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Dr. Gerard Lacey

Associate Professor (Computer Science)

 Gerard.Lacey@tcd.ie

 3531896 1410


Biography

Dr. Lacey has a track record in award winning innovation and commercialisation of robotics and interactive systems in the healthcare domain with technical contributions in Image Processing, Robotics and Human-Computer Interaction. Dr Lacey has a strong track record in the commercialisation of research. He is the holder of 5 granted patents and has been co-founder of two university spin off companies raising over €4 Million in venture funding: In 2000 he founded Haptica to commercialise the PAM-AID mobile robot and subsequently developed the ProMIS Augmented Reality surgical training system. Haptica was sold to CAE medical in 2011. In 2010 he cofounded SureWash to commercialise commuter vision based hand hygiene training and assessment systems for hospitals and food service. The SureWash system implements the World Health Organisation (WHO) hand hygiene protocol and is used in hospitals all over the world. Dr Lacey's main research area is sensor driven human-machine interaction. The best know has been a novel robotic walking frame for the elderly. His publications on this research has been cited over 600 times, have won several best paper awards, featured on Tomorrows World (1999) and New Scientist(1999). His main research topics are Computer Vision, Augmented Reality, and Robotics with applications to improving the delivery of healthcare in endoscopy, infection control and surgical skills. In his academic carrier he has won two major EU research Projects and over 10 Enterprise Ireland Projects raising in excess of €2.5 Million over his research career to date. His has been a reviewer for Enterprise Ireland 1999-2002, on the scientific review panel for SIRS, IROS, IMVIP, EAAI, RESNA, and reviewed papers for IEEE Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, International Journal of Robotics Research and Medical Education. He has been a visiting researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Field and Space Robotics Lab (1999) and the University of Edinburgh, Dept of AI (1995). From 2012 to 2015 Dr Lacey was appointed Bursar and Director of Strategic Innovation in Trinity College Dublin. In this role he setup the Commercial Revenue Unit (CRU) in 2014 which has contributed €40M to college by 2016 . He also developed the framework to formalise the management of all capital projects in the college and is currently sponsor of the Trinity Business School Project, a 13,000 msq. building which is due to open in May 2019.

Research Tags

  Augmented Reality   Computer vision and robotics   Decision Making in Uncertainty   Human computer interactions

Research Projects

 VAMP Vision system for ambient monitoring applications
 WingWatch - Image based obstacle detection and collision warning system for aircraft ground handling
 Endodex - Computer Aided Decision Support to improve the quality of endoscopy screening
 PAM-AID

Gary Thirkell, Joanne Chambers, Wayne Gilbart, Kerrill Thornhill, James Arbogast, Gerard Lacey, Pilot study of digital tools to support multimodal hand hygiene in a clinical setting, American journal of infection control, 46, (3), 2018, p261 - 265, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Gerard Lacey, Michael Corr, Helga Morrow, Ann McQueen, Fiona Cameron, Chris Connolly, The Impact of Structured Incentives on the Adoption of a Serious Game for Hand Hygiene Training in a Hospital Setting., Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, Next Med / Medicine meets Virtual Reality, Los Angles, CA, USA, April 7 - 9, 2016, edited by Westwood, J.D., Westwood, S.W., Felländer-Tsai, L., Fidopiastis, C.M., Liu, A., Senger, S., Vosburgh, K.G. , 220, IOS Press, 2016, pp179 - 184, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED  URL
Baiqiang Xia, Rozenn Dahyot, Jonathan Ruttle, Darren Caulfield, Gerard Lacey, Hand Hygiene Poses Recognition with RGB-D Videos, Proceedings of Irish Machine Vision and Image Processing Conference, Irish Machine Vision and Image Processing Conference (IMVIP 2016), 2015, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED  Handle
Sofiane Yous, Peter Redmond, Gerard Lacey, 'Method and system for recovery of 3D scene structure and camera motion from a video sequence', USPTO, US9196054B2, 2015, Trinity College Dublin, Patent, GRANTED  URL
(ed.), IRISH MACHINE VISION & IMAGE PROCESSING Conference proceedings 2015, Irish Pattern Recognition & Classification Society (ISBN 978-0-9934207-0-2), 2015, 1 - 139 p, Notes: [http://hdl.handle.net/2262/74714], Proceedings of a Conference, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  Handle  Other
Jorge Bernal, F Javier Sánchez, Fernando Vilarino, Mirko Arnold, Anarta Ghosh, Gerard Lacey, Experts vs. novices: applying eye-tracking methodologies in colonoscopy video screening for polyp search, Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA), Safety Harbor, Florida, USA, March 26-28, edited by Pernilla Qvarfordt, Dan Witzner Hansen , ACM, 2014, pp223 - 226, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
Stewardson AJ, Iten A, Camus V, Gayet-Ageron A, Caulfield D, Lacey G, Pittet D, Efficacy of a new educational tool to improve Handrubbing technique amongst healthcare workers: a controlled, before-after study., PloS one, 9, (9), 2014, pe105866 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Gerard Lacey, Donncha Mary Ryan, Derek Cassidy, John Griffin, Laurence Griffin , 'Method and system for generating a surgical training module', USPTO, US8924334B2, 2014, CAE Healthcare Canada Inc , Patent, GRANTED  URL
Anarta Ghosh, Stefan Ameling, Jiang Zhou, Gerard Lacey, Eilish Creamer, Anthony Dolan, Orla Sherlock, Hilary Humphreys, Pilot evaluation of a ward-based automated hand hygiene training system, American journal of infection control, 41, (4), 2013, p368 - 370, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Cahill, J., Redmond, P., Yous, S., Lacey, G., Butler, W., The design of a collision avoidance system for use by Pilots operating on the airport ramp and in taxiway areas, Cognition, Technology and Work, 15, (2), 2013, p219-238 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED
  

