PhD, University of Haifa

Tech4Animals Lab

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Haifa and the Tech4Animals Lab. My research is focused on developing methods for automated landmark detection in animals and finding applications for landmark-based approaches in human-computer-animal interactions.

My primary goal is to develop explainable tools that deepen our understanding of animal behaviour and enhance animal well-being. Through collaborations with animal researchers, I've developed systems that enable automated motion tracking in cats and dogs (including subtle facial movements) and the classification and interpretation of signals in animal behaviour.

I have 5 years of hands-on experience with deep learning and machine learning algorithms, computer vision, data science and signal processing.

Projects

Dog facial landmarks detection and its applications for facial analysis

My paper, which introduces an anatomy-based dog facial landmark scheme, a landmark dataset, and several practical applications of these, has been published in Nature Scientific Reports.

Paper

MELD is running!

We have launched MELD – a platform that allows you to automatically detect cat and dog facial landmarks in videos!

Website

Continuous automated analysis of facial dynamics of brachycephalic and normocephalic dogs in different contexts

My paper, which investigates the differences in facial behaviour between normocephalic and brachycephalic dogs in fully-automated way, has been published in BMC Veterinary Research.

Paper

Can AI read pain and other emotions in your dog’s face?

My work on dog facial landmarks was featured in Science!

Article

Publications

Martvel, G., Eretová, P., Přibylová, L. et al. Continuous automated analysis of facial dynamics of brachycephalic and normocephalic dogs in different contexts. BMC Vet Res 21, 372 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-025-04839-0
Martvel, G., Lazebnik, T., Feighelstein, M. et al. Automated video-based pain recognition in cats using facial landmarks. Sci Rep 14, 28006 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-78406-2
Martvel, G., Scott, L., Florkiewicz, B. et al. Computational Investigation of the Social Function of Domestic Cat Facial Signals. Sci Rep 14, 27533 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-79216-2
Martvel, G., Lazebnik, T., Feighelstein, M., Meller, S., Shimshoni, I., Finka, L., ... & Zamansky, A. (2024). Automated landmark-based cat facial analysis and its applications. Frontiers in veterinary science, 11, 1442634.
Martvel, G., Abele, G., Bremhorst, A., Canori, C., Farhat, N., Pedretti, G., ... & Zamansky, A. (2024). DogFLW: Dog Facial Landmarks in the Wild Dataset. arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.11501.
Martvel, G., Shimshoni, I. & Zamansky, A. Automated Detection of Cat Facial Landmarks. Int J Comput Vis (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11263-024-02006-w
Martvel, G., Farhat, N., Shimshoni, I., & Zamansky, A. (2023). CatFLW: Cat Facial Landmarks in the Wild Dataset. arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.04232.

Activities

May 2025 – Co-organising CV4Animals Workshop at Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2025.
April 2025 – Invited Speaker at the Pain in Horses & Other Animals Workshop.
December 2024 – Gave an invited talk at the Israeli Human-Animal Relations Forum.
October 2024 – Co-organised the Time Series Analysis Workshop by the Data Science Research Center at the University of Haifa.
September 2024 – Gave a talk on Landmark-based approaches for analyzing behavior at DSRC Summer School, "Quantifying natural behavior – The road toward computational neuroethology".
June 2024 – DogFLW: Dog Facial Landmarks in the Wild Dataset presented at CV4Animals Workshop at Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2024.
May 2024 – Development of Facial Landmark Scheme for Dogs presented at Measuring Behavior 2024.
June 2023 – CatFLW: Cat Facial Landmarks in the Wild Dataset presented at CV4Animals Workshop at Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2023.

Scholarships and Awards

Early Career Scientist Award at the 9th Canine Science Forum, 2025, Hamburg, Germany
Excellent PhD Candidate Scholarship of Shmuel and Herta Amir Faculty of Social Sciences, 2023, University of Haifa
Institutional Excellence Scholarship for Outstanding Doctoral Students, 2022, Data Science Research Center (DSRC), University of Haifa

Education

PhD in Computer Science, 2022 - 2025
University of Haifa
MSc in Applied Math and Physics, GPA: 3.89, 2020 - 2022
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
BSc in Applied Math and Physics, GPA: 3.53, 2016 - 2020
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology