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Contact


Office: 3463 FCIEMAS
Mailing Address: Box 90291, Durham, NC 27708
Email: willett@duke.edu
Phone: 919-660-5544


Research Interests


My research interests include network and imaging science with applications in medical imaging, wireless sensor networks, astronomy, and social networks. One central theme of my research is data-starved inference for point processes -- the development of statistically robust methods for analyzing discrete events, where the discrete events can range from photons hitting a detector in an imaging system to groups of people meeting in a social network. When the number of observed events is very small, accurately extracting knowledge from this data is a challenging task requiring the development of both new computational methods and novel theoretical analysis frameworks. This body of research has led to important insights into the performance of compressed sensing in optical systems, tools for tracking dynamic meeting patterns in social network, and novel sparse Poisson intensity reconstruction algorithms for night vision and medical imaging.

Bio


Rebecca Willett is an associate professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Duke University. She completed her PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University in 2005. Prof. Willett received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2007, was a member of the DARPA Computer Science Study Group 2007-2011, and received an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program award in 2010. Prof. Willett has also held visiting researcher positions at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA in 2004, the University of Wisconsin-Madison 2003-2005, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in 2003, and the Applied Science Research and Development Laboratory at GE Medical Systems (now GE Healthcare) in 2002. Her research interests include network and imaging science with applications in medical imaging, wireless sensor networks, astronomy, and social networks. She is also an instructor for FEMMES (Females Excelling More in Math Engineering and Science; news article here) and a local exhibit leader for Sally Ride Festivals. She was a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Rice University Presidential Scholarship, the Society of Women Engineers Caterpillar Scholarship, and the Angier B. Duke Memorial Scholarship.

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