Stefano Soatto is professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

(UCLA), in

Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3,878,704 residents within the city ...

, where he is also professor of electrical engineering and founding director of th
UCLA Vision Lab
He is also Vice President of applied science for Amazon Web Services' (AWS) AI division.

Academic biography

Soatto obtained his D. Eng. in electrical engineering, cum laude, from the

University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...

in 1992, was an EAP Fellow 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 ...

in 1990–1991, and received his Ph.D. in control and dynamical systems from the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

in 1996 with dissertation "A Geometric Approach to Dynamic Vision". In 1996–97 he was a postdoctoral scholar at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, and subsequently held positions as assistant and associate professor of electrical engineering and biomedical engineering at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...

, and of mathematics and computer science at the

University of Udine The University of Udine (Italian language, Italian ''Università degli Studi di Udine'') is a public university in the city of Udine, Italy. It was founded in 1978 as part of the reconstruction plan of Friuli after the 1976 Friuli earthquake, ear ...

, Italy. He has been at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

since 2000. He is also Vice President of applied science for Amazon Web Services' (AWS) AI division.

Research

Soatto's research focuses on

computer vision Computer vision tasks include methods for image sensor, acquiring, Image processing, processing, Image analysis, analyzing, and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical ...

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

and

robotics Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...

. He co-developed optimal algorithms for

structure from motion Structure from motion (SfM) is a photogrammetric range imaging technique for estimating three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional image sequences that may be coupled with local motion signals. It is a classic problem studied in the fiel ...

(SFM, or visual SLAM,

simultaneous localization and mapping Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is the computational problem of constructing or updating a map of an unknown environment while simultaneously keeping track of an Intelligent agent, agent's location within it. While this initially ap ...

, in robotics; Best Paper Award at

CVPR The Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition is an annual conference on computer vision and pattern recognition. Affiliations The conference was first held in 1983 in Washington, DC, organized by Takeo Kanade and Dana H. Ballard. Fr ...

1998), characterized its ambiguities ( David Marr Prize at ICCV 1999), also characterized the identifiability and observability of visual-inertial sensor fusion (Best Paper Award at ICRA 2015). His research focus is the development of representations, that are functions of the data that capture their informative content and discard irrelevant variability in the data (a generalized form of 'noise' or 'clutter'). Soatto's lab first to demonstrate real-time SFM and

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

(AR) on commodity hardware i
live demos
at CVPR 2000
ICCV 2001
and ECCV 2002. He also co-led the UCLA-Golem Team in the second

DARPA Grand Challenge The DARPA Grand Challenge is a prize competition for American vehicle automation, autonomous vehicles, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the most prominent research organization of the United States Department of Defense. Uni ...

for autonomous vehicles, with Emilio Frazzoli (co-founder of

NuTonomy NuTonomy (stylized as nuTonomy) was an MIT spin-off technology startup company that made software to build self-driving cars and autonomous mobile robots. The company was founded in 2013. In August 2016, it launched its robo-taxi service (pilot ...

), and

Amnon Shashua Amnon Shashua (; born May 26, 1960) is an Israeli computer scientist, businessman and philanthropist. He is the Sachs Professor of Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the autonomou ...

(co-founder of

Mobileye Mobileye Global Inc. is a United States- domiciled, Israel-headquartered autonomous driving company. It is developing self-driving technologies and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) including cameras, computer chips, and software. Mobil ...

Recognition

Soatto was named

Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers , the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and ot ...

(IEEE) in 2013 ''for contributions to dynamic visual processes''. He received the David Marr Prize in Computer Vision in 1999. He was named to the 2022 class of

ACM Fellow ACM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognises outstanding members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The title of ACM Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals ...

s, "for contributions to the foundations and applications of visual geometry and visual representations learning".

References

External links

Stefano Soatto professional home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soatto, Stefano Fellows of the IEEE 2022 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Living people Italian computer scientists University of Padua alumni California Institute of Technology alumni Computer vision researchers Machine learning researchers Year of birth missing (living people) University of California, Los Angeles faculty Washington University in St. Louis faculty Academic staff of the University of Udine University of California, Berkeley fellows