Fei-Fei Li is a distinguished Chinese-American computer scientist renowned for her significant contributions to artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in computer vision. She earned her Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 2005. Li is best known for creating ImageNet, a large-scale dataset that has been instrumental in advancing deep learning algorithms. She currently serves as the Sequoia Capital Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and co-directs the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
Throughout her academic career, Li has mentored several notable students, including Andrej Karpathy, who completed his Ph.D. under her supervision at Stanford. Karpathy later became a founding research scientist at OpenAI and served as the director of artificial intelligence and Autopilot Vision at Tesla.
In 2024, Li co-founded World Labs, an AI startup focused on developing spatial intelligence technologies. The company raised $230 million in funding from prominent investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Nvidia. World Labs aims to create AI systems capable of understanding and interacting with the three-dimensional physical world, with applications spanning from gaming to robotics.
Li's dedication to advancing AI and her commitment to fostering diversity in the field through initiatives like AI4ALL have solidified her reputation as a leading figure in the AI community.
