YEREVAN, Armenia — From September 14-17, a research team from the Zaven P. and Sonia Akian College of Science and Engineering (ACSE) of the American University of Armenia presented a joint research project at the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), held in Anchorage, Alaska, USA.
The paper, titled “Extensions of Morphological Gradient for Hyperspectral Images” was co-authored by ACSE Associate Professor Varduhi Yeghiazaryan, ACSE lecturer Aram Butavyan, students Sona Bezirganyan (BSCS ’22), Lusine Davtyan (BSCS ’22), Arpi Hunanyan (BSDS ’22, MSCIS ’24), and AUA alumna and research associate Yeva Gabrielyan (BSCS ’19, MSCIS ’22). The paper underwent peer review and has been published in the conference proceedings. The implementation and presentation of this project at ICIP 2025 were made possible through the support of the Afeyan Family Foundation Research Grant.
ICIP is one of the leading annual forums for researchers working in image, video, and signal processing. It brings together experts from academia and industry to present new methods, exchange ideas, and discuss emerging directions in the field.
“International conferences of this scale are highly inspiring. They connect us with peers who share similar research interests and stimulate new ideas,” said Butavyan. “Such participation sharpens the team’s ability to present and position our work, deepens our understanding of project challenges and strengths, and ultimately enhances the impact of our research.”
Hyperspectral images are used in fields such as agriculture, remote sensing, and medical imaging. The authors take gradient techniques traditionally developed for grayscale or RGB images and adapt them to hyperspectral data, which contain hundreds of tightly spaced spectral bands. Their best method, MorphL1, outperforms existing approaches across multiple datasets on the edge-detection task, demonstrating its ability to capture meaningful spatial-spectral changes. Fast GPU implementations make the methods practical and efficient, even at large scales.The implementations are publicly available on GitHub.
“The journey leading to our paper was equally rewarding, from exploring ideas and designing experiments to refining them collaboratively within our team. Having it presented at such a prestigious conference made the entire process especially meaningful,” remarked Davtyan.
ACSE faculty and alumni continue expanding international research ties and advancing efforts that contribute results resonating within the global scientific community.
Founded in 1991, the American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia, affiliated with the University of California, and accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission in the United States. AUA provides local and international students with Western-style education through top-quality undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs, promotes research and innovation, encourages civic engagement and community service, and fosters democratic values.
