Fei-Fei Li facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Fei-Fei Li
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| 李飞飞 | |
Li at AI for Good in 2017
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| Born | July 3, 1976 |
| Nationality | American |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Electrical engineering |
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| Thesis | Visual recognition: computational models and human psychophysics (2005) |
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Fei-Fei Li (Chinese: 李飞飞; pinyin: Lǐ Fēifēi; born in 1976) is a Chinese-American computer scientist. She is famous for creating ImageNet. This huge collection of images helped make big improvements in computer vision in the 2010s.
She is a professor of computer science at Stanford University. She also helps lead the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. This institute focuses on making AI that helps people. From 2013 to 2018, she was the director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
In 2017, she started AI4ALL. This group works to bring more different kinds of people into the field of artificial intelligence. Her work focuses on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and how computers can "see" and understand images.
In 2023, she was named one of the "Time 100 AI Most Influential People." She also received an award for her lifetime achievements in AI. She is a member of important groups like the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2023, the United Nations asked her to join its Scientific Advisory Board. In 2024, she helped start a company called World Labs. It aims to create AI that understands the physical world.
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Early Life and Education
Li was born in Beijing, China, in 1976. She grew up in Chengdu, Sichuan. When she was 12, her father moved to the United States. Four years later, when she was 16, she and her mother joined him in Parsippany, New Jersey. She finished high school in Parsippany in 1995.
She then went to Princeton University. In 1999, she earned a degree in physics. While at Princeton, she often went home on weekends. She helped her family run their dry cleaning business. She also worked as a dishwasher to help with money.
After Princeton, Li went to the California Institute of Technology. She earned her master's degree in 2001 and her PhD in 2005. Her studies were supported by special fellowships.
Career and Research in AI
After finishing her studies, Li became a professor. She taught at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Princeton University. In 2009, she joined Stanford University. She became a full professor there in 2018.
At Stanford, she led the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL) from 2013 to 2018. She also helped create the Human-Centered AI Institute. This institute works to make sure AI helps people in good ways.
Working at Google
From 2017 to 2018, Li took a break from Stanford. She worked at Google Cloud as its Chief Scientist of AI/ML. Her team at Google worked to make AI technology easier for businesses to use.
Google had a project called Project Maven with the Department of Defense. This project used AI to understand images from drones. Li believed in using AI for good purposes. She said it was "deeply against her principles" to work on any project that would use AI as a weapon. In 2018, she left Google and returned to Stanford.
AI for All People
Li is also known for her non-profit work. She co-founded and leads AI4ALL. This group wants to teach the next generation of AI experts. It focuses on bringing more different people into the field. The goal is to make AI fair and helpful for everyone.
Before AI4ALL, Li and her student Olga Russakovsky started a similar program. It was a summer camp for high school girls interested in AI. This program later grew into AI4ALL. Now, AI4ALL has programs at many universities, including Princeton University and Carnegie Mellon University.
Li believes that AI should be developed by many different people. This helps make sure AI benefits everyone. She has been called a "researcher bringing humanity to AI."
Important Research
Li's research focuses on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision. She has written over 300 research papers. Her most famous work is the ImageNet project.
ImageNet is a huge collection of images. It helped computers learn to recognize objects in pictures much better. From 2010 to 2017, Li's team organized a competition using ImageNet. This competition pushed forward the field of computer vision.
Li also works on "Natural Scene Understanding." This means teaching computers to understand what is happening in an image, like telling a story. She gave a popular TED talk about this in 2015.
Recently, Li's work has expanded to artificial intelligence in healthcare. She also works on making sure image recognition systems are fair and do not have biases.
Teaching AI
She teaches popular courses at Stanford. One is called "Deep Learning for Computer Vision." This course helps students learn how computers can "see" and understand images using advanced AI.
Board Roles
In 2020, Li joined the board of directors for Twitter. She was an independent director. In 2022, after Elon Musk bought the company, she and other directors left the board.
In 2023, the United Nations asked Li to join its Scientific Advisory Board. This board gives advice on new trends in science, technology, and ethics. It helps the UN use scientific ideas in its decisions.
Awards and Honors
Fei-Fei Li has received many awards for her important work:
- 1999 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship
- 2009 NSF CAREER Award
- 2011 Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship
- 2015 Named one of the "Leading Global Thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine
- 2016 J.K. Aggarwal Prize for her work in pattern recognition
- 2018 Elected as an ACM Fellow for her work in building knowledge for machine learning
- 2018 Named one of "America's Top 50 Women In Tech" by Forbes
- 2019 Recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women
- 2020 Elected member of the National Academy of Engineering
- 2020 Elected member of the National Academy of Medicine
- 2021 Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 2023 Intel Lifetime Achievements Innovation Award
- 2023 Named to the Time AI100 list
- 2024 VinFuture Prize's grand prize
- 2025 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering
Personal Life
Fei-Fei Li is married to Silvio Savarese, who is also a professor at Stanford. They have a son and a daughter.
See also
In Spanish: Fei-fei Li para niños
