About
I am an associate professor of Applied Mathematics in the Faculty of Science at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. My research is primarily focused around applied machine learning. I have worked in the domains of probabilistic robotics and computer vision for many years, have some recent experience in computational linguistics and reinforcement learning, and currently focus mainly on representation learning and low-resource computer vision. I like working on applications for nature conservation and social impact, and I am passionate about building and serving machine learning communities all across the African continent.
I completed an MSc in Applied Mathematics at Stellenbosch in 2005, and a PhD in Computer Science at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK in 2008. After about a year of postdoc work at South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, I returned to Stellenbosch in 2009 where I have been teaching a variety of undergrad and postgrad courses in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, and working with many amazing grad students.
Office: Room A311, General Engineering Building, Banghoek Road Email: wbrink [at] sun [dot] ac [dot] za Phone: +27 (0)21 808 4218
Community engagement
Deep Learning Indaba
The Deep Learning Indaba
is an organisation whose mission is to strengthen machine learning and artificial intelligence in
Africa. We work towards the goal of Africans being not only observers and receivers of ongoing
advances, but active shapers and owners of these technologies. Visit our
website
to find out more!
Maties Machine Learning
Herman Kamper and I created MML
in 2018, in an effort to bring together researchers and students from across departments
and faculties of Stellenbosch University. It is primarily a seminar series and discussion
forum, and anyone at the university interested in machine learning is most welcome to
join us.
Teaching
Courses I am teaching in 2021:
• PTS114 Probability Theory and Statistics (1st semester)
• AM792 Computer Vision (1st semester)
• AM364 Applied Fourier Analysis (2nd semester)
Other courses I've taught in the past:
• AM244 Applied Differential Equations
• NM262 Numerical Methods for Engineers
• AM324 Numerical Analysis
• CS364 Computer Vision
• AM793 Digital Image Processing
Coming 2022:
• a one-year structured MSc in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (watch this space!)
Graduate students
• Shane Josias (PhD)
• Samuel Mensah (PhD, co-supervised with Bubacarr Bah)
• Jama Mohamud (PhD, co-supervised with Ulrich Paquet)
• Dries Smit (PhD, co-supervised with Herman Engelbrecht)
• Wian Crous (MSc)
• Fred de Villiers (MSc, co-supervised with Benjamin Rosman)
• Mikkel du Plessis (MSc)
• Christiaan Louw (MSc)
• Mulanga Makhubele (MSc)
• Evander Nyoni (MSc, co-supervised with Bruce Bassett)
Publications and preprints
Class-selective mini-batching and multitask learning for visual relationship recognition
Shane Josias, Willie Brink
SAIEE Africa Research Journal, to appear, 2021BINet: a binary inpainting network for deep patch-based image compression [link] [arXiv]
André Nortje, Willie Brink, Herman Engelbrecht, Herman Kamper
Signal Processing: Image Communication, vol. 29, art. 116119, 2021Towards the localisation of lesions in diabetic retinopathy
Samuel Mensah, Bubacarr Bah, Willie Brink
Computing Conference, to appear, 2021Link prediction in knowledge graphs using latent feature modelling and neural tensor factorisation [pdf]
Luyolo Magangane, Willie Brink
Southern African Conference for Artificial Intelligence Research (SACAIR), pp. 335-348, 2020Image identification of Protea species with attributes and subgenus scaling [pdf]
Peter Thompson, Willie Brink
IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), pp. 2094-2102, 2020Learning fine-grained control for mapless navigation [pdf]
Fred de Villiers, Willie Brink
SAUPEC/RobMech/PRASA Conference, pp. 666-671, 2020Batch construction and multitask learning in visual relationship recognition [pdf]
Shane Josias, Willie Brink
SAUPEC/RobMech/PRASA Conference, pp. 713-718, 2020Towards automating healthcare question answering in a noisy multilingual low-resource setting [pdf]
Jeanne Daniel, Willie Brink, Ryan Eloff, Charles Copley
Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), pp. 948-953, 2019Short-term stream flow forecasting at Australian river sites using data-driven regression techniques [pdf]
Melise Steyn, Josefine Wilms, Willie Brink, Francois Smit
International Work-Conference on Time Series (ITISE), pp. 865-876, 2017A method for three-dimensional stem analysis and its application in a study on the occurrence of resin pockets in Pinus patula [link]
Frederick Lerm, Melanie Blumentritt, Willie Brink, Brand Wessels
European Journal of Forest Research, vol. 136, no. 3, pp. 411-420, 2017A probabilistic graphical model approach to the structure-and-motion problem [pdf]
Simon Streicher, Willie Brink, Johan du Preez
PRASA-RobMech International Conference, paper 8, 2016Text detection in natural images with convolutional neural networks and synthetic training data [pdf]
Marco Grond, Willie Brink, Ben Herbst
PRASA-RobMech International Conference, paper 20, 2016The application of support vector regression for stream flow prediction on the Amazon basin [pdf]
Melise du Toit, Josefine Wilms, Francois Smit, Willie Brink
Conference of the South African Society for Atmospheric Sciences, pp. 25-28, 2016Pose uncertainty in occupancy grids through Monte Carlo integration [link]
Daniek Joubert, Willie Brink, Ben Herbst
Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 5-16, 2015Long-term tracking of multiple interacting pedestrians using a single camera [pdf]
Mogomotsi Keaikitse, Willie Brink, Natasha Govender
PRASA, RobMech and AfLaT International Joint Symposium, pp. 59-65, 2014Pose uncertainty in occupancy grids through Monte Carlo integration [pdf]
