Yi-Ren Ng (born September 21, 1979) is a Malaysian American scientist who is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. He was the founder,

executive chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

and CEO of Lytro, a

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...

-based

startup company A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...

. Lytro was developing consumer light-field cameras based on Ng's graduate research at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Lytro ceased operations in late March 2018.

Early life and education

Ng was born in

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, and immigrated to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

at the age of 9. He earned a B.S. degree in mathematical and computational science in 2001, an

M.S. A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medicine ...

in computer science in 2002, and a Ph.D. in computer science in 2006, all from Stanford University. His doctoral dissertation, titled ''Digital Light Field Photography'', received the 2006 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Business career

Ng interned at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

from June 2000 to September 2000 and June 2003 to September 2003 while studying at Stanford.https://www.linkedin.com/in/renng After graduation in 2006, Ng founded Lytro and was CEO for more than six years. On June 29, 2012, Ng announced that he would step aside as CEO in order to spend more time on the vision for the company and less on its day-to-day operations. Ng also would become executive chairman and remain at Lytro full-time. Charles Chi, then executive chairman, served as interim CEO until Ng chose former Ning chief Jason Rosenthal as Lytro's new CEO in March 2013 after a lengthy external search.

Academic

In 2013, Ng was awarded the

Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is the world's oldest photographic society having been in continuous existence since 1853. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as th ...

's Selwyn Award given to those under the age of 35 years who have conducted successful science-based research connected with imaging. In July 2015, Ng became an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences at College of Engineering of

References

External links

Lytro - Home

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ng, Ren Malaysian emigrants to Australia Malaysian emigrants to the United States Australian emigrants to the United States American chairpersons of corporations Living people Australian chief executives Stanford University School of Engineering alumni UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty 1979 births American scientists