 1997, an M.S. in Computer Science from Wright State University in 2001, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Houston in 2007.

Curriculum Vitae

  • Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Houston, Houston, Texas, 2007.
  • M.S. in Computer Science from Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, 2001.
  • B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Sardar Patel University, Gujarat, India, 1997.​
Graduate Data Analytics Courses Taught at UHD
  • Information Visualization
  • Data Mining
Graduate Course Taught to the University of Gdansk Students
  • Information Visualization [Online course]
Undergraduate Computer Science Courses Taught at UHD
  • Computational Geoscience
  • Information Visualization
  • Introduction to Data Mining
  • Mobile Computing (iOS)
  • Mobile Games for High-school Students
  • Principles of Computer Graphics
  • Senior Seminar/Ethics for the Information Age
  • Data Structures and Algorithms
  • Digital Logic
  • Introduction to Computer Science with C++
  • Introduction to Computer Science with Visual Basic
  • Introduction to Computer Technology
Graduate Courses Taught at UH
  • Psychophysiology in HCI
  • Computational Psychophysiology


University of Houston – Downtown, Houston, TX - 09/2017 – Present
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Sciences and Engineering Technology
Primarily, I am involved in teaching computer science courses, researching in the areas of human-centered computing, mentoring undergraduate students, and services to the department, the college and the university.

University of Houston – Downtown, Houston, TX - 09/2011 – 08/2017
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Sciences and Engineering Technology
My duties involved teaching computer science courses, research in the areas of human-centered computing, mentoring undergraduate students, and services to the department, the college and the university.

University of Houston – Main, Houston, TX - 01/2012 – 01/2016 
Adjunct Research Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science
This adjunct position allowed me to pursue research collaborations. I co-mentored masters and doctoral students.

University of Houston – Main, Houston, TX - 09/2007 – 09/2011
Research Assistant Professor, Computational Physiology Lab
I carried out research in physiological stress analysis. Apart from research, my duties included interacting with the funding agencies such as the DOD, teaching interdisciplinary courses, and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students.

GE-Global Research Center, Albany, NY - 05/2006 – 08/2006 
Intern, Visualization and Imaging Lab 
I conducted feasibility studies of human intent detection in outdoor settings where the environmental factors are difficult to control.

University of Houston – Main, Houston, TX - 08/2004 – 08/2007
Research Assistant, Computational Physiology Lab
My doctoral dissertation focused on human stress analysis and its application in lie detection. My research was supported by the DOD grants/contracts.

University of Houston – Main, Houston - 08/2003 – 12/2006
Research Assistant, Optometry Department
I was involved in software development of clinical applications for vision scientists.

