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(SINGING AND CLAPPING) On, on, U of K, we are right for the fight today. Hold that ball and hit that line. Ev'ry Wildcat star will shine. We'll fight, fight, fight.
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ANNOUNCER: From the campus of the University of Kentucky, you're listening to Behind the Blue.
CARL NATHE: Welcome in to this edition of the Behind the Blue podcast. We're pleased to be joined by Brent Seales, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science within the College of Engineering here at the University of Kentucky. And Brent, let's go back in time a little bit. First of all, where did you get your education, and how did you come to be part of the UK faculty?
BRENT SEALES: I came to UK from the University of Wisconsin, where I got my PhD up in Madison. And I spent a year in the south of France doing a postdoc. So you can imagine what it was like to come from France where we say there Versailles, to Kentucky where we have for sales.
CARL NATHE: OK. We also have Paris, but I guess it's a little different. We got all kinds of horse country in our Paris, and there, they got the Eiffel Tower.
BRENT SEALES: They do. I mean, we loved making the transition. That Bluegrass is a wonderful place. So that was in the early '90s. That's when we came.
CARL NATHE: All right, very good. Now in terms of what you've done since you've been here. It's been an amazing run for you. Talk about first of all as the chair of the Department of Computer Science, what sort of things do we teach and do research about in the Department of Computer Science?
BRENT SEALES: Well, computer science has really transformed our society. You can see that everyone has a cell phone in their hand now. Everyone is connected to the internet. These are things that happened because of computation. Our department at the University of Kentucky is one of the oldest in the country. We were formed in 1966. We celebrated our 50 year anniversary a few years ago.
And so we have deep pride in the fact that we've been front and center in some of those changes in our society in computing over those past 50 years.
CARL NATHE: Excellent. One project or one series of projects that you have gotten a lot of deserved applause and acclaim for is your work with decoding, if you will, or unwrapping some of these ancient scrolls. First of all, before we get into specifics, how did you ever get interested in trying to do this?
BRENT SEALES: I know it seems a little bit far fetched. I am an imaging specialist, and I came out of my PhD program as an expert in computer vision, which is using cameras and computers to solve interesting problems. At the time, those problems were really more about manufacturing than anything else. But what I became interested in the 1990s was the idea of the digital library. Prior to that, we only had regular libraries, but as the internet emerged, we wanted everything to become digital and easily available. So the digital library was really my entry into that area.
CARL NATHE: And what was the first of your introduction to ancient manuscripts and scrolls and so forth?
BRENT SEALES: I worked on a project here at the University of Kentucky with a medieval scholar, who had interest in the Beowulf manuscript. And that manuscript is unique. There's only one in the world, and it's at the British Library in London. And when I went over there, and I saw that manuscript, and I imagined what we could do using technology to try to bring that back to life, that was really the beginning for me of what I've been doing since then.
CARL NATHE: Is there any comparison-- I was talking with one of my colleagues prior to this interview. Is there any comparison with what you do? Is it anything like X-ray or MRI when you go to the hospital, you go to the doctor and get an exam? How does this work without being too technical?
BRENT SEALES: A lot of the approaches early on were just new ways of doing photography, because we were interested in making photographs that were very high resolution, that were very careful, that would give a scholar more information than they could have otherwise. Eventually, though, we did land on the idea of using x-rays to see inside things. And yeah, actually, it's a lot like what you would see at the doctor's office or the dentist's office, where they take x-rays to be able to see inside your mouth or inside your body without hurting you, without any surgery. And that's what we do with antiquities.
CARL NATHE: Now, the benefit to scholarship is tremendous. But what about in terms of advancing your science? You have done this now time and again with great success.
BRENT SEALES: We have. We've had a few successes that were hard earned, because it was slow going. There are a few things that have to converge to find success. One is that the technology has to work. And this is technology that's really new in the scheme of things. We're talking the last decade or so.
