ECS - Researcher Profiles - Dr Kirk Martinez

Senior Lecturer in Computer Science
School of Electronics and Computer Science

Dr Kirk Martinez never dreamt when he was tinkering with a Commodore computer in his teens that he would go on to monitor ‘the death of a glacier’ in Norway.
He is very proud of his work on GLACSWEB, a project where he and his colleagues in the School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) and Geography have developed a wireless sensor network to monitor glacier behaviour in Briksdalsbreen, Norway to provide valuable information about global warming.
The team has installed a network of sensor probes directly into the glacier. The aim is to study climate change through its effects on glaciers. They are using "Subglacial Probes" beneath a glacier, communicating to the surface via radio links.

This is the first time wireless probes have been put inside glaciers and it involves many challenges. The systems must feed data back to a server in the UK and contend with communication loss, power loss, electronic noise and bad weather.

The project, which will go on for another two years, also necessitates Kirk visiting the glacier on a regular basis to trudge through the snow to maintain or upgrade the system on the ice, a task he greets with enthusiasm!

‘It’s the first time that sensors were used wirelessly.’ he said. ‘Our work on this has allowed us to make smaller, better sensors but as this glacier has almost vanished we will move on to another one in 2007.’

Kirk has had a rich and varied career. He seems slightly surprised to have become a Computer Scientist because he was more of a ‘mad chemist’ during his school days, when computer science was ‘a bit of an unknown’.

In 1980, he embarked on a degree in physics at the University of Reading and went on to do a PhD in Electronics at the University of Essex where he became interested in images and electronics. This led to him working in the Art History Department at Birkbeck College for nine years, where he became very involved in imaging projects and capturing art.

In 1998, Kirk joined ECS where he continued to work on cultural and heritage-related computing and began to lecture in digital electronics and human-computer interaction.
‘In terms of computer science, ECS is an excellent place to work with its vast knowledge of web-related issues,’ he said. ‘There are lots of new cross-over areas between computing and electronics and the other sciences.’

Kirk’s work in imaging and image-based retrieval led to him being involved in some very high-profile projects which will have a major impact on how museums such as the Louvre, the Uffizi, London’s National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert (V&A) make their historical artefacts or works of art available to curators, researchers and the public.

A good example of how web technologies can be used to make cultural resources more accessible is SCULPTEUR, which involved building an advanced database to store three-dimensional representations of art-works, together with information about the objects, so they can be studied online. eCHASE is currently developed software capable of retrieving information using semantic concepts as well as image content.

Kirk and a team of researchers are working to develop this facility for galleries and inviting them to pose challenges. Sample queries being considered for the V&A are 'Find me paintings related to this sculpture', or 'Find me medieval objects of similar size, shape and colour to this one.' These certainly provide a challenge to the team of researchers!

‘This project is an excellent example of how web and other technologies can be combined to revolutionise access to cultural heritage,’ said Kirk. ‘It also allows us to look at the wider influence of imaging and web technologies on cultural heritage.’

Another project which will look at a new way of ‘fingerprinting’ works of art has emerged as a result of Kirk’s involvement in this sector. He has been asked to undertake some new research into how best to fingerprint a work of art so that it can be easily identified as the genuine article.

‘We will use some very advanced technology to do some in-depth 3-D scanning of the work of art, which will allow us to make a record which can be easily compared to any other signatures’, Kirk commented.

Kirk is pleased with the balance of his work at the moment, which is 50/50 cultural heritage and environmental sensing. He feels that in the future, the balance may tip towards more work in the environmental field, given the vast wildernesses out there waiting for their input.

‘We are learning that we can bring a whole range of technologies together to make climate change more accessible’, he commented. ‘Our aim is to make it all a lot smarter so that the equipment works more efficiently and the information is shared more easily.’

Watch this space!