Research Interest

Human-Centered Computing, Affective Computing, and Data Analytics

Refereed Publications

  1. Ling, L., & Shastri, D. (2018, April). Meditation: Performance Booster for BCI Applications. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Case Study on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp.). ACM. [Acceptance rate: 45%]    
  2. Duong, D., Shastri, D., & Pavlidis, I. (2017, November). Dynamic 3D Print of the Breathing Function. In 17th International Conference on Bioinformatics and Bioengineering (pp. 402-408). IEEE.
  3. Patel, K., Shah, H, Dcosta, M., & Shastri, D. (2017). Evaluating NeuroSky's Single-Channel EEG Sensor for Drowsiness Detection. In Human-Computer Interaction. New Trends (pp. 243-250). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. A book chapter.
  4. Dcosta, M., Shastri, D., Tsiamyrtzis, P., & Pavlidis, I. (2016, May). Turning Security Monitoring into an Engaging High Performance Task. In Technologies for Homeland Security, the 2016 IEEE International Symposium on. IEEE.
  5. Tsiamyrtzis, P., Dcosta, M., Shastri, D., Prasad, E., & Pavlidis, I. (2016, May). Delineating the Operational Envelope of Mobile and Conventional EDA Sensing on Key Body Locations. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 5665-5674). ACM. [Acceptance rate: 23.4%]
  6. Khatri, A., Shastri, D., Tsiamyrtzis, P., Uyanik, I., Akleman, E., & Pavlidis, I. (2016, May). Effects of Simple Personalized Goals on the Usage of a Physical Activity App. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2249-2256). ACM. [Acceptance rate: 43.4%, Citation:1]    
  7. Ugur, M., Shastri, D., Tsiamyrtzis, P., Dcosta, M., Kalpakci, A., Sharp, C., & Pavlidis, I. (2015, September). Evaluating smartphone-based user interface designs for a 2D psychological questionnaire. In  proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 275-282). ACM. [Acceptance rate: 23.6%, Citation:2]
  8. Uyanik, I., Khatri, A., Majeti, D., Ugur, M., Shastri, D., & Pavlidis, I. (2015, April). Using Accelerometer Data to Estimate Surface Incline and Its Walking App Potential. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1397-1402). ACM. [Acceptance rate: 45.3%, Citation:1]
  9. Dcosta, M., Shastri, D., & Pavlidis, I. (2015, May). Perinasal indicators of malevolence. In Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG), 2015 11th IEEE International Conference and Workshops on (Vol. 1, pp. 1-4). IEEE.
  10. Dcosta, M., Shastri, D., Vilalta, R., Burgoon, J. K., & Pavlidis, I. (2015, May). Perinasal indicators of deceptive behavior. In Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG), 2015 11th IEEE International Conference and Workshops on (Vol. 1, pp. 1-8). IEEE.
  11. Kwon, K. A., Shastri, D., & Pavlidis, I. (2014, November). Information Visualization in Affective User Studies. Stress, In IEEE VIS.  (Conference Video Link: https://vimeo.com/103346662)
  12. Kwon, K. A., Shastri, D., & Pavlidis, I. (2014, September). Interfacing information in affective user studies. In Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing: Adjunct Publication (pp. 87-90). ACM. [Acceptance rate: 75%, Citation:1]
  13. Shastri, D., Papadakis, M., Tsiamyrtzis, P., Bass, B., & Pavlidis, I. (2012). Perinasal imaging of physiological stress and its affective potential. Affective Computing, IEEE Transactions on, 3(3), 366-378. [Impact Factor: 2.675, Citation: 29]         
  14. Duong, D., Shastri, D., Tsiamyrtzis, P., & Pavlidis, I. (2012). Spatiotemporal reconstruction of the breathing function. Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention–MICCAI 2012, 149-156. [Acceptance rate: 31.8%, Citation:2]
  15. Pavlidis, I., Tsiamyrtzis, P., Shastri, D., Wesley, A., Zhou, Y., Lindner, P., Buddharaju, P., Joseph, R., Mandapati, A., Dunkin, B., & Bass, B. (2012). Fast by nature-how stress patterns define human experience and performance in dexterous tasks. Scientific Reports, 2. [Impact Factor: 5.578, Citation: 27]       
  16. Buddharaju, P., Shastri, D., Mandapathi, A., Vaidya, S., & Pavlidis, I. (2011, May). Who said monitoring is boring. In CHI'11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2041-2046). ACM. [Acceptance rate: 42%, Citation: 1]
  17. Wesley, A., Shastri, D., & Pavlidis, I. (2010, April). A novel method to monitor driver's distractions. In CHI'10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 4273-4278). ACM. [Acceptance rate: 26%, Citation: 11]
  18. Shastri, D., Fujiki, Y., Buffington, R., Tsiamyrtzis, P., & Pavlidis, I. (2010, April). O job can you return my mojo: improving human engagement and enjoyment in routine activities. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2491-2498). ACM. [Acceptance rate: 22%, Citation: 7]
  19. Shastri, D., & Pavlidis, I. (2009, September). Automatic initiation of the periorbital signal extraction in thermal imagery. In Advanced Video and Signal Based Surveillance, 2009. AVSS'09. Sixth IEEE International Conference on (pp. 182-187). IEEE. [Citation: 4]
  20. Shastri, D., Pavlidis, I., & Wesley, A. (2009). A Method to Monitor Operator Overloading. In Human-Computer Interaction. New Trends (pp. 169-175). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. A book chapter. [Citation: 2]
  21. Shastri, D., Merla, A., Tsiamyrtzis, P., & Pavlidis, I. (2009). Imaging facial signs of neurophysiological responses. Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 56(2), 477-484. [Impact Factor: 2.33, Citation: 64]
  22. Yun, C., Shastri, D., Pavlidis, I., & Deng, Z. (2009, April). O'game, can you feel my frustration?: improving user's gaming experience via stresscam. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2195-2204). ACM. [Acceptance rate: 24.5%, Citation: 34]
  23. Shastri, D., Wesley, A., & Pavlidis, I. (2008). Contact-free Stress Monitoring for User's Divided Attention. INTECH Open Access Publisher. ISBN 978-953-7619-19-0. A book chapter. [Citation: 3]
  24. Shastri, D., Tsiamyrtzis, P., & Pavlidis, I. (2008, August). Periorbital thermal signal extraction and applications. In Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2008. EMBS 2008. 30th Annual International Conference of the IEEE (pp. 102-105). IEEE. [Citation: 4]
  25. Shastri, D., Merla, A., Tsiamyrtzis, P., & Pavlidis, I. (2007, November). Imaging facial signs of neuro-physiology responses, In Workshop proceedings of Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention–MICCAI, 152-160.
  26. Tsiamyrtzis, P., Dowdall, J., Shastri, D., Pavlidis, I. T., Frank, M. G., & Ekman, P. (2007). Imaging facial physiology for the detection of deceit. International Journal of Computer Vision, 71(2), 197-214. [Impact Factor: 3.623, Citation: 105]
  27. Buddharaju, P., Dowdall, J., Tsiamyrtzis, P., Shastri, D., Pavlidis, I., & Frank, M. G. (2005, June). Automatic thermal monitoring system (ATHEMOS) for deception detection. In Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2005. CVPR 2005. IEEE Computer Society Conference on (Vol. 2, pp. 1179-vol). IEEE. [Citation: 13]
  28. Tsiamyrtzis, P., Dowdall, J., Shastri, D., Pavlidis, I., Frank, M. G., & Ekman, P. (2005, March). Lie detection-recovery of the periorbital signal through tandem tracking and noise suppression in thermal facial video. In Proceedings of SPIE Sensors, and Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) Technologies for Homeland Security and Homeland Defense IV (Vol. 5778, pp. 29-31). [Invited paper, Citation: 15]  

