Dr Silvia Cirstea

Dr Silvia Cirstea is an Associate Professor, Deputy Head of the School of Computing and Information Science, and Lead of the Biomedical Informatics Research Group, part of ARU's Medical Technology Research Centre (MTRC). She has over ten years' research experience in mathematical modelling for engineering and medical applications. She teaches engineering mathematics and digital signal processing.

silvia.cirstea@aru.ac.uk

Background

Silvia’s areas of expertise include numerical modelling of physical processes (wave propagation for acoustics/electromagnetics/optics, psycho-acoustics, electron transport), image/sound/signal processing, artificial intelligence, optical systems, inverse problems and statistical methods. Since 2010, she has worked with the Vision and Eye Research Institute (VERI) on the role of acoustic cues, like level and reverberation as conveyors of information about the environment and to facilitate better navigation of the visually impaired. She has a keen interest in the area of assisted living for the visually impaired using acoustic cues and smart technologies.

She has worked on research projects funded by the EU, UK Central Laboratory of the Research Councils, Radiocommunications Agency, Medical Research Council and British industry.

Research interests

• Mathematical modelling
• Acoustic and psycho-acoustic modelling
• Smart technologies for assisted living
• Assisted living for the visually impaired and the elderly
• Signal processing techniques for multimodal data fusion
• Mobility and navigation aids for the visually impaired
• Artificial intelligence

Silvia is a member of our Digital Electronics Research Area which forms part of our Informatics, Computing and Electronics Research Group.

Areas of research supervision

• Mathematical modelling for engineering or medical applications
• Assisted living (for the visually impaired or the elderly)
• Virtual environment applications for the visually impaired
• Mobility and navigation aids for the visually impaired
• Signal processing techniques for multimodal data fusion

Find out more about our Computer Science PhD including our exciting PhD project opportunities.

Teaching

BEng (Hons) Electronic Engineering
BSc (Hons) Audio and Music Technology
MSc Electronic and Electrical Engineering

Qualifications

• PhD Electronics/Imaging Technology, De Montfort University
• MSc Mathematics, University of Bucharest, Romania
• PGCE Learning & Teaching in Higher Education, Anglia Ruskin University

Memberships, editorial boards

Member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE); Fellow of the the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Selected recent publications

Kolarik, A. J., Timmis, M. A., Cirstea, S., Pardhan, S., 2014. Sensory substitution information informs locomotor adjustments when walking through apertures. Experimental Brain Research, 232(3), pp. 975-84.

Kolarik, A. J., Cirstea, S., Pardhan, S., Moore, B. C. J., 2014. A summary of research investigating echolocation abilities of blind and sighted humans. Hearing Research, 310, pp. 60-68.

Kolarik, A., Cirstea, S., Pardhan, S., Moore, B., 2013. An assessment of virtual auditory distance judgments among blind and sighted listeners. International Congress on Acoustics ICA2013, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 133(5), pp. 3287.

Kolarik, A. J., Cirstea, S., Pardhan, S., 2013. Discrimination of virtual auditory distance using level and direct-to-reverberant ratio cues. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 134(5), pp. 3395-98.

Kolarik, A. J., Cirstea, S., Pardhan, S., 2013. Evidence for enhanced discrimination of virtual auditory distance among blind listeners using level and direct-to-reverberant cues. Experimental Brain Research, 224(4), pp. 623-633.

Kolarik, A. J., Cirstea, S., Pardhan, S., Moore, B. C. J., 2013. Using acoustic information to perceive room size: effects of blindness, room reverberation time, and stimulus. Perception, 42, pp. 985-990.

Kolarik, A. J., Cirstea, S. E., Pardhan, S. (2012). Contrasting the effectiveness of auditory level and direct-to-reverberant energy ratio as cues to distance discrimination. International Journal of Audiology, 51, pp. 229.

Kolarik, A. J., Cirstea, S., Pardhan, S., 2011. Perceiving auditory distance using level and direct-to-reverberant ratio cues (A). Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 130, pp. 2545.

Cirstea, S., Kolarik, A., Ramlagun, K., Pardhan, S., 2011. Ability of the Visually Impaired to Perceive Distance from Auditory Cues. Journal of Vision, 11(15), pp. 32.

Dinu, A., Cirstea, M., Cirstea, S., 2010. Direct Neural Networks Hardware Implementation Algorithm. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 57(5), pp. 1845-1848.

Recent presentations and conferences

Kolarik, A., Moore, B., Pardhan, S., Cirstea, S. (2013). The consequences of blindness for judging the distance of sound sources: A 'compression' of the auditory world. 165th Acoustical Society of America Meeting, ASA Lay Language Papers.

Barrett, J.A., De Souza, M.M., Cirstea, M. and Cirstea, S. (2012). Analytical techniques for the simulation of electron transport in semiconductor systems. 13th International Conference on Optimization of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (OPTIM). doi: 10.1109/OPTIM.2012.6231948 (pp.822-826).

Pardhan, S., Cirstea, S., Kolarik, A. and Moore, B. (2013). Do visually impaired participants hear better? An evaluation of self report using a modified version of Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale. ARVO 2013.

Cirstea, S., Kolarik, A. and Pardhan, S. (2012). Differences in perceiving auditory distance between visually impaired and severely visually impaired. ARVO 2012.