Umut Ozyurt
Computer Vision & Deep Learning Researcher
I am a researcher passionate about making AI systems that can reliably operate in the unpredictable physical world. My goal is to build autonomous systems that understands the physical world and interactions, focusing on models that learn to adapt and navigate under constrained operating conditions.
I am particularly interested in discovering novel representations of sensory data that can be learned efficiently and remain highly adaptive. By bridging high-level semantic recognition with robust, low-level physical actuation through a unified prior, I aim to create integrated pipelines for perception, recognition, decision making and motion control.
I am an undergraduate researcher at Middle East Technical University (METU), ranked #1 in Turkey for Computer Science (QS, THE) and Computer Vision (CSRankings).
Past Experience Summary:
- VLM 3D spatial reasoning with collision-aware VQA obtained from scene meshes (INSAIT, ETH Zürich, paper in progress)
- Human-centric perception for robotics and uncertainty estimation, resulting in an ICRA '25 publication (University of Cambridge)
- Controlled and identity-preserving face generation/editing via diffusion models (METU ImageLab & Syntonym, paper in submission)
- Zero-shot face recognition via attribute descriptions without anchor images (Infodif)
- Real-time thermal and RGB human detection for edge UAV platforms, yielding a IEEE IISEC'23 Oral Presentation paper. (METU Intelligent Systems Lab & Asisguard)
I complement my research with 3+ years of professional experience. This background allows me to implement complex model architectures from scratch, manage full training pipelines, and conduct large-scale experiments with ease. Moving forward, my goal is to build adaptable, vision-driven systems that can safely and intelligently operate in everyday physical environments.
Middle East Technical University (METU)
B.Sc. in Computer Science (Senior Year)
CGPA: 3.86 / 4.00 (Rank: 10/288)
Academic
Research Affiliations
University
of Cambridge
Middle
East Technical University(METU)
Selected Publications
Research contributions in computer vision and deep learning
Meta-LoRA: Meta-Learning LoRA Components for Domain-Aware ID Personalization
A novel approach using meta-learning for Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) components in diffusion models, enhancing identity preservation in text-to-image generation.
GRACE: Generating Socially Appropriate Robot Actions Leveraging LLMs and Human Explanations
A framework generating contextually appropriate robot behaviors by combining large language models with human social explanations for improved human-robot interaction.
Enhanced Thermal Human Detection with Fast Filtering for UAV Images
An approach optimizing thermal human detection on UAV platforms using efficient filtering techniques for real-time performance on edge devices.
Peer Review & Academic Service
Experience
Research and engineering experience
Research Experience
INSAIT (Institute for Computer Science, AI and Technology)
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow (SURF)
06/2025 - 10/2025
Mentors: Dr. Danda Pani Paudel, Dr. Jan-Nico Zaech.
Working on
enhancing vision-language models by creating new tasks that better probe and
improve 3D perception. Part of the prestigious SURF program (selected among 4000+ applicants
with a ≤0.25% acceptance rate) at this ETH Zürich/EPFL-founded
institute supported by Google, AWS, and DeepMind.
faculty
METU ImageLab
Undergraduate Researcher
09/2024 - 06/2025
Advisor: Assoc. Prof. R. Gökberk Cinbiş.
Worked on personalized
text-to-image generation with LoRA fine-tuning of Stable Diffusion models.
Owned the experimental pipeline, reimplemented and tuned state-of-the-art
baselines, proposed an identity resemblance metric, and ran ablations that
shaped the final method and evaluation.
University of Cambridge (AFAR Lab)
Undergraduate Researcher
07/2024 - 09/2024
Advisor: Prof. Hatice Güneş.
Worked on human-centered robot
perception and social appropriateness for robot actions. Designed the full
data and evaluation pipeline on human judgments, predicted uncertainty in
social appropriateness with a diverse set of models, and experimented with
heteroscedastic losses. As second author on GRACE, constructed the human
agreement classification component, helped define the task, specified
baselines, and contributed at each step of the ICRA 2025 manuscript.
METU Intelligent Systems Lab
Undergraduate Researcher
07/2023 - 07/2024
Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Seyda Ertekin.
Worked on thermal imaging-based
human detection for rescue operations on UAVs, focusing on real-time
processing on edge devices (NVIDIA Jetson). First author on the IISEC 2023
publication, where I designed the fast filtering module, trained models, and
conducted all experiments.
Professional Experience
Syntonym
Generative Computer Vision Researcher (Remote)
09/2024 - 06/2025 & 11/2025 - Present
Now working full-time on video facial anonymization using customized diffusion models, seamlessly changing facial identities while precisely preserving original head pose, expression, and gaze dynamics. Previously built production-ready pipelines for image and video face swapping.
Infodif
Computer Vision Engineer / Researcher
01/2024 - 07/2024
Developed and optimized a face recognition pipeline for the Turkish National Police. Designed multi-attribute recognition models that match suspects using only textual facial descriptions, with a mathematical scoring system robust to missing or ambiguous attributes.
AsisGuard
Candidate Computer Vision Engineer / Researcher
03/2023 - 12/2023
Led object detection and tracking projects for both thermal and RGB streams in edge surveillance products. Owned the full pipeline from dataset curation and model training to edge optimization on custom AI chips and NVIDIA Jetson Orin, while coordinating a team of interns.
Achievements
Recognitions of academic and research excellence
INSAIT SURF 2025
Selected for a prestigious 3-month Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at INSAIT, working with ETH Zürich-affiliated faculty.
4000+ applicants from 150+ countries
UIUC Rehg Lab Research Offer
Mentored by, and offered a summer research role to work with Ozgur Kara at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
ICVSS 2025 Acceptance
Accepted to the 19th International Computer Vision Summer School (34% acceptance rate among 521 primarily MSc and PhD applicants). Declined due to INSAIT commitment.
Best Presentation & Top Paper. Guided Research Symposium
Awarded for best presentation, and our paper was recognized as the overall best work (out of 27 papers) with a mean judge score of 13.8/15.
Top Project. Deep Generative Models
Recognized for the most complex and successful term project in the graduate "Deep Generative Models" course. Reimplemented a CVPR 2023 style transfer paper from scratch, resolving missing details and releasing the only public implementation .
Erasmus+ Traineeship Grant
Awarded funding support for a visiting research position at the University of Cambridge.
METU Merit Scholarship
Awarded a housing and dining scholarship for ranking in the top 1000, top 0.04%, among 2.5M+ applicants in the 2020 Turkish National University Entrance Exam.
High Honor Student
Recognized for outstanding academic excellence across 8 consecutive semesters.
Get In Touch
Open to research collaborations in computer vision and deep learning
Location
Ankara, Turkey
Academic References
Hobbies & Interests
Creative pursuits and recreational activities beyond academia
Music
As a passionate self-taught pianist, I also play violin and viola. I compose original pieces across diverse genres, using music as a creative outlet for emotional expression.
Physical Activities
I stay active through swimming for endurance and meditation, and play amateur tennis to challenge my reflexes and strategy.
Others
I enjoy strategic challenges like chess, particularly in blitz and rapid formats. I am also a spectator and near-professional player of cue sports, focusing on three-cushion billiards and snooker.