Abstract-based Conferences

  1. Neema, S., Dhaliwal, N., & Shastri, D. Eye Movement Patterns while Driving Under Cognitive, Emotional, and Texting Distractions. In 29th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Pasadena, CA, October 18-21, 2017. [Best poster award]
  2. Trejo, V., & Shastri, D. A Machine Learning Approach to Understanding Student Academic Performance. In 29th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Pasadena, CA, October 18-21, 2017. [Second best poster award]
  3. Suryanarayanan, D., Khan, S., & Shastri, D. Descriptive and Predictive Analytics on Electricity Trends. In 29th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Pasadena, CA, October 18-21, 2017.
  4. Singh, T., Karakus, E., Shastri, D., & Soibam B. Identifying Genetic Markers To Improve Prognosis And Therapy Of Melanoma Tumors. In 29th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Pasadena, CA, October 18-21, 2017.
  5. Dongarwar, D., Abigail, P., & Shastri, D. Stock Market Prediction using Fundamental and Technical analysis. In 29th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Pasadena, CA, October 18-21, 2017.
  6. Nguyen, D., Simpson, N., & Shastri, D. The Effects of Brief Meditation on BCI Performance. In 29th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Pasadena, CA, October 18-21, 2017.
  7. Stevenson, A., Ruiz, E., & Shastri, D. Prompting Computer Science to Young Minority Students. In 29th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Pasadena, CA, October 18-21, 2017.
  8. Santana, M., Soibam, B., & Shastri, D. Cancer cell detection. In 28th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Anaheim, CA, October 5-9, 2016. [Best poster award]
  9. Ganady, A. & Shastri, D. Military Budgets and Social Inequality. In 28th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Anaheim, CA, October 5-9, 2016.
  10. Cox, O. & Shastri, D. Using Eye Tracking Analysis to Anticipate Poor Driving Behavior in Distracted Drivers. In 28th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Anaheim, CA, October 5-9, 2016.
  11. Jackson, R., Perez, E. & Shastri, D. Automatically Adjusting Game Difficulty via Electrodermal Readings. In 28th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Anaheim, CA, October 5-9, 2016.
  12. Zegarra, W, Hong, Zheng, & Shastri, D. Data Mining of Crime in Houston. In 28th Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), Anaheim, CA, October 5-9, 2016.
  13. Perkins, J., & Shastri, D. American Sign Language Translator Using Gesture Recognition. In 2nd Computer Science Undergraduate Research Expo at the University of Texas – Dallas, February 27, 2016.
  14. Turner, A., Pareja D., & Shastri, D. Detecting Drowsy Driving. In CAHSI summit, San Juan, Purto Rico, September 10-11, 2015. 
  15. Patel, K., Shah, H & Shastri, D. Drowsy Detection via EEG - Sensor. In CAHSI summit, San Juan, Purto Rico, September 10-11, 2015. 
  16. Perkins, J., Brown, K., Ihenacho, P., Chisholm, J., Shastri, D. and Pinelis, Y., An Interface Design for Automating Shale Strata Identification, In CAHSI summit, San Juan, Purto Rico, September 10-11, 2015.
  17. Patel, K., Shah, H. & Shastri, D. A Physiology-based Monotonous
    Driving Detection, 1st Computer Science Undergraduate Research Expo at the University of Texas – Dallas, April 11, 2015. [Honorable mention]
  18. Taamneh, S., Shastri, D., Currie, D., Dcosta, M., Wesley, A., and Pavlidis, I.  What Sympathetic Responses Can Tell about Children's Performance in Reading, In Society of Affective Science Conference, San Francisco, CA, April 9 – 11, 2015.
  19. D. Duong, D. Shastri, M. Dcosta, and I. Pavlidis, "Stereoscopic Reconstruction of the Breathing Function," in Abstracts of the 2013 Pharmaceutical Health Services Research Symposium, Houston, Texas, March 29, 2013.
  20. Wesley, A., Tsiamyrtzis, P., Shastri, D., Bass B., & Pavlidis, I. Fast by Nature - How Stress Patterns Define Human Experience and Performance. In Abstracts of the 2010 National Center for Human Performance Annual Meeting, Houston, Texas, November 11-12, 2010. [Best poster award]
  21. Joseph, R., Bourlai, T., Shastri, D., Pavlidis. I. Dunkin, B.J.,  & Bass, B. Use of a novel thermal and visual facial mapping system to measure stress in surgeons may provide a valuable metric in surgical skills acquisition. In Abstracts of the national American College of Surgeons (ACS) Educational Consortium Chicago, Illinois, March 21-22, 2009.
  22. Shastri, D., Tsiamyrtzis, P., & Pavlidis, I. Recovery of the periorbital signal and its application in the detection of deceit.  In Abstracts of the IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security, Boston, MA, May 12, 2008.
  23. Tsiamyrtzis, T., Dowdall, J., Shastri, D., Pavlidis, I., Frank, M., & Ekman, P.  Lie detection: recovery of the periorbital signal through tandem tracking and noise suppression in thermal facial video. In Abstracts of the 22nd Annual Houston Conference on Biomedical Engineering Research, Houston, TX, February 10, 2005.