Another thing that has to happen is that research needs to be funded. So underwriting research is important, and finding funding for work is not always easy. And then the third thing, you know that you don't just walk into a library and demand to see the most beautiful thing in the collection or the most rare thing. You have to earn the right to do that. So all of those three things together have taken time to be able to get to.
CARL NATHE: Speaking of funding, recently you have an NEH grant, National Endowment for the Humanities. There's also, I think in progress or on its way-- am I right, I don't want to jump the gun-- but something that's referred to as the Melon Grant. Just talk about some of the grants that you've been able to earn.
BRENT SEALES: Well, initially, we were able to find funding from the scientific background that we developed. So the National Science Foundation was a great partner and contributor. But then as you move from developing the basic science toward being a practitioner, you need to find other sources of funding. And it turns out that there are private foundations and government foundations, like the National Endowment for the Humanities, that have great interest in the scholarly part of what can happen if we apply what we've developed.
And so the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NEH, has been a great partner. And they're starting a project with us to push forward what we can do over with the collection from Herculaneum, which is the town very near Pompei that has a number of manuscripts that were destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.
CARL NATHE: And here you are, as it were, bringing them back to life.
BRENT SEALES: We're hoping that we can see much more of what's written on those manuscripts than has ever before been seen, primarily because of the technology and because of the partnership with the NEH.
CARL NATHE: Brings me to my next question. As we record this interview, you're off to a conference, I believe, in Taiwan. But you have become-- and I suppose it's been exciting, but it must tire you out, too-- you've become a world traveler with all these exploits.
BRENT SEALES: Well, it has been a great pleasure to be able to go around the world and learn what I can from what other people are doing and also make the connections and collaborations that are required to be able to have entree into places like the Biblioteca Nazionale in Napoli, in Naples, where the Herculaneum collection actually exists.
CARL NATHE: I wanted to ask you, because I know you value your time here at the University of Kentucky. You've had a great experience. You've spoken of the caliber of the faculty when I've talked to you before that we have. And yet, University of Kentucky is probably not the first place, if you want to look at stereotypes, that somebody would think that here's this computer scientist doing this kind of work. He must be at Harvard, or he must be at Stanford or somewhere like that. And the truth of the matter is, we've got innovators such as yourself, plenty of them, right here at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
BRENT SEALES: No, that's exactly true. I mean, the fact is what limits us in Kentucky is really our imagination. That's it. And so given that kind of freedom, I have a fairly broad imagination, and it turns out that many of my colleagues do as well. I think that benefits the students and the people of Kentucky, because we have this great brain trust and this great freedom to pursue these things. Yeah, you might think it's a mismatch, something like this coming from Kentucky. But I don't see that at all. I see imagination and freedom being a very natural result of what happens right here in Lexington.
CARL NATHE: Well, thanks to the attention that you and your colleagues have been earning with this work, University of Kentucky name is getting out there front and center. One example that comes to mind within the last couple of years is 60 minutes, which is the famous CBS program, been on for more than half a century now. And what did that feel like when that all came together? 60 Minutes, not everybody gets on there. In fact, it's a very rare occurrence.
BRENT SEALES: Well, you can imagine how proud I was to be contacted by the producers. Their interest just showed me the work that we'd been doing really attracted attention. But then the support that I got from the University of Kentucky, I mean we filmed that interview-- many people don't know this-- in the president's house. He graciously gave us his entire first floor for the film crew to come in and actually film that interview.
And Bill Whitaker came in, and he was the nicest host. We got to know each other. We spent three hours doing the interview that eventually turned into just a 12-minute piece. But yeah, it was a great pleasure for me, one of the greatest moments of my career, certainly.
CARL NATHE: Now, what are some of the other media outlets and so forth, magazines, newspapers? Just mention-- I don't want you to brag, but I don't want you to be too modest either.
