CERECAM's Vincent Punabantu awarded prestigious Google PhD Fellowship

Vincent Punabantu, a talented researcher at CERECAM, has been awarded the prestigious Google PhD Fellowship. This fellowship not only provides financial support but also pairs Vincent with a Google Research mentor over a three-year period.

The aim is to provide doctors with additional information that is not available to them, using current forms of medical imaging to aid them in the intervention and post-operative care of patients. In addition, a key focus of the methods being developed is on their feasibility in hospitals and clinics in both South Africa and the rest of Africa. Therefore, my fellow collaborators and I would like our work to cross over from the research domain into hospitals and help save lives as opposed to remaining in a lab.

Vincent has been selected for the 2023 cohort in the category of Machine Perception and Computer Vision. His research project is poised to make a significant impact as it focuses on utilizing machine learning to enhance the extraction of patient measurements from ultrasound images. These measurements play a crucial role in calibrating a computational model used for simulating a particular type of cardiovascular disease that predominantly affects children and infants.

Under the supervision of Associate Professor Malebogo Ngoepe, who serves as the Director of CERECAM, Vincent conducts his research at CERECAM and Mechanical Engineering. Additionally, he benefits from co-supervision by Professor Amit Kumar Mishra in Electrical Engineering.

I have been blessed to have understanding supervisors who share this sense of wonder and who give me the freedom to try and fail. I have the vivid memory of when I was doing my final-year project, my co-supervisor, who is a professor in electrical engineering, said that he was looking forward to learning from me, which went against conventional wisdom.

More about the Fellowship

The Google PhD Fellowship Program was established to acknowledge the remarkable contributions of graduate students engaged in exceptional and innovative research within the realm of computer science and related fields. These fellowships provide essential support to promising PhD candidates from diverse backgrounds who aspire to shape the future of technology. Google's mission is to foster inclusive research communities, and they encourage individuals from a wide range of backgrounds to apply. Currently, the program offers fellowships in Africa, Australia, Canada, East Asia, Europe, India, Latin America, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and the United States