Fei-Fei Li Biography
Fei-Fei Li is a computer scientist originally from China, now based in the United States. She is renowned for creating ImageNet, a dataset that played a pivotal role in the significant progress of computer vision during the 2010s. She is Sequoia Capital professor of computer science at Stanford University and former board director at Twitter.
Fei-Fei Li Age / Birthday
As of 2023, Li is 48 years old, she was born in 1976 in Beijing, China. She manages to keep information regarding her dates of birth away from the limelight. It is therefore not known when she celebrates her birthday. However, we will update information about her date of birth once it’s available.
Fei-Fei Li Height / Measurements
Li is of average body stature and stands at an approximate height of 5 feet 5 inches tall.
Fei-Fei Li Partner/ Husband
Li is married to Silvio Savarese, a computer scientist and professor at Stanford University. He is known for his research in computer vision, machine learning, and robotics. The couple met at Stanford University in 2005, when they were both PhD students. They married in 2007.
Fei-Fei Li Kids / Children
Li has two children, a son and a daughter. Her son, Oliver, was born in 2011 and her daughter, Ella, was born in 2014. Li is a private person and does not share much information about her children in the public eye. However, she has spoken about her desire to raise her children to be curious and compassionate. She also wants them to be aware of the potential risks and benefits of artificial intelligence.
Fei-Fei Li Family / Relatives
Li was born in Beijing, China, and spent her early years in Chengdu, Sichuan. At the age of 12, her father relocated to the United States. By the time Li turned 15, both she and her mother had joined him in Parsippany–Troy Hills, New Jersey. Additionally, she shares no information regarding whether she has any siblings or not. We will update this information once it’s available.
Fei-Fei Li Education
In 1995, she graduated from Parsippany High School and achieved induction into the Parsippany High School Hall of Fame in 2017. Pursuing her academic journey, she focused on physics while also delving into computer science and engineering during her undergraduate years at Princeton University. In 1999, she graduated with high honors, earning a Bachelor of Arts with a major in physics and certificates in applied and computational mathematics and engineering physics.
Her notable senior thesis, titled “Auditory Binaural Correlogram Difference: A New Computational Model for Huggins Dichotic Pitch,” was completed under the guidance of Professor Bradley Dickinson in the Electrical Engineering department. Despite her rigorous academic pursuits, she maintained a connection with her roots by frequently returning home to assist in her parents’ dry-cleaning store during weekends.
Continuing her academic journey, she pursued graduate studies at the California Institute of Technology, earning a Doctor of Philosophy in electrical engineering in 2005. Her dissertation, titled “Visual Recognition: Computational Models and Human Psychophysics,” was completed under the primary supervision of Pietro Perona and the secondary supervision of Christof Koch. Throughout her graduate studies, she received support from prestigious fellowships, including the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans.
Fei-Fei Li Career
Dr. Fei-Fei Li embarked on her academic journey at Stanford in 2009, initially as an assistant professor. Over the years, she demonstrated her expertise and dedication, earning promotion to associate professor with tenure in 2012 and eventually reaching the status of a full professor in 2018.
Her contributions extended beyond teaching and research as she took on the role of director at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL) from 2013 to 2018. Dr. Li’s commitment to advancing artificial intelligence led to her becoming the founding co-director of the Human-Centered AI Institute at Stanford, collaborating with Dr. John Etchemendy, the former provost of the university.
Taking a sabbatical from Stanford between January 2017 and the fall of 2018, Dr. Li joined Google Cloud as the Chief Scientist of AI/ML and Vice President. During her tenure at Google, her team dedicated efforts to making AI technology accessible to a broader audience, with initiatives like AutoML.
In September 2017, Google’s involvement in Project Maven, a Department of Defense contract utilizing AI for drone image interpretation, sparked controversy. Despite Google’s assurance that the project was for non-offensive purposes, employee protests led to the decision not to renew the contract in June 2018. Subsequently, in the fall of 2018, Dr. Li returned to Stanford, resuming her professorship.
Fei-Fei Li Net Worth
Through Li’s career as a Computer Scientist, she has been able to accumulate a net worth that ranges between $45 Million and $ 50 Million.
Fei-Fei Li SAILORS
Before co-founding AI4ALL in 2017, Dr. Li and her former student, Olga Russakovsky, established the precursor program called SAILORS at Stanford. SAILORS, launched in 2015, was a summer camp dedicated to providing AI education and research opportunities for 9th-grade high school girls. In 2017, it transitioned to AI4ALL @Stanford.
Dr. Li’s significant contributions to the field have been recognized through her election as a member of prestigious institutions. Such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021, the National Academy of Engineering in 2020, and the National Academy of Medicine in 2020. Additionally, in May 2020, she joined Twitter’s board of directors as an independent director. However, following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter on October 27, 2022. Dr. Li, along with eight others, was removed from the board, leaving Musk as the sole director.
Fei-Fei Li Research
Li is actively involved in various research areas, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, cognitive neuroscience, and computational neuroscience. Her significant contributions are evident through the publication of over 300 peer-reviewed research papers, featured in esteemed journals such as Nature. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Neuroscience. Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, International Conference on Computer Vision. Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, European Conference on Computer Vision. International Journal of Computer Vision, and IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.
One of her most renowned projects is the ImageNet initiative, which has played a pivotal role in transforming the landscape of large-scale visual recognition. In recent years, Li’s research endeavors have expanded to include artificial intelligence applications in healthcare. Involves close collaboration with Professor Arnold Milstein from Stanford University School of Medicine. Additionally, she has actively addressed issues related to bias in image recognition. Implementing measures such as the removal of concepts with low imageability from ImageNet.
Fei-Fei Li Teaching
She instructs the Stanford course CS231n, focusing on “Deep Learning for Computer Vision.” The 2015 edition of this course was formerly available on Coursera. Additionally, she has experience teaching CS131, an introductory class in computer vision.
Li contributed one chapter to Architects of Intelligence: The Truth About AI from the People Building It (2018) by the American futurist Martin Ford. In 2023, Li wrote and published a memoir, The Worlds I See, which explores her life path and the state of artificial intelligence.
Fei-Fei Li Twitter
Li is active on her social media account. She has about 447.4k followers on her Twitter account.