Alex Dimakis

Also known as Alexandros G. Dimakis

Alex Dimakis is a UC Berkeley professor who studies generative AI, information theory and machine learning. He earned an engineering diploma in Athens in 2003 and a Berkeley PhD in 2008 before taking posts at Caltech, USC and UT Austin. His 2017 paper with Ashish Bora, Ajil Jalal and Eric Price used generative models to recover signals from limited measurements. At UT Austin, he became co-director of a national AI institute in 2020 and directed the new Center for Generative AI in 2024. A co-founder of Bespoke Labs, he coauthored OpenThoughts in 2025, which released datasets and models for AI reasoning.

Now at: University of California, Berkeley and Bespoke Labs
Works: 306
Citations: 18,827
h-index: 59
Badges: Founder

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

2003–2008

Degrees in Athens and Berkeley

He earns a diploma in electrical and computer engineering at the National Technical University of Athens in 2003. In 2008, he completes a PhD in electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley.
2008–2013

Caltech, USC and UT Austin

From 2008 to 2009, he works as a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech. He becomes a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Southern California in 2009 and joins UT Austin's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in January 2013.
2017

Compressed sensing with generative models

In 2017, he coauthors "Compressed Sensing using Generative Models" with Ashish Bora, Ajil Jalal and Eric Price at ICML. The work uses generative models to recover signals from noisy linear measurements and tests the method with variational autoencoders and generative adversarial networks.
2018

The James L. Massey Award

In 2018, he receives the IEEE Information Theory Society's James L. Massey Award for work on coding for distributed storage, content caching and decentralized erasure codes, and for his teaching.
2020

Co-directing a national AI institute

In 2020, he becomes co-director of the NSF AI Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning at UT Austin, alongside director Adam Klivans. UT Austin establishes the Machine Learning Laboratory to house the institute, which brings together researchers from UT Austin, the University of Washington, Wichita State University and Microsoft Research.
2022

An IEEE fellowship

He becomes an IEEE Fellow in 2022 for contributions to distributed coding and learning.
January 2024

Directing UT's generative AI center

In January 2024, he directs UT Austin's new Center for Generative AI as a professor in the Chandra Family Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The center is housed in the Machine Learning Laboratory and focuses on biosciences, health care, computer vision and natural language processing.
2025

OpenThoughts reasoning data

He coauthors "OpenThoughts: Data Recipes for Reasoning Models" in 2025. The project releases public training datasets and reasoning models, including OpenThinker2-32B and OpenThoughts3-7B.
Since 2025

Professor at Berkeley

He joins UC Berkeley's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences as a professor in 2025. As of October 2026, his research includes generative AI, information theory and machine learning. He is also a co-founder of Bespoke Labs, a startup focused on data curation and data-centric AI.

Career

Since 2025University of California, BerkeleyProfessor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
NowBespoke LabsCo-founder
From 2024University of Texas at AustinDirector, Center for Generative AI
From 2020University of Texas at AustinCo-director, NSF AI Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning
From 2013University of Texas at AustinElectrical and Computer Engineering Faculty
From 2009University of Southern CaliforniaAssistant Professor
2008–2009California Institute of TechnologyPostdoctoral Researcher