positions
PhD in computer science, ETH Zurich
MSc in computer science, Universität Karlsruhe (TH)
student exchange, ENSIMAG
education
CEO & Co-Founder, Pinscreen
Professor, MBZUAI
Founding Dean, MBZUAI Undergraduate Division
Director, MBZUAI Metaverse Center
Associate Professor, MBZUAI
Distinguished Fellow, University of California, Berkeley
Associate Professor, University of Southern California
Director, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Visiting Professor, Weta Digital
Assistant Professor, University of Southern California
Research Lead, Industrial Light & Magic
Postdoctoral Fellow, Columbia University
Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher, Princeton University
Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher, EPFL
Research Intern, Industrial Light & Magic
Visiting Researcher, Stanford University
Research Assistant, ETH Zurich
Visiting Scholar, National University of Singapore
interests
virtual avatars - human digitization - facial animation - hair modeling - 3D scanning - performance capture - non-rigid registration - geometry processing - virtual and augmented reality - metaverse - neural rendering - NeRF - deepfakes - deep learning - generative AI
2006 - 2010
2001 - 2006 2002 - 2003
since 2015
since 2024
since 2025
since 2022
2022 - 2024
2020 - 2022
2019 - 2020
2016 - 2020
2014
2013 - 2019
2012 - 2013
2011 - 2012
2011 - 2012
2010 - 2010
2009
2008
2006 - 2010
2006
Copyright © 2025 Hao Li
What up yo! This is Hao, I’m a German born punky of Taiwanese descent doing computer graphics. I know, #epicfail. I’m also the CEO & Co-Founder of Pinscreen, a Los Angeles-based startup that builds the world’s most advanced generative AI technology for AI VFX and Animation, as well as a Professor of Computer Vision (tenured) at the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), in Abu Dhabi (UAE), founding Dean of its Undergraduate Division and Director of the MBZUAI Metaverse Center. Before that, I was a Distinguished Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, an Associate Professor (tenured) at the Computer Science Department of the University of Southern California (USC), and the director of the Vision and Graphics Lab of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. Here is my official song! Prior to being a faculty, I was a research lead at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) where I developed the next generation real-time performance capture technology for visual effects and before I joined the force, I spent an exciting year as a postdoc at Columbia and Princeton Universities. I worked on geometric capture of human performances with Eitan Grinspun and Szymon Rusinkiewicz who helped me bridge the gap between data capture and physical simulation. Right after obtaining my PhD from ETH Zurich, I spent a few months at EPFL, visiting my PhD advisor Mark Pauly. During grad school, I spent a wonderful summer at ILM and another one at Stanford University visiting Leo Guibas. I got my Master’s degree in CS from the University of Karlsruhe in Germany and went to a French high school in a boonie town called Saarbrücken.
My algorithms on dynamic shape reconstruction and non-rigid registration are widely deployed in the industry, ranging from leading visual effects studios to defense projects and manufacturers of state-of-the-art radiation therapy systems. My work on depth sensor-driven facial animation has also led to the Animoji feature on Apple’s iPhone X. Hey, some of my stuff even works in industry! I received the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award in 2018, Google Faculty Research Award, the Okawa Foundation Research Grant, and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair in 2015. I’ve been named one of the world’s top 35 innovator under 35 by MIT Technology review in 2013 and NextGen 10: Innovators under 40 by C-Suite Quaterly in 2014. I am ranked #1 in 2016, on the Top 10 Leaderboard of Computer Graphics research for the past five years by Microsoft Academic. In 2019, I have been named to the DARPA ISAT Study Group. My research is also featured in the March 2014 issue of Wired magazine and in MIT Technology Review in 2019. Here are some tips on how to write SIGGRAPH papers. I was awarded the SNF fellowship for prospective researchers in 2011 and Best Paper Award at SCA 2009. Our 3D hair scanning technology is deployed at Weta Digital, where I also worked on the 3D facial tracking for animating the digital Paul Walker in Furious 7. My research on facial reenactment has been widely adopted in Hollywood, driving advancements in photorealistic digital doubles and seamless de-aging effects. I’m also known for pioneering production-grade visual dubbing solutions, which have made possible the first fully AI-lip-synced foreign language films and TV shows dubbed into English. My company, Pinscreen, and I have been credited in numerous motion pictures, including Fallout, Slumberland, and Blade Runner 2049. Oh! That gives me an Erdös-Bacon number of 5. In collaboration with Artec Group, we developed Shapify.me, a free software that allows anyone to create their own 3D miniature from home. I’m also the creator of the dynamic geometry processing tool, BeNTO3D, and the original co-author of the Kinect-based facial performance capture software, faceshift (acquired by Apple). Together with Oculus & Facebook, we prototyped the world’s first facial performance sensing virtual reality HMD to enable social interactions in cyberspace. Here is my interview on this technology from Oculus Connect 2. My work has been selected 10 times for SIGGRAPH Real-Time Live! (SIGGRAPH 2014, SIGGRAPH 2017, SIGGRAPH 2018, SIGGRAPH Asia 2018, SIGGRAPH 2019, SIGGRAPH Asia 2019, twice at SIGGRAPH 2020, where we won the “Best in Show” award, SIGGRAPH 2021, and SIGGRAPH 2024). The show celebrates the top jury-reviewed interactive novelties of the year. I’m member of the Academy, the global future councils and co-curator for transformation maps at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and member of ACM SIGGRAPH, the Eurographics Association, the National Academy of Inventors, and the World Future Society (WFS). I have absolutely no clue why that even matters, but who cares? Oh, I’m also sometimes on TV shows (CBSN, ABC News, Buzzfeed’s Follow This, CBC’s The Fifth Estate, Takeshi Kitano’s Sekai Marumie TV) in the News (BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox News, CNBC, Spectrum News, Fox 11 News, PBS Newshour, CNET, CBS News, ABC News, i24NEWS, AP News, CNN, CCTV, Das Erste ARD, ZDF Heute, Canal+, Nippon TV, ABC Australia, Al Jazeera), on radio (Science Friday) in the NY Times, the LA Times (2015, 2018), Forbes, the Washington Post, Scientific American, MIT Technology Review, The Verge, PC Mag, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and fxguide! Ahahahaha!
awards
“Do you like being Professor? When you’re tired of it, just quit, and do something big.”
