Adam Harvey
Adam Harvey is a technologist whose computer-vision projects examine surveillance and support human-rights research. He earned a B.A. at Pennsylvania State University in 2001 and a master's degree at New York University in 2010; CV Dazzle and Stealth Wear tested camouflage against facial and thermal surveillance. Through VFRAME, he helped develop synthetic training data for conflict-zone object detection, while Exposing.ai traced the datasets behind face recognition; VFRAME received the 2019 Ars Electronica Award of Distinction. He coauthored a 2023 paper on detecting 9N235/9N210 cluster submunitions. As of October 2026, he is Chief Technologist at Tech 4 Tracing, applying computer vision to humanitarian detection of unexploded ordnance.
Timeline
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2001–2010
Degrees at Penn State and NYU
He earns a B.A. at Pennsylvania State University in 2001 and a master's degree at New York University in 2010.
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2010
CV Dazzle against face detection
His NYU thesis produces CV Dazzle, a camouflage strategy that targets computer-vision face-detection algorithms.
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2012–2013
Stealth Wear thermal camouflage
In 2013 he presents Stealth Wear, silver-plated garments that reflect thermal radiation to reduce overhead surveillance.
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2017
Launching VFRAME
He starts VFRAME in 2017 with Syrian Archive researchers, testing computer vision on their video archive and building a toolkit for human-rights researchers.
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2018–2019
Investigating face datasets
With Exposing.ai, he traces the origins and endpoints of photos used to train commercial face-recognition systems and builds a search engine covering millions of face photos in 2018–2019.
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2019
A 2019 Ars Electronica award
VFRAME develops synthetic training images from 3D models for object detection and receives the Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction in 2019.
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2023
Detecting cluster submunitions
He coauthors a 2023 article with Emile LeBrun describing a computer-vision workflow that uses deep convolutional neural networks to detect 9N235/9N210 cluster submunitions.
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Since 2025
Chief Technologist at Tech 4 Tracing
He joins Tech 4 Tracing as Chief Technologist in 2025 to scale computer-vision technologies. As of October 2026, he applies computer vision there to humanitarian detection of unexploded ordnance.
Career
- Since 2025Tech 4 TracingChief Technologist
- From 2017VFRAMEFounder
Education
- 2010New York UniversityMaster's degree
- 2001Pennsylvania State UniversityB.A.
Most-cited works
Sources and credits
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