The British Machine Vision Association has established a prize fund to commemorate the contribution made by the late Professor Geoff Sullivan to the advancement of the field of Computer Vision in the United Kingdom. The prize is considered for award, on an annual basis, to the best doctoral thesis submitted to a UK University, in the field of computer or natural vision.

Recommendations for the prize are considered by a Selection Panel appointed annually by the BMVA Executive Committee.

The decision of the Selection Panel is announced at the annual British Machine Vision Conference, at which the presentation will be made.

• 2008. Pawan Kumar Mudigonda, Oxford Brookes University. Combinatorial and Convex Optimization for Probabilistic Models in Computer Vision
• 2007. Pushmeet Kohli, Oxford Brookes University. Minimizing Dynamic and Higher Order Energy Functions using Graph Cuts
• 2006. Josef Sivic, University of Oxford. Efficient visual search of images and videos
• 2005. Rob Fergus, University of Oxford. Visual Object Category Recognition
• 2004. Björn Stenger, University of Cambridge. Model-based hand tracking using a hierarchical Bayesian filter
• 2003. Jonathon Starck, University of Surrey. Human Modelling from Multiple Views
• 2002. Rhodri Davies, University of Manchester. Learning Shape: Optimal Models for Analysing Shape Variability
• 2001. Albert Chung, University of Oxford. Vessel and aneurysm reconstruction using speed and flow coherence information in phase contrast magnetic resonance angiograms.
• 2000. Gareth J Edwards, University of Manchester. Learning to identify faces in images and sequences.
• 1999. Richard Bowden, Brunel University. Learning non-linear Models of Shape and Motion
• 1998. Neil Johnson, University of Leeds. Learning Object Behaviour Models.

The BMVA Executive Committee will seek nominations for the Sullivan Prize for theses submitted and examined during the calendar year 2009 in January 2010. Internal examiners and supervisors may act as nominators, but the committee would like to receive an accompanying report and endorsement of the nomination from the external examiner of the thesis. Please send any nominations to the BMVA Secretary, Dr Neil Thacker secretary@bmva.org by the end of March 2010.

1. The prize of £500 is considered for presentation annually for the best doctoral thesis.
2. Submissions must be in the broad areas of computer vision, including computational studies of natural vision.
3. The submission period is by calendar year.
4. Valid submission dates are based on the date of the successful viva voce exam, as evidenced by the signed examiners' reports.
5. Submissions must be in electronic form. The thesis must first be submitted into the BMVA thesis archive. Other submission materials should be emailed to the BMVA Secretary.
6. Accompanying the thesis should be a supporting statement from the research supervisor and a recommendation from the external examiner, including the examiner's report. These should be in PDF form.
7. Each submission will be assessed by independent reviewers who will be appointed by the selection panel.

For further information about the Sullivan Thesis Prize, please contact the BMVA secretary.