I am a Human-Computer Interaction researcher and an associate professor in the Department of Math and CS at Saint Mary's University.
My research focuses on the design, implementation and evaluation of digital tools that support creative and multimedia tasks.
The areas of my research interests include Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Child-Computer Interaction (CCI), Digital Creative Tools, and Multimodal Interaction Technologies.
I received my PhD in Computer Science from Dalhousie University and my MSc in Math and CS from Saint Mary's University.
Research
 |
Design and Evaluation of Educational Technologies for Post-Secondary Courses |
- S. Woodill and Y. Akiyama . “Interaction Design for Educational Technologies in Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS): What is educational technologies’ role in cultivating the interdisciplinary studies (IDS) cognitive toolkit online?” In: 2025 16th International Conference on E-Education, E-Business, E-Management and E-Learning (IC4e). (Accepted). Apr. 2025.
- Y. Akiyama and S. Woodill. “How Can We Improve the UI/UX of Learning Management Systems (LMS) for Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS)? A Survey on Comparison Studies of LMS Features That Support Underlying Interdisciplinary Theory”. In: The 7th International Conference on Education and Multimedia Technology. Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 2023.
- Y. Akiyama and S.Woodill. “A Survey on How Post-Secondary Courses in Interdisciplinary Studies Are Taught”. In: The International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education (IJCDSE) 13.2 (2022).
- Y. Akiyama and S. Woodill. “What Interdisciplinarians Teach: Syllabi Analysis of Post-Secondary Courses in Interdisciplinary Studies”. In: Proceedings of The 12th Canada International Conference on Education (CICE-2022). June 2022.
- S. Woodill and Y. Akiyama. “Cultivating the Cognitive-Toolkit Online: Emerging Digital Technologies for Interdisciplinary Studies”. In: ICEEL 2021: The 5th International Conference on Education and E-Learning. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Nov. 2021.
- Y. Akiyama. “Human-Computer Interaction Research and Education: Crossing Boundaries Between Academic Research and Industry Practices”. In: Interface: An International Interdisciplinary Studies Journal 1.1 (2021).
- S. Woodill and Y. Akiyama. “Integrating User-Centred Design Approaches for a Course Design Framework for Interdisciplinary Studies Teaching and Learning”. In: Journal of Teaching and Learning (JTL) 14.1 (2020), pp. 93–107.
- S. Woodill and Y. Akiyama. “User-Centred Design as a Framework for Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS) Teaching and Learning”. AIS Conference ’18 (Detroit, MI). 2018.
- G. Woodill and Y. Akiyama. “From Objectives to Outcomes: Using attribution modeling technology to connect training activities with business results”. I4PL 2017-Institute for Performance and Learning Conference (Toronto, Canada). Nov. 2017.
 |
Video and Image Analysis Tools |
- S. Chatterjee, P. Kudeshia, N. Kollo, M. A. Agowun, J. Poovvancheri, and Y. Akiyama. “SatStreaks: Towards Supervised Learning for Delineating Satellite Streaks from Astronomical Images”. In: The 21st Conference on Robots and Vision (CRV). Guelph, Ontario, May 2024.
- V. Kamra, P. Kudeshia, S. ArabiNaree, D. Chen, Y. Akiyama, and J. Peethambaran. “Lightweight Reconstruction of Urban Buildings: Data Structures, Algorithms, and Future Directions”. In: IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing 16 (2023), pp. 902–917.
- N. Kollo, Y. Akiyama, and J. Peethambaran. “Enhancing Satellite Trail Detection in Night Sky Imagery with Automatic Salience Thresholding”. In: The 20th Conference on Robots and Vision (CRV). Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 2023.
- H. Joshi and Y. Akiyama. A Brief Overview of Interactive Tools for Understanding and Effective Manipulation of Multimedia Data. Technical Report. Saint Mary’s University, 2023.
- P. Chaturvedi and Y. Akiyama. “Video Analysis Tool with Template Matching and Audio-Track Processing”. In: 8th World Congress on Electrical Engineering and Computer Systems and Sciences (EECSS’22). July 2022. doi: 10.11159/mhci22.109.
- B. Pandey, S. Thakur, H. Joshi, A. Pradhanga, Y. Akiyama, and J. Peethambaran. “Towards video based collective motion analysis through shape tracking and matching”. English. In: Electronics Letters 56.17 (Aug. 2020), 881–884(3). issn: 0013-5194.
- Y. Akiyama, R. Garcia, and T. Hynes. “Video Scene Extraction Tool for Soccer Goalkeeper Performance Data Analysis”. In: Proceedings of ACM IUI 2019 Workshop UISTDA2019 User Interfaces for Spatial and Temporal Data Analysis. Los Angeles, USA, Mar. 2019.
