Daniel Scharstein - personal info

I grew up in Germany, and moved to the United States in 1990 to join the PhD program in Computer Science at Cornell University. I quickly came to like the new country, especially the friendly people and the exciting weather (both blizzards and 100-degree days are things one rarely encounters in Germany). While at Cornell, I met my wife Amy Briggs, whom I followed to Middlebury to teach computer science.

My research is in computer vision, the field concerned with analyzing images (which might be taken with a video camera). I'm particularly interested in stereo vision, i.e., extracting 3D information from two 2D images. (Take CS 453 if you want to learn more about this!) I'm also interested in computer graphics and computer architecture. I have great fun teaching computer science, in particular how to program. Having to achieve the "perfection" required to write a working program can be a mind-bending intellectual experience!

To get my mind off work, I love to play music. My main instrument is the drums, but I also play many other instruments (with varying levels of skill :). While at Cornell, I was the drummer with the CS department's own rock band Harmful if Swallowed. At Middlebury I play "Vermonto-Rican Folk-Rock for the Hard-of-Hearing" with The Doughboys.

I have fun inventing and building things, often with rather non-traditional applications. I have started a company that builds and sells digital sundials. I also enjoy juggling (with Profs. Schumer and Briggs), unicycling, and hiking and skiing in our lovely state.

Directions to our house