– Michael Bay at a pool party in LA.
“What the fuck have you guys smoked to come up with that shit? It’s fucking brilliant! It’s kinda weird too, I actually had a role in a film called Face/Off...”
– Nick Cassavetes on our Face/Off live facial puppetry technology.
“Creativity, not money is used to solve problems.”
“I love your hair!”
– Duncan Jones on my hair style.
“Adversity is my comfort zone.”
teaching
MBZUAI IEC Innovation Grant (Growth Grant)
Best Los Angeles Companies and Startups 2021
Welp Magazine Top 10 VR Companies in Los Angeles
ACM SIGGRAPH 2020 Real-Time Live! “Best in Show” Award
AMiner AI2000 Most Influential Scholar (Honorable Mention)
ONR YIP, Young Investigator Award
USC Stevens Commercialization Award
Microsoft Academic Top 10 in Graphics Research (Rank #1)
Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair
Okawa Foundation Research Grant
C-Suite Quaterly NextGen 10: Innovators under 40
TR35, top 35 innovator under 35 by MIT Technology Review
SNF fellowship for prospective researcher
SCA best paper award 2009
2023
2021
2021
2020
2020
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2015
2015
2015
2014
2013
2011
2009
CV 802: Advanced 3D Computer Vision
CV 804: 3D Rendering and Geometry Processing
CV 802: Advanced 3D Computer Vision
CV 702: 3D Geometry for Computer Vision
CV 802: Advanced 3D Computer Vision
CSCI 621: Digital Geometry Processing
CSCI 621: Digital Geometry Processing
CSCI 621: Digital Geometry Processing
FS 2025
SS 2024
FS 2024
SS 2023
FS 2023
SS 2019
FS 2018
SS 2018
FS 2017
SS 2017
FS 2015
SS 2015
FS 2014
SS 2014
funding+gift
Fallout Season 2
The Wizard Of Oz At Sphere
Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam
Indian 2
Becoming Human 4: Generative AI Gets Personal
Under Paris
Fallout Season 1
Berlin
Killer Book Club
Manifest Season 4 Part 2
AKA
Slumberland
Neal Brennnan: Blocks
Amazon re:MARS Luminaries: Hao Li
The Champion
Deepfakes and the Fog of Truth
ABC News - Nightline: Deepfakes
Forging the Future - Hyper Intelligence S1 | E5
Ghost in the Shell - 4K Ultra HD Featurette
The Fifth Estate: The Deepfake
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
2025
2025
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2023
2023
2023
2022
2022
2022
2022
2021
2021
2021
2021
2020
2020
2020
2019
2018
2018
2017
2017
2015
2014
2014
2014
2013
2013
2013
2012
film credits
MBZUAI - DARPA - CIA - IARPA - Office of Naval Research - Army Research Office - US Army NATICK - SRC - Softbank - Snap - Facebook / Oculus VR - Google - Adobe - Nvidia - Intel - Embodee - Pelican Imaging - Sony - Toppan, Engility - TOEI - Huawei - Panasonic - USC IMSC - Okawa Foundation - United States SHARP Academy - RL Leaders - SOOVII - USC Shoah Foundation Institute
professional
activities
Engadget, Wired, Vice, and Ars Technica
and fx guide
Memberbership: The Academy (AMPAS) - World Economic Forum (WEF) - ACM SIGGRAPH - IEEE - Eurographics Association - National Academy of Inventors - World Future Society
Associate Editor: Computer Graphics Forum
Organizer: 1st CONIX Mixed Reality Workshop 2018 - ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 Frontiers Workshop - DARPA ISAT Workshop: Metaverse Augmentation for Defense (MAD) 2022 - Global Media Congraress 2022 Workshop - K-Meta 2022 Workshop: Digital Human Evolution
Program Committee: ACM SIGGRAPH - ACM SIGGRAPH Asia - CVPR - Eurographics - SCA - SGP - 3DV - Pacific Graphics - NORDIA - CAD&CG - CASA -Shape Modeling International
Chair: ACM SIGGRAPH Session Chair - 3DV Area Chair
Reviewer: all top conferences/journals in graphics and vision
Testimony: senate committee of the 66th Washington State Legislature SB 6513 - expert witness (Densys Ltd. v. 3Shape Trios A/S et al.) - expert witness (Rearden LLC et al. v. The Walt Disney Company et al.; Rearden LLC et al. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation et al.)
featured in fx guide, Gizmodo, Daily Mail, 3ders, and Wired
featured in Wired, vfxblog, and 4Gamer
featured in CBS, CBC, NTV, and fxguide
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NFeigSoAAAAJ&hl=en
CEO & Co-Founder
Pinscreen, Inc.
Professor of Computer Vision
Dean of Undergraduate Division
Director of the Metaverse Center
MBZUAI
