J. Alex Hurt, PhD

Research Statement

Dr. Hurt is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

and the Center for Geospatial Intelligence at the University of Missouri. Over the last eight years as a deep

learning and remote sensing researcher, he has worked on various projects for a variety of sponsors including the

National Science Foundation (NSF), Office of Naval Research (ONR), U.S. Army, National

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the Department of Defense (DoD). With fourteen first-author and

more than thirty-five total publications, he has performed extensive research into the design and implementation

of deep neural networks and other AI algorithms for several computer vision tasks, including classification,

object detection, semantic segmentation, and broad area search on overhead imagery sources such as satellites

and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). More recently, Dr. Hurt has led DoD-funded projects focused on

Computer Vision and led regionally funded NSF projects focused on High-Performance Computing and

Accelerating Data-Intensive Workflows. He is currently mentoring several Computer Science PhD students as

well as one Data Science Capstone group, and has taught eight courses covering AI/ML and HPC topics at both

the graduate and undergraduate level in the past three years.

Research Interests

Computer Vision

Deep Learning

Machine Learning

Remote Sensing

High Performance Computing

Geospatial Data Engineering

Featured Publication:

Anthropogenic Object Localization: Evaluation of Broad-Area High-Resolution Imagery Scans Using Deep Learning in Overhead Imagery

MDPI Sensors Special Issue: Deep Learning Methods for Aerial Imagery

Open Access Link

Publications

1. Hurt, J. Alex, Bajkowski, Trevor, Scott, Grant J., Davis, Curt. "Evaluation of Deep Neural Transformers on Modern Remote Sensing Datasets" IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Applied Remote Sensing (JSTARS). under review.

2. Ouadou, Anes, Huangal, David, Alshehri, Mariam, Scott, Grant J., Hurt, J. Alex, "Semantic Segmentation of Burned Areas in Sentinel-2 Satellite Imagery Using Deep Learning Transformer and Convolutional Attention Networks". IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Applied Remote Sensing (JSTARS). under review.

3. Hurt, J. Alex, Ouadou, Anes, Alshehri, Mariam, Scott, Grant J., "Scaling Deep Learning Research with Kubernetes on the NRP Nautilus HyperCluster" arXiv. November 2024. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2411.12038

4. Hurt, J. Alex, Scott, Grant J., Weitzel, Derek, Zhu, Huijun. "Adventures with Grace Hopper AI Super Chip and the National Research Platform" arXiv. October 2024. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2410.16487

5. Bajkowski, Trevor, Hurt, J. Alex, Scully, Christopher, Keller, James, Carley, Samantha, Scott, Grant, Price, Stanton. "Comparing Visual Co-registration Methods for UAV and Satellite RGB Imagery with Semantic Filtering of Key Points." SPIE 2024: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain Operations Applications. May 2024.

DOI: 10.1117/12.3013504

6. Galusha, Aquila, Keller, James M., Hurt, J. Alex, Teaney, Brian, Talbott, Marie, Scott, Grant J. "Calibration for Multi-algorithm Fusion of Object Detection in MWIR and LWIR." 2024 Military Sensing Symposia. February 2024.

7. Hurt, J. Alex, Popescu, Ilinca, Davis, Curt H., Scott, Grant J. "Anthropogenic Object Localization: Evaluation of Broad-Area High-Resolution Imagery Scans Using Deep Learning in Overhead Imagery" Sensors 23, no. 18: 7766. 2023. DOI 10.3390/s23187766

8. Hurt, J. Alex, Bajkowski, Trevor, Scott, Grant J., Davis, Curt H. "Overhead Object Detection with Channel Attention for High Resolution Multi-Spectral Satellite Imagery and DMP-extracted Shape Features." 2023 Applied Imagery and Pattern Recognition (AIPR). September 2023. DOI: 10.1109/AIPR60534.2023.10440699

9. Gaines, Timothy, Hurt, J. Alex, Boyle, Camden, Maschmann, Matthew, Keller, James, Scott, Grant J., Price, Stanton. "Towards Automated Nanoenergetic Reaction Characterization with Computational Vision." 2023 Applied Imagery and Pattern Recognition (AIPR). September 2023. DOI: 10.1109/AIPR60534.2023.10440709

10. Hurt, J. Alex, Davis, Curt H., Scott, Grant J. "Hybrid Differential Morphological Pro le Enabled Faster R-CNN for Object Detection in High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery." 2023 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium. July 2023. DOI: 10.1109/IGARSS52108.2023.10281424

11. Ouadou, Anes, Huangal, David, Hurt, J. Alex, Scott, Grant J. "Semantic Segmentation Of Burned Areas in Sentinel-2 Satellite Images using Deep Learning Models." 2023 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium. July 2023. DOI: 10.1109/IGARSS52108.2023.10282323

12. Bajkowski, Trevor, Hurt, J. Alex, Dale, Je rey, Keller, James, Scott, Grant J., Price, Stanton. "Comparing hand-crafted and learned key-point feature extraction for co-location of sequential low-altitude UAS video frames." SPIE 2023: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain Operations Applications. May 2023. DOI:

10.1117/12.2663586

13. Gaines, Timothy, Boyle, Camden, Hurt, J. Alex, Maschmann, Matthew R., Keller, James M., Scott, Grant J., Price, Stanton R. "Towards Automatic Characterization of Nano-Energetic Material Response to Directed Energy." SPIE 2023: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain Operations Applications. May 2023. DOI:

10.1117/12.2663877

14. Galusha, Aquila, Keller, James M., Hurt, J. Alex, Alvey, Brendan, Talbott, Marie, Scott, Grant J. "Multi-modality, Multi-algorithm Fusion for Object Detection in MWIR and LWIR." 2023 Military Sensing Symposia. February 2023.

15. Hurt, J. Alex, Keller, James, Scott, Grant J. "Evolutionary Learning of Differential Morphological Profile Structure for Shape Feature Enabled Faster R-CNN" 2022 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence. July 2022. DOI: 10.1109/IJCNN55064.2022.9892177

16. Bajkowski, Trevor, Hurt, J. Alex, Davis, Curt H, Scott, Grant J. "Classification of an 8-band Multi-Spectral Dataset using DCNNs with Weight Initializations derived from pre-trained RGB Networks" 2022 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium. July 2022. DOI: 10.1109/IGARSS46834.2022.9884492

17. Bajkowski, Trevor M., Hurt, J. Alex, Huangal, David, Dale, Je ery, Keller, James, Scott, Grant J., Price, Stanton R. "Evaluating Visuospatial Features for Tracking Hazards in Overhead UAS Imagery." 2021 Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop October 2021. DOI: 10.1109/AIPR52630.2021.9762206

18. Hurt, J. Alex, Bajkowski, Trevor, Scott, Grant J. "Improved classification of high resolution remote sensing imagery with Differential Morphological Profile Neural Network." 2021 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium. July 2021. DOI: 10.1109/IGARSS47720.2021.9553057

19. Hurt, J. Alex, Scott, Grant J., Huangal, David, Dale, Je ery, Bajkowski, Trevor M., Keller, James, Price, Stanton R. "Differential Morphological Pro le Neural Network for Maneuverability Hazard Detection in Unmanned Aerial System Imagery." Proc. SPIE 11746, Arti cial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain Operations Applications III. April 2021. DOI: 10.1117/12.2585843

20. Bajkowski, Trevor M., Hurt, J. Alex, Huangal, David, Dale, Je ery, Keller, James, Scott, Grant J., Price, Stanton R. "Accumulating con dence for deep neural network object detections and semantic segmentations in sequential UAS imagery through spatiotemporal feature correspondences generated from SfM techniques." Proc. SPIE 11746, Arti cial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain Operations Applications III April 2021. DOI: 10.1117/12.2585905

21. Dale, Jeffery, Bajkowski, Trevor M., Hurt, J. Alex, Huangal, David, Earle, Nelson, Keller, James, Scott, Grant J., Price, Stanton R. "Towards an explainable AI adjunct to deep network obstacle detection for multisensor vehicle maneuverability assessment." Proc. SPIE 11746, Arti cial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain

Operations Applications III April 2021. DOI: 10.1117/12.2585906

22. Hurt, J. Alex, Huangal, David, Davis, Curt H., Scott, Grant J. "Enabling Machine-Assisted Visual Analytics for High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery with Enhanced Benchmark Meta-Dataset Training of NAS Neural Networks." IEEE Big Data 2020. December 2020. DOI: 10.1109/BigData50022.2020.9378199

23. Bajkowski, Trevor M., Hurt, J. Alex, Scott, Grant J., Davis, Curt H. "Extending Deep Convolutional Neural Networks from 3-color to Full Multispectral Remote Sensing Imagery." IEEE Big Data 2020. December 2020. DOI: 10.1109/BigData50022.2020.9378086

