Waterloo, ON, Canada,July 23, 2019 – Dr. Zhou Wang, the Emmy Award winning expert on viewer experience measurement and co-founder and Chief Science Officer of SSIMWAVE™, has been awarded a prestigious Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Multimedia Quality-of-Experience.
Dr. Wang, who serves as University Research Chair and Professor at the University of Waterloo in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is world-renowned for his groundbreaking work on the Structural Similarity (SSIM) video quality algorithm, for which he received a PrimeTime Engineering Emmy Award. Through his work at the University and at SSIMWAVE, he has continued to advance the science of video quality, including the development of SSIMWAVE’s SSIMPLUS™ algorithm that predicts and scores perceptual video QoE by accurately mimicking actual human vision.
The Canada Research Chairs Program invests approximately $265 million per year to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds. Chairholders are world-class scientists and scholars from diverse backgrounds who aim to achieve research excellence in engineering and the natural sciences, health sciences, humanities, and social sciences.
“The Faculty congratulates Professor Wang on his continued success in his life-long work in multimedia technology,” said Pearl Sullivan, dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo. “Professor Wang’s unique research work in imaging has made a significant impact on the advancement of video compression, a technology that has been a key driver in the success of SSIMWAVE. The Faculty is proud of his contribution and its impact in Canada and around the world.”
“Recognition by the Canadian Research Chairs Program of the value of Dr. Wang’s work underscores the importance of quality of experience as video distribution evolves,” said Dr. Abdul Rehman, co-founder and CEO of SSIMWAVE. “The innovations Dr. Wang has led at Waterloo and at SSIMWAVE are helping media companies optimize video quality, maximize subscriber satisfaction and reduce distribution costs.”
Dr. Wang is one of the world’s most cited authors in visual perception-based image quality assessment, processing and compression. His groundbreaking work created a paradigm change in the imaging field and has been used for video quality assurance throughout the global media delivery industry, directly affecting millions of viewers daily. His work led to the creation of the American Society of Cinematographers SSIMWAVE technical working group that focuses on HDR evaluation. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, as well as a recipient of an NSERC Steacie Memorial Fellowship and a Primetime Engineering Emmy Award. Dr. Wang was named to the RSC’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2015.
With video streaming accounting for 70 percent of internet traffic and growing at a rate of 50 percent year-over-year, video quality from any source across any network to any device is becoming increasingly important. SSIMWAVE provides measurement solutions for some of the largest cable system operators in the United States and Canada, and is monitoring video QoE for tens of millions of subscribers across North America.