BRENT SEALES: Well, this past year the 60 Minutes piece last year came out on Easter Sunday in the 50th anniversary season. And I watched that as a kid. So I mean, that was almost a surreal dream for me to see that happen. But prior to that, we also had a piece in Discovery Magazine, which was wonderful. And then we had a full article in Smithsonian Magazine over the summer. And in the summer, the Smithsonian Magazine, which has a circulation of several million, they do one issue for the whole summer, July and August. So we were in that issue, which was really nice.
And then at the end of the year, the National Geographic issue for December-- I don't know if you can believe this or not-- was about the Bible. It was on the cover. And some of our work, because it was in the area of biblical scholarship, was actually referenced in the National Geographic Magazine.
CARL NATHE: Fantastic. We're talking with Brent Seales, who is professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science here at the University of Kentucky within the College of Engineering and some of the work he's been doing over the last 25 years or so since he's been here at the University of Kentucky. And Brent, I think I know the answer, but I want you to give me the answer. So how does all of this impact the students here at the University of Kentucky, both the undergraduate students and the graduate students? Have faculty members, such as yourself, doing this kind of innovative work, how do you bring that to the classroom?
BRENT SEALES: Well, I know that everything that I do with my research is premised on the help that comes from talented students who've learned their studies, they've learned their craft, and they're able to contribute. So I pick those students. I'm able to pay for them to work with me. They get trained. They contribute. And then they move on.
And that's been a great joy for me. And that's actually true for the other professors who work alongside me in their own areas. They use the brain trust at the University of Kentucky to develop students to work with them and make advances and then to see them take off and do things on their own.
CARL NATHE: I hesitate to ask this because I don't want to plant seeds in your mind, but I think I asked you the last time we had an interview like this. That is, I imagine that with the renown that you've earned and so forth, you get phone calls or emails or whatever, hey, Dr. Seales, we're thinking of doing this and that at a university, and we'd love to have somebody of your reputation and background to come join us on our faculty. Again, I'm not putting you on the spot. I hope that's not the case. You seem to thrive and love it here at UK.
BRENT SEALES: I do love being at UK. I have had a lot of interest in my career and the possibility of what might be next. But for now, the support that I've gotten here and the culture that we have here and the ecosystem I've developed has been more than enough to keep me really happy and really engaged.
CARL NATHE: How about the balance with-- because I know you have a family. You have kids of your own that are now either college or some maybe beyond.
BRENT SEALES: Some beyond. Yes, my daughter is a screenwriter in California.
CARL NATHE: OK, so how do you balance all this? Because we talk about work-life balance. And here you are, you've got a busy job on the faculty. You have this research that takes you around the world. You have to find that balance point in there somewhere.
BRENT SEALES: Yeah, work-life balance is always a struggle, especially when the passion one has for work runs really deep. I still personally have things that I want and I believe need to achieve. One of the things, though, about being in a university environment and one as rich as the University of Kentucky is that there are things that distract and even enrich. We have a music program here that's amazing, Everett McCorvey doing opera, right? We have so many other things on campus that can add to and enrich life that it creates its own balance.
CARL NATHE: Very good. What about in terms of as you look toward where this technology-- I know it's a difficult question-- but where this technology might take us? Because as you said, even in the time you've been here, when we used to unveil-- we'd have a news conference to unveil some new computational center or something on campus, and it was this huge thing that filled up half of a football field practically-- that's a little exaggeration. But now, here you carry on a little pocket sized stuff, and it's got more computing ability than that big machine had a quarter century ago. So where do we go down the road?
BRENT SEALES: It's hard to say. Making predictions is really tough because so many things have happened that none of us could have predicted. I think, in general, the scholarship that will happen will be more and more engaging and more and more surprising because of the things that technology will allow us to do. And I'm a proponent of open scholarships, so more and more I would like to see us use technology so that people can have access to the material they need to do scholarship, whereas before they might not have had access.