Daniek Joubert, Willie Brink, Ben Herbst
International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR), paper 90, 2013FastSLAM with stereo vision [pdf]
Wikus Brink, Willie Brink, Corné van Daalen
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 24-30, 2012Probabilistic outlier removal for robust landmark identification in stereo vision based SLAM [pdf]
Wikus Brink, Willie Brink, Corné van Daalen
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 2822-2827, 2012Scene reconstruction from uncontrolled motion using a low cost 3D sensor [pdf]
Pierre Joubert, Willie Brink
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 13-18, 2011Stereo vision as a sensor for EKF SLAM [pdf]
Wikus Brink, Willie Brink, Corné van Daalen
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 19-24, 2011A mesh-based approach to incremental range image integration [pdf]
Daniek Joubert, Willie Brink
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 74-79, 2011Graph cut segmentation of range images into planar regions [pdf]
Simon Muller, Willie Brink
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 108-113, 2011Gain scheduling control of monocular vision-based human-following robot [pdf]
Michael Burke, Willie Brink
World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), pp. 8177-8182, 2011Dense stereo correspondence for uncalibrated images in multiple view reconstruction [pdf]
Willie Brink, Daniek Joubert, Francois Singels
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 39-44, 2010Estimating target orientation with a single camera for use in a human-following robot [pdf]
Michael Burke, Willie Brink
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 51-56, 2010Multi-view 3D position estimation of sports players [pdf]
Robbie Vos, Willie Brink
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 299-304, 2010Applying Bayesian segmentation in volumetric silhouette-based reconstruction [pdf]
Willie Brink
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 17-22, 2009Real-time stereo reconstruction through hierarchical DP and LULU filtering [pdf]
Francois Singels, Willie Brink
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 41-46, 2009Combining motion detection and hierarchical particle filter tracking in a multi-player sports environment [pdf]
Robbie Vos, Willie Brink
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 65-70, 2009Real-time surface tracking with uncoded structured light [pdf]
Willie Brink
Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA), pp. 91-95, 2008Indexing uncoded stripe patterns in structured light systems by maximum spanning trees [pdf]
Willie Brink, Alan Robinson, Marcos Rodrigues
British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC), pp. 575-584, 2008Willmore energy vs area as criteria for mesh optimisation [pdf]
Willie Brink, Lyuba Alboul
Numerical Geometry, Grid Generation and High Performance Computing, pp. 6-12, 2006Mesh optimisation based on Willmore energy [pdf]
Lyuba Alboul, Willie Brink, Marcos Rodrigues
European Workshop on Computational Geometry, pp. 133-136, 2006
Previous graduate students
Luyolo Magangane (MSc, 2020)
Link prediction in knowledge graphs using latent feature modelling and neural tensor factorisation [link]Gregory Newman (MSc, 2020)
Video classification using deep learning [link]Reem Elmahdi (MSc, 2020)
Predicting water quality variables [link]Shane Josias (MSc, 2020)
Multitask learning and data distribution search in visual relationship recognition [link]Jeanne Daniel (MSc, 2020)
Applications of natural language processing for low-resource languages in the healthcare domain [link]Peter Thompson (MSc, 2020)
Image and attribute identification of Protea species [link]Simbarashe Nyatsanga (MSc, 2020)
Automatic video captioning using spatiotemporal convolutions on temporally sampled frames [link]Belinda Matebese (PhD, 2019)
Path planning for wheeled mobile robots using an optimal control approach [link]Jaco Briers (MSc, 2019)
Data-driven river flow routing using deep learning [link]Russell Kingwill (MSc, 2019)
Evaluating the effectiveness of neural network techniques in the forecasting of South African basic fuel prices [link]Jacques Marais (MSc, 2018)
Automated elephant detection and classification from aerial infrared and colour images using deep learning [link]Melise Steyn (MSc, 2018)
Short-term stream flow forecasting and downstream gap infilling using machine learning techniques [link]Marco Grond (MSc, 2017)
Text detection in natural images using convolutional neural networks [link]Simon Streicher (MSc, 2016)
A probabilistic graphical model approach to solving the structure and motion problem [link]Gideon Zuurmond (MSc, 2015)
Accurate camera position determination by means of moiré pattern analysis [link]Alwyn Burger (MEng, 2015)
Occupancy grid mapping using stereo vision [link]Pieter Holtzhausen (PhD, 2015)
Video surveillance incorporating pan-tilt-zoom cameras [link]Lloyd Hughes (MSc, 2014)
Enhancing mobile camera pose estimation through the inclusion of sensors [link]Pierre Joubert (MSc, 2014)
Thermal and colour data fusion for people detection and tracking [link]Mogomotsi Keaikitse (MSc, 2014)
Long-term tracking of multiple interacting pedestrians using a single camera [link]Simon Muller (MSc, 2013)
Planar segmentation of range images [link]Wikus Brink (MEng, 2012)
Stereo vision for simultaneous localization and mapping [link]Daniek Joubert (MSc, 2012)
Adaptive occupancy grid mapping with measurement and pose uncertainty [link]Michael Burke (MEng, 2011)
Visual servo control for a human-following robot [link]Robbie Vos (MSc, 2010)
3D position estimation of sports-players through multi-view trackingFrancois Singels (MSc, 2010)
Real-time stereo reconstruction using hierarchical dynamic programming and LULU filtering [link]
Last updated: 2 March 2021