The Biography

Hao Li is a computer scientist and entrepreneur, working in the fields of Computer Graphics and Computer Vision. He is founder and CEO of Pinscreen, Inc., as well as Distinguished Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He was previously an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, as well as director of the Vision and Graphics Lab at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. He was also a visiting professor at Weta Digital and a research lead at Industrial Light & Magic / Lucasfilm. His algorithms for 3D processing are widely used in the visual effects industry for automating the creation of digital humans, as well as enabling the ability to capture facial performances in real-time in virtual production. At Weta Digital, he was responsible for the high-fidelity facial performance capture pipeline that reenacted the deceased actor Paul Walker in the movie Furious 7 (2015). For his contributions, Li received the TR35 Award in 2013, recognizing him as one of the top 35 innovators under the age of 35, from the MIT Technology Review. In 2018, he won the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award. Li was named to the DARPA ISAT Study Group in 2019 and won the ACM SIGGRAPH Real-Time Live! "Best in Show" award in 2020.