And that's really important for libraries, where scholars who are interested, for example, in the ancient world or an ancient biblical material, in the past just could not do that work, because they didn't have access to that. But now, on a cell phone, you can from any place in the world find an image of a manuscript, and then you can actually do work on that. And I think that democratization of access is really important for the advancement of worldwide scholarship.
CARL NATHE: One thing I neglected to ask you, because, again, so you've traveled all over the world. You've also met colleagues from all over the world. In other words, you're working on it here at the University of Kentucky, but this is kind of great to be able to compare notes or compare research with people internationally.
BRENT SEALES: Yes, we've organized symposia here, and we've brought folks right to the Bluegrass. And I can tell you that not only is the university you know one of the favorite places for many of my colleagues to visit, but so is the Bourbon Trail. We have some things here that are great attractors. So that's been an opportunity for me to meet those colleagues.
But yes, also as I've traveled, and I've seen the other ecosystems, it's been a great transfer of knowledge and information. And I think that actually helps our students to have faculty who do that and then can bring that back to the classroom enriches their experience for sure.
CARL NATHE: Before we wrap this up, I would be remiss if I didn't ask in terms of with the students that you have and-- because one of the neat things about being a research one institution and you get to work, as we said, with undergraduate and graduate students, but the mentorship part, it evolves and changes, doesn't it, as it goes and they grow?
BRENT SEALES: Yeah, the maturity allows more opportunity. And so as students enter as freshmen-- and I was just talking to a colleague today about this process and how I love it, because introducing someone to something they haven't seen before is its own delight, right? And I get to do that every semester when new students come. And I've realized that I really love that. Seeing them grow and mature and then be ready and willing to take on the next challenge is a big part of what we do at the University of Kentucky. I love that.
CARL NATHE: Have you yourself gotten more interested by the fact that you have the technology to some of these ancient scrolls and ancient documents to unveil them? Have you gotten more of an interest because you're a computer scientist. You're an engineer. That's your background. But how about, have you got more interested in some of these topics because you've now been able to read them yourself?
BRENT SEALES: Well, I have. My interest has matured as well. And I've seen myself grow in the fact that I would love to know more about history and the historical eras that define the kinds of things I've become interested in from a technical perspective. And I actually see this in my students, too. I'm able to sort of transfer that to engineers who otherwise might not be that interested in the humanities. Suddenly, I can give them an interest in history and in the areas of the classics that they might not have considered.
CARL NATHE: Very good. I want to give you the opportunity in case there's something that I haven't asked you about. We've come to about a natural point I think to end the interview for now. But I wanted to give you opportunity to add anything that you would like that I haven't asked you about. Just sounds like it's been a delightful hardworking, challenging, but very rewarding time for you at UK.
BRENT SEALES: It has. It's been almost 30 years of work from my first academic appointment until now, and I'm one of the few who's stayed in the same place. A lot of my colleagues have moved around. But I believe I've really benefited from the deep roots that I've been able to put down at the University of Kentucky. Others of my colleagues who've been here a similar amount of time, we form this super elite club, which I love to be a part of.
And I do want to say that the students that we have at the University of Kentucky, our best students, are as good as any student that I have ever seen worldwide. And so it's always a great pleasure and pride for me to see those students succeed.
CARL NATHE: Our guest has been Brent Seales, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science, who has worked on many fantastic research grants and done some fantastic cutting edge, digital imaging to help scholarly research around the world. And Brent, we thank you for coming in. We wish you continued success.
BRENT SEALES: Thank you so much, Carl.
CARL NATHE: All right, we'll see you next time on Behind the Blue podcast.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you for joining us on this edition of Behind the Blue. For more information about this episode or any other episode, visit us online at uky.edu/behindtheblue. You can send questions or comments via email to Behind the Blue at uky.edu, or tweet your questions using #behindtheblue. Behind the Blue is a joint production of university of Kentucky Public Relations and Marketing and UK Healthcare.
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