Sargur Narasimhamurthy Srihari (May 7, 1949 – March 8, 2022) was an Indian and American computer scientist and educator who made contributions to the field of

pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of patterns and regularities in data. It has applications in statistical data analysis, signal processing, image analysis, information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, computer graphi ...

. The principal impact of his work has been in handwritten address reading systems and in

computer forensics Computer forensics (also known as computer forensic science) is a branch of digital forensic science pertaining to evidence found in computers and digital storage media. The goal of computer forensics is to examine digital media in a forensical ...

. He was a SUNY Distinguished Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

, Buffalo, New York, USA.

Early life and education

Srihari received undergraduate degrees in Science and in Electrical Communication Engineering from the National College of

Bangalore University Bangalore University (BU) is a public state university located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The university is a part of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and affiliated by Univers ...

and the

Indian Institute of Science The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, in the Indian state of Karnataka. The institute wa ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

respectively. He received Master's and Doctoral degrees in Computer and Information Science from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, Columbus.

Career

CEDAR

Srihari is the founding director of

Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition The Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR) is a research laboratory at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. The center was established with funding from the United States Postal Service and National In ...

(CEDAR) which was established with support from the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...

. Work at CEDAR led to the first handwritten address interpretation system in the world, versions of which were deployed by the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...

, USPS,

Australia Post Australia Post, formally the Australian Postal Corporation, is the government business enterprise that provides postal services in Australia. The head office of Australia Post is located in Bourke Street, Melbourne, which also serves as a post o ...

and UK Royal Mail. His subsequent work led to the first handwriting verification and identification system known as

CEDAR-FOX This is a software system for forensic comparison of handwriting. It was developed at CEDAR, the Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition at the University at Buffalo. CEDAR-FOX has capabilities for interaction with the questione ...

, which was granted a U.S. Patent in 2009. Srihari had a leading role in establishing the international conferences on document analysis and recognition, frontiers of

handwriting recognition Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other dev ...

and

computational forensics Computational criminology is an interdisciplinary field which uses computing science methods to formally define criminology concepts, improve our understanding of complex phenomena, and generate solutions for related problems. Methods Computing sci ...

. He also served on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the

National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...

for six years.

Computational forensics

In 2002, Srihari published a landmark study establishing the individuality of handwriting. This work was cited in

Daubert standard In United States federal law, the ''Daubert'' standard is a rule of evidence regarding the admissibility of expert witness testimony. A party may raise a ''Daubert'' motion, a special motion ''in limine'' raised before or during trial, to exclude ...

and

Frye standard The ''Frye'' standard, ''Frye'' test, or general acceptance test is a test used in United States courts to determine the admissibility of scientific evidence. It provides that expert opinion based on a scientific technique is admissible only when ...

hearings in United States courts leading to the admission of handwriting evidence in those cases. This research work was later extended to shoe-print and fingerprint recognition as well. Srihari served on the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Committee on Identifying the needs of the Forensic Science Community which led to a highly influential report entitled "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward" published in April 2009.

Personal life

Srihari died from complications of

glioblastoma Glioblastoma, previously known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is one of the most aggressive types of cancer that begin within the brain. Initially, signs and symptoms of glioblastoma are nonspecific. They may include headaches, personality ch ...

on 8 March 2022, at the age of 72.

Awards

Srihari became an IEEE Fellow in 1995 and an IAPR Fellow in 1996. He was the recipient of the Outstanding Achievements Award of IAPR/ICDAR for 2011.IAPR/ICDAR Awards
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References

External links

Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and RecognitionThe Rise of Computational Forensics Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Science Community
{{DEFAULTSORT:Srihari, S. N. Year of birth missing 1940s births 2022 deaths Ohio State University College of Engineering alumni Indian Institute of Science alumni University at Buffalo faculty Indian computer scientists Bangalore University alumni Scientists from Bangalore