Vitomir Štruc elected IAPR Fellow 2026

Prestigious IAPR Fellowship recognizes outstanding scientific contributions to biometrics and long-standing international leadership

Prof. Vitomir Štruc of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Ljubljana has been elected a Fellow of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), class of 2026, one of the most prestigious distinctions awarded by the international pattern-recognition community. The recognition, as stated in the citation, was awarded

“For contributions to biometrics, and for service to the IAPR through its Technical Committees and conferences.”

The citation captures two closely connected aspects of Prof. Štruc’s career: scientific work aimed at advancing the accuracy, security, privacy and trustworthiness of biometric technologies, and long-standing involvement in developing the international scientific community through technical committees, conferences, competitions and professional service.

A highly selective international distinction

The IAPR Fellow Award was introduced in 1994 and is awarded every two years to recognize distinguished scientific contributions to pattern recognition and service to IAPR. Under IAPR rules, the number of Fellows elected in each two-year cycle may not exceed 0.25% of the association’s total membership, making the distinction highly selective.

The International Association for Pattern Recognition is an international association of scientific and professional organizations active in pattern recognition, computer vision and image processing. Its mission includes promoting research and applications in these fields, fostering international cooperation, exchanging scientific information and supporting education.

Research at the intersection of biometrics, computer vision and AI

Dr. Štruc is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and a researcher at the Laboratory for Machine Intelligence of the University of Ljubljana. He received his PhD from the University of Ljubljana in 2010 and has since developed an extensive international research career in biometrics, computer vision, face recognition and artificial intelligence. His research record includes more than 250 scientific publications in international journals and conferences.

Much of his research has centered on faces and biometric identity, and on the question of how modern AI can be used to build biometric systems that are not only accurate, but also more secure, privacy-aware, explainable and reliable. His work has addressed many of the challenges that have emerged as face-recognition technology has developed. These include recognizing faces in difficult imaging conditions, assessing whether an image is suitable for reliable recognition, protecting the privacy of individuals represented in biometric data, understanding what information modern recognition systems actually learn, and making such systems more robust to manipulation and attack.

In recent years, this research has increasingly intersected with some of the central challenges created by generative artificial intelligence. Štruc and his collaborators have worked on detecting deepfakes and face-morphing attacks, on synthetic biometric data, and on generative approaches that can be used both to protect privacy and to develop new methods for training and evaluating AI systems.

The broader goal connecting these activities is the development of trustworthy biometric artificial intelligence: technology that can operate reliably in real-world conditions while addressing concerns related to security, privacy, transparency and misuse.

International scientific leadership

The Fellow Award also recognizes Prof. Štruc’s long-standing contribution to IAPR itself.

He has been involved in IAPR activities for close to 20 years and currently serves as Vice-Chair of the IAPR Technical Committee on Biometrics (TC4), after previously serving as its Secretary. He was also President of the Slovenian Pattern Recognition Society, Slovenia’s member organization within IAPR, for two terms and continues to serve on its supervisory committee.

A particularly visible part of his international service has been his work on major scientific conferences. Dr. Štruc has held leadership positions at numerous international events in biometrics, computer vision and artificial intelligence, including the International Joint Conference on Biometrics, the International Conference on Pattern Recognition, the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision, the IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, and the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.

Within IAPR-related conferences alone, he has served as Program Co-Chair of IJCB 2020 and IJCB 2025, General Co-Chair of IJCB 2023 in Ljubljana, and in a range of other organizational roles involving competitions, special sessions and scientific programs. He is currently a Program Chair of the virtual ICPR 2027.

His wider professional service also includes senior editorial positions. He currently serves as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security and Associate Editor-in-Chief of Pattern Recognition, two of the leading international journals in his areas of research.

Research, teaching and mentoring

Alongside his research and international activities, Prof. Štruc is active in teaching and the supervision of young researchers at the University of Ljubljana. His group works on topics ranging from face recognition and deepfake detection to synthetic data, biometric security, AI explainability and image quality.

The achievements of his students have also received significant international recognition. Four of his doctoral students received awards from the European Association for Biometrics for outstanding PhD theses in Europe, in 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2024.

Dr. Štruc himself has received numerous research, teaching and professional distinctions. Recent recognitions include the Golden Plaque of the University of Ljubljana in 2025, several Outstanding Editorial Board Member Awards from IEEE for his work in IEEE TIFS in 2021, 2023 and 2024, the Slovenian Congress Ambassador recognition in 2024, and the IEEE Biometrics Council Meritorious Service Award in 2026.

A recognition for research at the University of Ljubljana

Election as an IAPR Fellow represents an important personal distinction for Prof. Štruc, but it also highlights the international visibility of research in biometrics, computer vision and artificial intelligence at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the Laboratory for Machine Intelligence of the University of Ljubljana.

Prof. Štruc’s research group has contributed to the shift in biometrics from systems concerned primarily with recognition accuracy toward a broader conception of trustworthy biometric AI—systems that must also be secure against attacks, protect privacy, assess the reliability of their input data, generalize to new conditions and provide greater insight into how their decisions are made.

The IAPR Fellow Award recognizes both this scientific trajectory and Dr. Štruc’s sustained contribution to building the international community in which such research develops.