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Sergio Álvarez, David F. Llorca, Gerard Lacey, Stefan Ameling, Spatial Hand Segmentation Using Skin Colour and Background Subtraction, TCD-CS-2010-35, Dublin , Trinity College Dublin's Computer Science Technical Report, November, 2010, Report, PUBLISHED
R Dahyot, G Lacey, Restoration of colour channel misalignments in colonoscopy videos, TCD-CS-2007-27., Dublin Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, 2007, 7, Report, PUBLISHED
Gerard Lacey, Derek Young, Derek Cassidy, Fiona Slevin and Donncha Ryan, Augmeted reality interface for laparoscopic skills training, Gaming and Simulation based Learning applications for Medicine, Long Beach, USA, January, 2005, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
Shane MacNamara and Gerard Lacey, development of a mobile robot walking aid for the frail visually impaired, BioEngineering in Ireland 5, Blessington, Ireland, January, Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, 1999, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
Derek Cassidy, Gerard Lacey, The Design and Implementation of Lego Volleyball Robots., TCD-CS-1999-53, Dublin Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, 1999, 14, Report, PUBLISHED
Gerard Lacey, Kenneth M Dawson-Howe and David Vernon, Personal Autonomous Mobility Aid for the frail and elderly blind, TCD-CS-95-18, TCD, 1995, Report, PUBLISHED

  

Awards and Honours

Award Date
National Rehabilitation Board Scholarship 1995
Rehab Engineering Soc. Of North America Design Prize 1999
Campus Company Development Award 2001
EU Information Society Technology (IST) prize winner 2004
Soc. Laparoscopic Surgeons (SLS) Innovation of the Year 2004
Irish Software Association, Technical Innovation Award 2004
Trinity College Fellowship 2008
Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Award 2010
Trinity College Innovation Award 2011

Research Interests

Description Of Research Interests

My key research areas are Augmented Reality(AR) for healthcare applications, mobile service robots, gesture recognition and serious games. Augmented Reality for healthcare applications: This research is focused on analysis the images from endoscopes (Endoview) and augmenting these images with additional information to assist in clinical decision making or skills assessment. The main themes of the research are object recognition and tracking and accurate rendering of graphical overlays. This work also covers studying the human factors issues involved. Mobile Service Robotics: this work focuses on augmenting existing devices with advanced robotics technology to make these devices smarter. These devices typically have shared control with humans operators and therefore the relationship to the human is a critical element of the control interface. Examples include Robot Mobility Aids for the frail blind (PAM-AID), Aircraft ground collision avoidance (WingWatch). Gesture Recognition: The recognition of fast bimanual hand gestures, using 2D and 3D cameras, is an important interface mechanism for hands-busy, eyes-busy tasks. It is also important for developing tools for objective training and assessment of the many basic clinical skills in healthcare such as hand hygiene (SureWash), surgical skills (ProMIS) and other skills that are assessed via Objective Structured Clinical Exams (OSCEs). Serious games: Games techniques are often useful delivering training and assessing competence. My research has led to the generation of two "Serious Games" mobile phone apps for infection control: "Handy MD" and "SureWash Pocket".