Invited Talks

  1. Careers in Computer Science, Lake Olympia Middle School, Missouri City TX, June 15, 2017.
  2. Careers in Computer Science, Robotics Competition, Digital Learning, Fort Bend ISD, Sugar Land, TX, May 22, 2017.
  3. Perinasal Imaging of Physiological Stress and its Affective Potential, School of Computing, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, May 22, 2012.
  4. O' Job, Can you return my mojo?, Computer Science Department, University of Houston-Downtown campus, Houston, TX, January 13, 2011.
  5. Panel participant, Graduate forum for the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, July 23, 2010.
  6. Improving human engagement and enjoyment in the routine activities, Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation and Statistics, Houston, June 09, 2010.
  7. Improving human engagement and enjoyment in the routine activities, Psychology Department, University of Houston, Houston, TX, May 12, 2010.
  8. Pavlidis, I., Shastri, D. & Bourlai, T. Imaging stress. Rapid Screening Workshop at International Conference on System Sciences-42, Big Island, HI, January 5-6, 2009.
  9. Panel participant, Graduate forum for the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, July 25, 2008.
  10. Pavlidis, I., Buddharaju, P. & Shastri, D. Short course on Novel Biometrics, Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Minneapolis, MN, June 18, 2007.
  11. Shastri, D., & Pavlidis, I. Imaging Facial Physiology for the Deception of deceit. BBN Technologies, Arlington, VA, November 03, 2006.

Outreach Activities  

  1. Organized 1st Robotics Competition at UHD, November 17, 2017.
  2. Mentored a group of students organize programming workshops at a HISD high school and FBISD middle school June, 2017. The workshops were sponsored by Google IgniteCS project.
  3. Offered a course on Computational Geoscience to a group of high school students, summer 2015, and 2016.
  4. Offered a course on Mobile Game Development to a group of high school students, summer 2014.



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