Neuro researcher granted fellowship
Dr Orchard (centre) with the TRF certificate, flanked by Major General (NS) Ng (left) and Prof Quek
Dr Garrick Orchard, Research Fellow at the NUS Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology (SINAPSE), was awarded the Temasek Research Fellowship (TRF) on 13 May at University Hall, giving him access to a research grant of up to $1 million over three years. Gracing the occasion as Guest-of-Honour was Major General (NS) Ng Chee Khern, Permanent Secretary (Defence Development), Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), who presented Dr Orchard with the Fellowship certificate.
In his welcome address, Professor Barry Halliwell, NUS Deputy President (Research and Technology), touched on the potential of the fellowship. He said: "The Temasek Research Fellowship targets outstanding young researchers with PhD degrees in science or technology and provides them with an opportunity to conduct top-level research that is relevant to MINDEF's aims. It is one of many initiatives by MINDEF that aim to build up research capacity and generate new ideas.
The MINDEF-funded research grant accompanying the fellowship includes a possible three-year extension. Under the terms of the Fellowship, Dr Orchard will serve as the Principal Investigator in the area of Cognitive Science for Machine Intelligence.
The TRF Joint Panel recognised Dr Orchard's research as "important to the field of robotics, and that his proposal "represents the next level of capabilities needed to realise machine intelligence and autonomy. Dr Orchard will focus on improving neuromorphic vision to significantly reduce the size, weight and power requirements of sensing and perception in autonomous systems for aerial and land environments. Neuromorphic engineering draws inspiration from biology, engineering, physics and mathematics to develop artificial neurobiological systems.
Dr Orchard conducting a presentation on his research
In his keynote address, Professor Quek Tong Boon, Chief Defence Scientist of MINDEF, paid tribute to these researchers, saying: "Our TRF awardees have and are doing excellent work. Through their research so far, we have further enhanced our understanding of the risks and mature technologies in the areas of advanced materials, lasers and cyber security.
Dr Orchard obtained his PhD degree in electrical and computer engineering from Johns Hopkins University in the US and joined SINAPSE in 2012 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. He is working on developing neuromorphic vision algorithms and systems for real-time sensing. His other research interests include mixed-signal Very Large Scale Integration design, compressive sensing, spiking neural networks, visual perception and legged locomotion.
