Publications
Information theory

Leyla A. Kabuli, Nalini M. Singh, and Laura Waller
Photonics West 2025 (Oral)
(website) / (arXiv) / (paper)
We analyze lensless imaging systems with estimation-theoretic techniques based on Fisher information. We highlight tradeoffs between encoder multiplexing and object sparsity, showing quantitatively that sparse objects tolerate higher levels of multiplexing than dense objects.

Henry Pinkard, Leyla Kabuli, Eric Markley, Tiffany Chien, Jiantao Jiao, and Laura Waller
arXiv
(website) / (arXiv) / (code)
We present a method to measure and optimize how much information imaging systems capture, applicable to diverse systems ranging from consumer cameras to radio telescopes.

Leyla A. Kabuli, Clara S. Hung, Eric Markley, Henry Pinkard, and Laura Waller
COSI 2024 (Oral)
We analyze the information content of experimental data from lensless cameras with different phase mask encoders. We show that our mutual information metric predicts image reconstruction quality without performing a reconstruction.

Eric Markley, Leyla Kabuli, Tiffany Chien, Henry Pinkard, and Laura Waller
COSI 2024 (Oral)
We present a technique for information-theoretic optimization of computational imaging systems. By directly evaluating measurement quality and decoupling optimization from downstream decoders, computational cost is reduced relative to end-to-end design.
Lensless imaging

Clara S. Hung, Leyla A. Kabuli, Vasilisa Ponomarenko, and Laura Waller
Photonics West 2025 (Poster)
(website) / (arXiv) / (code)
We provide an open-access 25,000 image dataset with two lensless imagers, a reproducible hardware setup, and open-source camera synchronization code.
Tiffany Chien, Ruiming Cao, Fanglin Linda Liu, Leyla A. Kabuli, and Laura Waller
Optics Express 2024
(paper)
This work proposes using an implicit neural representation as a flexible and computationally efficient space-time prior for video reconstruction, improving quality and noise robustness in lensless imaging systems.

Leyla Kabuli, Gina Wu, and Laura Waller
COSI 2023 (Oral)
We present a lensless imager with a random multi-focal lenslet phase mask. This imager produces high-quality and high-resolution images with easy alignment and simple reconstruction algorithms with fast convergence.

Leyla Kabuli, Chaoying Gu, and Laura Waller
COSI 2023 (Oral)
Images from phase mask-based lensless cameras have artifacts, previously attributed to noise and model mismatch. We attribute one type of artifact to the point spread function autocorrelation and present artifact reduction methods.
Holography

Leyla Kabuli, Oliver Cossairt, Florian Schiffers, Nathan Matsuda, and Grace Kuo
arXiv
(arXiv)
We propose an architecture for improved image contrast in holographic displays that uses a low-resolution amplitude spatial light modulator and a high-resolution phase spatial light modulator. Dual modulation can improve contrast while maintaining compact form factor.

Nathan Tessema Ersaro, Cem Yalcin, Liz Murray, Leyla Kabuli, Laura Waller, and Rikky Muller
Optics Express 2023
(paper)
We introduce a non-iterative point cloud holography algorithm that improves speed and efficiency of 3D pattern generation for sparse targets.
Leyla Kabuli, Brett Klaassen van Oorschot, Rachel Pepper, and Laura Waller
COSI 2022 (Oral)
We observe feeding currents of aquatic organisms with a compressive digital in-line holography particle tracking system.
Synthetic aperture radar

Leyla A. Kabuli and Griffin Foster
arXiv, IEEE CISA 2024 (Oral)
(arXiv) / (paper)
We use low-cost radar arrays and interferometric synthetic aperture radar techniques to create detailed point clouds for real-time low-latency mapping of complex automotive environments.
Phase imaging

Emma Alexander, Leyla A. Kabuli, Oliver S. Cossairt, and Laura Waller
ICCP 2021
(paper)
We show that Depth from Differential Defocus in photography can be interpreted as a special case of the Transport of Intensity Equation in microscopy, with the level of spatial coherence determining the usefulness of each technique.