- The videos below were automatically generated by our extraction tool, which includes only the segments where goalkeepers are actively involved in plays on the right-hand side of the pitch. All other segments without goalkeepers were excluded.
 |
Supply Chain Process Management and Visualization |
- Y. Akiyama, D. Penny, A. Kotiya, and P. Lingras. “Backpropagation of fuzzy alerts in a supply chain”. Conference Presentation at the 60th Annual CORS (Canadian Operational Research Society) Conference. 2018.
 |
Gamification of E-Commerce Software UI |
 |
Multi-view Multimedia Authoring Environment: a new environment for supporting multimedia authoring tasks
MVMA incorporates the Interactive Task-Viewer (ITV), which adds contextual information about the authoring task at hand and supports users perform complex multimedia authoring tasks. |
- Y. Akiyama. “Supporting Novice Multimedia Authoring with An Interactive Task-Viewer”. PhD thesis. Halifax, NS, Canada: Dalhousie University, 2015..
- Y. Akiyama, S. Oore, and C. Watters. “Framework for constructing task-space to support novice multimedia authoring”. In: Multimedia Tools and Applications 74.15 (July 2015), pp. 6111–6147. issn: 1380-7501. doi: 10.1007/s11042-014-1911-8.
- Y. Akiyama and S. Oore. “Designing Tools to Support Multimedia Authoring By Incorporating Problem-Solving Strategies”. In: Journal of Multimedia Theory and Application 2.1 (2014), pp. 11–19.
- Y. Akiyama and S. Oore. “Supporting Problem-Solving Approaches in Multimedia Authoring Task”. In: Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Multimedia and Human-Computer Interaction, MHCI’13. Toronto, Canada, July 2013, pp. 60.1–60.8.
 |
PlaceAndPlay: Music Creation Tool for Young Chilidren
PlaceAndPlay features an intuitive music clip activation method and multimodal interaction techniques to allow young children (3-6) to interact with digital music. |
- Y. Akiyama and S. Oore. “PlaceAndPlay: a digital tool for children to create and record music”. In: CHI ’08: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Florence, Italy: ACM, 2008, pp. 735–738.
- Y. Akiyama and S. Oore. “A Multimodal Input Device for Music Authoring for Children”. In: Advances in Multimedia Modeling. Ed. by S. Satoh, F. Nack, and M. Etoh. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2008, pp. 165–174.
- Demo video (16.5M)
 |
Learning to Synthesize Arm-Motion to Music by Example
An ANN is trained on example data sets of hand animation and music. The trained network is then used to create new animation that matches a new set of music. |
- S. Oore and Y. Akiyama. “Learning to Synthesize Arm Motion to Music By Example”. In: The 14-th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision 2006 (WSCG 06). Plzen–Bory, Czech Republic, Jan. 2006, pp. 201–208.
- Y. Akiyama. “Learning Hand-Motion To Music By Example”. MSc thesis. Halifax, NS, Canada: Saint Mary’s University, Oct. 2005.
- Demo video (6.6M)
 |
Controlling High DOF Character from Reduced Dimensional Space
A dimensional reduction algorithm is first applied on the high DOF motion capture data. The user drags on the 2D plot space to create a sequence of postures that are created in realtime by inverting the transformation matrix of the dimensional reduction. |
Audio Harmony Estimation using HHM trained on MIDI data
Community Outreach
I collaborate with industry and community partners on R&D projects:
- NS Women's Centres Connect (Mitacs, CLARI)
- Nova Scotia Power (Mitacs)
- Easy Platter (Mitacs, Invest NS)
- Ipse Media/Trees (Mitacs)
- HomeEXCEPT (Invest NS)
- Grey Lit Matters (Invest NS, NRC IRAP)
- Kilo Communications (Invest NS, NRC IRAP)
- Prompt Technologies (NRC IRAP)
- eOceans (Invest NS)
- Clinical Logistics (Mitacs, NRC IRAP)
- SimplyCast (Invest NS)
Teaching
- CSCI 1226 Introduction to Computing Science (2003–)
- CSCI 1227 Computer Programming and Problem Solving (2003–)
- CSCI 2356 Mobile App Development (2015–)
- CSCI 3380 Information Visualization and Interaction (2020–)
- CSCI 3475 Human Computer Interaction (2016–)
- CSCI 3826 Multimedia Computing and Applications (2023–)
- MCDA 5530 UI/UX Design and Quality Engineering (2016–)
- MCDA 5550 Web, Mobile, and Cloud Application Development (2015–)
Music
I studied jazz theory and performance (Saxophone) with Jim Brenan and received Music Diploma from Keyano College, AB. I performed in several theatre shows (on saxophones, clarinets, and guitars) and played regularly at local clubs and bars.
Though I have followed another career path, I continue to provide music for private parties and at bars/restaurants around the town (in duos and small groups, e.g.: this reggae/ska band)
I also provide music lessons (theory and performance) for students of all ages at all levels.
Though I have followed another career path, I continue to provide music for private parties and at bars/restaurants around the town (in duos and small groups, e.g.: this reggae/ska band)
I also provide music lessons (theory and performance) for students of all ages at all levels.
Contact
Dr. Yasushi Akiyama
Yasushi.Akiyama@smu.ca
Department of Mathematics & Computing Science
Saint Mary's University
923 Robie Street Halifax NS
Office: MN132
Yasushi.Akiyama@smu.ca
Department of Mathematics & Computing Science
Saint Mary's University
923 Robie Street Halifax NS
Office: MN132
