PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Alec Jacobson

Alec Jacobson is a computer scientist whose geometry-processing research includes neural methods for 3D shapes. He earned degrees in mathematics and computer science at NYU's Courant Institute, completed a computer science PhD at ETH Zurich, and held postdoctoral roles at ETH Zurich and Columbia. He helped develop libigl and joined the University of Toronto faculty as an assistant professor in 2016; he became Canada Research Chair in Geometry Processing in 2017 and a tenured associate professor in 2022. He received the ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award in 2020 and a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2022. As of October 2026, he is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair at Toronto and a Faculty Member at Vector; in 2026, he coauthored GimmBO, which won the ACM SIGGRAPH North America Best Paper Award.

Links
Website

Timeline

  1. 2009–2014

    Degrees at NYU and ETH

    He earns a BA with a joint major in mathematics and computer science at NYU's Courant Institute in 2009 and an MA in computer science there in 2011. He completes a computer science PhD at ETH Zurich in 2013 with a thesis on real-time deformation of 2D and 3D shapes. Eurographics gives his thesis its 2014 Best PhD Thesis award.

  2. 2013–2016

    Postdoctoral work at ETH and Columbia

    He holds postdoctoral fellowships in the computer science departments at ETH Zurich in 2013–2014 and Columbia University in 2014–2016.

  3. 2015

    The libigl geometry library

    He shares the 2015 SGP Software Award for libigl, a C++ geometry-processing library.

  4. 2016–2022

    Toronto professorship and geometry chair

    He joins the University of Toronto as an assistant professor in 2016, becomes Canada Research Chair in Geometry Processing in 2017, and earns tenure as an associate professor in 2022.

  5. 2020–2022

    Neural fields and career awards

    He receives the ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award in 2020. In 2022, he coauthors “Learning Smooth Neural Functions via Lipschitz Regularization,” which introduces a regularizer to encourage smooth latent spaces in neural fields for 3D shapes. He also receives a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2022.

  6. October 2025

    Joining Vector's faculty

    In October 2025, he becomes a Faculty Member at the Vector Institute.

  7. 2026

    GimmBO and generative image merging

    In 2026, he coauthors GimmBO, a paper on interactive generative image-model merging that wins the ACM SIGGRAPH North America Best Paper Award.

  8. As of October 2026

    Toronto professor and Vector faculty

    As of October 2026, he is an associate professor of computer science and mathematics and a Canada Research Chair in Geometry Processing at the University of Toronto. He is also a Faculty Member at the Vector Institute.

Career

  1. Since 2025Vector InstituteFaculty Member
  2. Since 2016University of TorontoAssistant Professor, Canada Research Chair in Geometry Processing
  3. 2014–2016Columbia UniversityPostdoctoral Fellow
  4. 2013–2014ETH ZurichPostdoctoral Fellow

Education

  1. 2013ETH ZurichPhD in computer science
  2. 2011Courant Institute of Mathematical SciencesMA in computer science
  3. 2009Courant Institute of Mathematical SciencesBA

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 Alec Jacobson. 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. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of Toronto. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  3. Of 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google, 446 work there nowIncludes Vector Institute. Our estimates of where the 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google and Google DeepMind work now: 446 at Google and 452 across 278 other organizations.
  4. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes University of Toronto. 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 with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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

  1. Alec Jacobson Curriculum Vitæ cs.toronto.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Young Researcher Award 2017 – Alec Jacobson – Eurographics eg.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Geometry Processing Awards awards.geometryprocessing.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Closing the Gap in Neural Implicit Representations With ‘Spelunking the Deep’ blog.siggraph.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Learning Smooth Neural Functions via Lipschitz Regularization arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Sloan Research Fellowships awarded to David Duvenaud and Alec Jacobson web.cs.toronto.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Vector Institute names 13 new Faculty Members, expanding core research leadership across Ontario vectorinstitute.ai. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Alec Jacobson cs.toronto.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. AI Research Team | Vector Institute vectorinstitute.ai. Checked 20 October 2026.