PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Abe Davis

Abe Davis is a computer scientist whose computer vision work turns visual signals into tools for partial sound recovery, material sensing and video forensics. He coauthored The Visual Microphone in 2014 and a 2015 paper that estimates material properties from small motions in video. After earning his PhD at MIT and completing postdoctoral research at Stanford and Cornell Tech, he joined Cornell in 2020 as an assistant professor. In 2025, his collaborators developed a method that hides codes in physical light so captured video can reveal edits; in 2026, his paper on interactive explainable ranking won the CHI Best Paper Award, and he received a Sloan Research Fellowship. He is an assistant professor of computer science at Cornell and leads his research group.

Links
Website, X and GitHub

Timeline

  1. 2014

    The Visual Microphone

    In 2014, he coauthors The Visual Microphone, which extracts tiny object vibrations from high-speed video to partly recover the sound that caused them.

  2. 2015

    Visual Vibrometry

    He coauthors Visual Vibrometry in 2015, showing how small, often imperceptible motion in video can reveal an object's material properties.

  3. By 2016

    Stanford and MIT degrees

    He earns a computer science degree at Stanford and completes an MIT PhD in electrical engineering and computer science in 2016 under adviser Frédo Durand.

  4. By 2020

    Postdoctoral work at Cornell

    Before joining Cornell in 2020, he completes postdoctoral work at Stanford with Maneesh Agrawala and a one-year postdoc at Cornell Tech.

  5. July 2025

    Light codes for video forensics

    In July 2025, he and Cornell collaborators describe Noise-Coded Illumination, which hides a secret code in light and lets captured video reveal malicious edits.

  6. 2026

    A Sloan Research Fellowship

    He receives a 2026 Sloan Research Fellowship as one of 126 early-career researchers across North America.

  7. 2026

    CHI 2026 Best Paper

    He coauthors Interactive Explainable Ranking with Chao Zhang, a 2026 paper that formalizes explainable ranking for decision tools. It wins the CHI 2026 Best Paper Award.

  8. As of October 2026

    Assistant professor at Cornell

    He is an assistant professor in Cornell's Computer Science Department and leads his research group.

Career

  1. NowCornell UniversityPostdoc

Education

  1. 2016Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPhD in electrical engineering and computer science
  2. Stanford UniversityComputer science degree

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Abe Davis. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. LinkedIn (1,377) and X (1,193) lead social platforms across 1,935 people shaping AIIncludes Abe Davis. We find social, code or video accounts for 1,935 of the 7,547 people shaping AI (26%), led by LinkedIn (1,377), X (1,193) and GitHub (557).
  3. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Cornell University. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  4. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes Cornell University. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Abe Davis yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. The Visual Microphone: Passive Recovery of Sound from Video people.csail.mit.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Visual Vibrometry: Estimating Material Properties From Small Motion in Video openaccess.thecvf.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Abe Davis abedavis.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Abe Davis – Brown Institute brown.columbia.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Abe Davis | Cornell Bowers bowers.cornell.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Grant From Meta to Spark Cornell Research Into AR, VR tech.cornell.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Hiding secret codes in light protects against fake videos news.cornell.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Five from Cornell named 2026 Sloan Research Fellows news.cornell.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Interactive Explainable Ranking ranking.chaozhang.design. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. Abe Davis's Research Group cs.cornell.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.