Contact Information:
Office: Room 638
Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering
Address:
Box 352350
Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Washington
Seattle, WA, 98195

Email:T A N I M O T O @ C S . W A S H I N G T O N . E D U

Biographical Information:
Dr. Tanimoto currently serves as Professor of Computer Science and Engineering . He also serves as Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering. He received the A.B. degree from Harvard in 1971 and the Ph.D. from Princeton in 1975. He joined the University of Washington faculty in 1977 after two years teaching at the University of Connecticut. In 1982-83 he was a Visiting Professor at the Institut de Programmation, University of Paris-VI in France and a visiting scholar at Linköping University, Sweden. Since 1981 he has also served as an adjunct member of the Department of Electrical Engineering. In 1989-90 he was a Visiting Scientist at Kobe University (Japan), Thinking Machines Corporation (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Linköping University, Sweden. In June of 1989 and again in June of 1992 he was a visiting scientist at the Institut de Research et d'Enseignement Superieur Aux Techniques de l'Electronique (IRESTE) of the University of Nantes, France.

He has written or coauthored over 100 papers, co-edited the book ``Structured Computer Vision''; he is the author of a textbook entitled ``The Elements of Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction Using LISP'' published in 1987 (with Common Lisp editions in 1990 and 1995) and its accompanying software.

Tanimoto organized the 1992 IEEE Computer Society International Workshop on Visual Languages, held in Seattle, and he served as General Chair for the 1993 meeting in Bergen, Norway. He also served as program chair for the 1994 International Conference on Pattern Recognition Subconference on Parallel Computation and as the co-program chair for the 1994 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. He has served on the program committees for numerous conferences on image processing and pattern recognition and was general chairman of the IEEE Computer Society Workshop on Computer Architecture for Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence in 1987. He served on the steering committee for the IEEE Symposia on Visual Languages, and was its chair during 1995-96 and again in 2006-2007. In 2000, he served as Co-General Chair for the symposium (VL 2000), which was held in Seattle from September 10 to 13. He's a member of the program committee for the 2007 version of the conference, also. He has served on the editorial boards for the journals ``Pattern Recognition'', ``Journal of Visual Languages and Computing'', and ``CVGIP: Image Understanding''. He served as the editor-in-chief of ``IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence'' from 1986 to 1990. In addition to these research-related activities, Tanimoto served as Chair of the College of Engineering Educational Policy Committee 1991-92, as Vice Chair of College Council 1992-93 and as its Chair in 1993-94. He was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 1995 and a Fellow of the International Association for Pattern Recognition in 2000. He currently serves on the Publications Board of the IEEE Computer Society and is concerned with issues of online and open-access publication.
 

Current Research Activities:
Professor Tanimoto's research interests include computer analysis of images (particularly using parallel processors), educational technology, visual programming, and artificial intelligence.

Projects on computing in education:
 

• The mission of the project on Mathematics Experiences Through Image Processing is to develop and test personal computer software and student activities that foster intellectual engagement with mathematical ideas.
• The project Use of Online Assessment in Forming and Coaching Learning Groups develops tools to help teachers evaluate online student work and use that assessment data to improve the learning process. This is one of several projects hosted by the Online Learning Environments Laboratory. For a look at some of the larger issues in facilitating online learning see this online publication.
• A more exploratory project is the development of a Visual Language for Children's Multilingual Communication in the Internet.  This project builds on his earlier work on visual languages.

Projects on image processing:
 

• Use of rich region descriptions in content-based image information retrieval (joint work with S. Levialdi, L. Cinque, and F. Lecca of the Univ. of Rome).
• Pixels, Numbers, and Programs. An introduction to image processing and its relations to art, mathematics, and computing. The Spring, 2007 offering of a course by this name is described here.

Recent papers:
 

• Carlson, A., and Tanimoto, S. 2005. Text classification rule induction in the presence of domain-specific expression forms (to be presented at the workshop on Mixed Language Explanations in Learning Environments (XLANG), to be held in conjunction with AIED2005).
• Tanimoto, S., Hubbard, S., and Winn, W. 2005. Automatic textual feedback for guided inquiry learning. (presented at AIED2005, July).
• Tanimoto, S. 2005. Dimensions of transparency in open learner models. (presented at the workshop on Learner Modelling for Reflection, to Support Learner Control, Metacognition and Improved Communication between Teachers and Learners, held in conjunction with AIED2005).

Personal Information:
Outside of computer science, Steve Tanimoto enjoys playing jazz and classical piano music.