24. Bajkowski, Trevor M., Huangal, David, Hurt, J. Alex, Dale, Jeffrey J., Keller, James, Scott, Grant J., Price, Stanton. "Spatiotemporal Maneuverability Hazard Analytics from Low-Altitude UAS Sensors." 2020 Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop. October 2020. DOI: 10.1109/AIPR50011.2020.9425160

25. Scott, Grant J., Hurt, J. Alex, Yang, Alex, Islam, Muhammad Aminul, Anderson, Derek T., Davis, Curt H. "Differential Morphological Profile Neural Network for Object Detection in Overhead Imagery." 2020 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN). July 2020. DOI: 10.1109/IJCNN48605.2020.9207387

26. Hurt, J. Alex, Huangal, David, Dale, Jeffery, Bajkowski, Trevor, Keller, James, Scott, Grant J., Price, Stanton. "Maneuverability hazard detection and localization in low-altitude UAS imagery." Proc. SPIE 11413, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain Operations Applications II. April 2020. DOI: 10.1117/12.2557609

27. Huangal, David, Dale, Je ery, Hurt, J. Alex, Bajkowski, Trevor, Keller, James, Scott, Grant J., Price, Stanton. "Evaluating deep road segmentation techniques for low-altitude UAS imagery." Proc. SPIE 11413, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain Operations Applications II. April 2020. DOI: 10.1117/12.2557610

28. Hurt, J. Alex, Huangal, David, Davis, Curt H., Scott, Grant J. "A Comparison of Deep Learning Vehicle Group Detection in Satellite Imagery." IEEE Big Data 2019. December 2019. DOI: 10.1109/BigData47090.2019.9006415

29. Cannaday, Alan B., Chastain, Raymond L., Hurt, J. Alex, Davis, Curt H., Scott, Grant J., Maltenford, A.J. "Decision-Level Fusion of DNN Outputs for Improving Feature Detection Performance on Large-Scale Remote Sensing Image Datasets." IEEE Big Data 2019. December 2019. DOI: 10.1109/BigData47090.2019.9006502

30. Yang, Alex, Hurt, J. Alex, Veal, Charlie T., Scott, Grant J. "Remote Sensing Object Localization with Deep Heterogeneous Superpixel Features." IEEE Big Data 2019. December 2019. DOI: 10.1109/BigData47090.2019.9006120

31. Hurt, J. Alex, Scott, Grant J., Davis, Curt H. "Comparison of Deep Learning Model Performance Between Meta-Dataset Training Versus Deep Neural Ensembles." 2019 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium. July 2019. DOI: 10.1109/IGARSS.2019.8898596

32. Veal, Charlie, Yang, Alex, Hurt, J. Alex, Islam, Muhammad Aminul, Anderson, Derek T, Scott, Grant J., Havens, Timothy C., Keller, James M., Tang, Bo. "Linear Order Statistic Neuron." 2019 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems. June 2019. DOI: 10.1109/FUZZ-IEEE.2019.8858802

33. Hurt, J. Alex, Scott, Grant J., Anderson, Derek T., Davis, Curt H. "Benchmark Meta-Dataset of High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery for Training Robust Deep Learning Models in Machine-Assisted Visual Analytics." 2018 Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop. October 2018. DOI: 10.1109/AIPR.2018.8707433

34. Nivin, Tyler W., Scott, Grant J., Hurt, J. Alex, Chastain, Raymond L., Davis, Curt H. "Exploring the Effects of Class-Specific Augmentation and Class Coalescence on Deep Neural Network Performance Using a Novel Road Feature Dataset." 2018 Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop. October 2018. DOI: 10.1109/AIPR.2018.8707406

35. Scott, Grant J., Hurt, J. Alex, Marcum, Richard A., Anderson, Derek T., Davis, Curt H. "Aggregating Deep Convolutional Neural Network Scans of Broad-Area High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery." 2018 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium. July 2018. DOI: 10.1109/IGARSS.2018.8519300

36. Scott, Grant J., Hagan, Kyle C., Marcum, Richard A., Hurt, J. Alex, Anderson, Derek T., Davis, Curt H. "Enhanced Fusion of Deep Neural Networks for Classification of Benchmark High-Resolution Image Datasets." IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. June 2018. DOI: 10.1109/LGRS.2018.2839092