Yann LeCun facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Yann LeCun
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LeCun in 2024
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| Born | 8 July 1960 Soisy-sous-Montmorency, France
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| Known for | Deep learning |
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| Fields | Computer science |
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| Thesis | Modeles connexionnistes de l'apprentissage (connectionist learning models) (1987) |
| Doctoral advisor | Maurice Milgram |
Yann LeCun (born 8 July 1960) is a famous French-American computer scientist. He works mainly on how computers can "learn" and "see." This field is called machine learning and computer vision. He also works with mobile robotics (robots that move) and how the brain works (computational neuroscience).
LeCun is a professor at New York University. He is also the Chief AI Scientist at Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram.
He is very well known for his work on optical character recognition (teaching computers to read text) and computer vision. He uses special computer programs called convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for this. He also helped create a way to compress images called DjVu.
In 2018, LeCun, along with Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, won the Turing Award. This award is like the Nobel Prize for computing. They won it for their important work on deep learning. People sometimes call them the "Godfathers of AI" or "Godfathers of Deep Learning."
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Early life and education
Yann LeCun was born on July 8, 1960, near Paris, France. His family name was originally spelled Le Cun. It comes from an old language called Breton. "Yann" is the Breton way to say "John."
He studied engineering at ESIEE Paris and finished in 1983. Later, he earned his PhD in computer science in 1987. During his PhD, he worked on an early version of the back-propagation algorithm. This algorithm helps computer programs, called neural networks, learn from their mistakes. After his PhD, he worked with Geoffrey Hinton for a year.
Career
Bell Labs
In 1988, LeCun joined AT&T Bell Laboratories. There, he created new ways for computers to learn. One important invention was convolutional neural networks. These are special computer programs inspired by how our brains see. They are great at recognizing images.
He also helped develop a system that could read bank checks. This system was used by many companies. In the late 1990s, it read more than 10% of all checks in the United States.
Later, he led a research department at AT&T Labs. He worked on the DjVu image compression technology. This technology helps make image files smaller. Many websites, like the Internet Archive, use it for scanned documents.
New York University
After working at NEC, LeCun joined New York University (NYU) in 2003. He became a professor of computer science and neural science. At NYU, he focused on how computers can learn without being told exactly what to do. He also worked on making robots that can move around.
In 2012, he helped start the NYU Center for Data Science. In 2013, he became the first director of Meta AI Research in New York City. This is a big research lab for Meta, the company that owns Facebook.
LeCun also helped start a major conference called the International Conference on Learning Representations. This conference is where scientists share new ideas about how computers learn.
Honours and awards
Yann LeCun is a member of important science groups. These include the US National Academy of Sciences and the French Académie des Sciences.
He has received special honorary degrees from several universities around the world.
In 2014, he won the IEEE Neural Network Pioneer Award. In 2015, he received the PAMI Distinguished Researcher Award.
In 2018, he was given the IRI Medal and the Harold Pender Award. In 2019, he received the Golden Plate Award.
In 2022, he won the Princess of Asturias Awards for Scientific Research. He shared this award with Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and Demis Hassabis.
In 2023, the President of France made him a Knight of the French Legion of Honour. This is a very high award in France.
In 2024, he received the Global Swiss AI Award. He also won the grand prize of the VinFuture Prize. He shared this prize with other scientists for their work on neural networks and deep learning.
Turing Award
In March 2019, Yann LeCun won the 2018 Turing Award. He shared this very important award with Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton. They were recognized for their groundbreaking work in deep learning.
Images for kids
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LeCun in 2024
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LeCun at the University of Minnesota, 2014
See also
In Spanish: Yann LeCun para niños
