Prof. KUMAR Ajay, Associate Head (Research) of the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, has received the 2026 IEEE Biometrics Council Leadership Award. The award was presented at the IEEE/IAPR International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB 2026) in Rome, Italy, on 3 September 2026.
One of the IEEE Biometrics Council’s most prestigious honours, the award recognises Prof. KUMAR’s exceptional and sustained leadership in contactless hand-based biometrics, as well as his outstanding professional service to the IEEE Biometrics Council.
For more than two decades, Prof. KUMAR has made pioneering contributions to contactless palmprint, fingerprint, finger-knuckle and palm-vein recognition. His research has advanced biometric science and its real-world applications, while the benchmark datasets released by his team have supported researchers worldwide. He has also contributed significantly to the development of the global biometrics community, including serving as President of the IEEE Biometrics Council from 2021 to 2022.
At the award ceremony, Prof. KUMAR delivered a vision talk titled “Biometrics at a Crossroads: From Impact to Responsibilities”, outlining priorities for trustworthy and privacy-preserving biometrics, responsible AI, multimodal identity systems and anti-deepfake technologies.
“This award belongs not only to me but to every student and collaborator at PolyU who contributed to this body of work. It is a privilege to have spent over two decades working on a technology that has genuinely changed how people access their world,” said Prof. KUMAR.
The award comprises a commemorative plaque and a US$2,000 honorarium. The DSAI community extends its warmest congratulations to Prof. KUMAR on this distinguished achievement.
