PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Catherine Tong

Also known as Tong Catherine

Catherine Tong is an AI researcher whose work spans compact neural networks, wearable activity recognition and AI for drug discovery. She coauthored a binary-filter method in 2018 and IMUTube in 2020, then completed a PhD at Oxford in 2022. At Isomorphic Labs, she joined as a Research Scientist, contributed to AlphaFold 3 and was named an Innovator Under 35 for Asia Pacific in 2024. As of October 2026, she is a Senior Research Scientist, AI, at Isomorphic Labs.

Works
25
Citations
16,542
h-index
11
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2018

    Deterministic Binary Filters

    In 2018, she coauthors Deterministic Binary Filters for Convolutional Neural Networks. The method learns weighting coefficients for predefined orthogonal binary bases and uses binary precision to cut model size by up to 32 times.

  2. 2020

    IMUTube for activity recognition

    In 2020, she coauthors IMUTube, an automated pipeline that converts videos of human activity into virtual on-body IMU streams for activity-recognition models.

  3. February 2021

    Best Short Paper at W3PHAI

    In February 2021, her paper receives the runner-up Best Short Paper award at the AAAI workshop W3PHAI.

  4. 2022

    PhD research at Oxford

    She completes a PhD at Oxford in 2022 after researching human activity recognition under Nicholas Lane.

  5. 2022–2023

    Joining Isomorphic Labs

    In 2022, she joins Isomorphic Labs as a Research Scientist focused on AI-first drug design. In June 2023, she says she loves being part of the team and values its collaborative feedback.

  6. 2024

    AlphaFold 3 contributions

    In May 2024, Isomorphic Labs and Google DeepMind launch AlphaFold 3 to predict the structure and interactions of all life’s molecules. As part of Isomorphic Labs’ Machine Learning team, she contributes to its release.

  7. 2024

    Innovator Under 35

    MIT Technology Review names her an Innovator Under 35 for Asia Pacific in 2024.

  8. As of October 2026

    Senior Research Scientist at Isomorphic

    As of October 2026, she is a Senior Research Scientist, AI, at Isomorphic Labs. She describes the team’s mission as improving drug discovery through interdisciplinary work.

Career

  1. Since 2022Isomorphic LabsResearch Scientist

Education

  1. 2022University of OxfordPhD

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a companyIncludes Catherine Tong. We estimate that 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a company; 29% of moves starting at a university went to a company, and 76% ended the university role.
  2. 5 of the 25 people with the most-cited recent papers also lead on career citationsIncludes Catherine Tong. We compare citations to 2023–2025 papers with career citations and h-index, after correcting reviewed publication-date errors: who leads, when they started and where they work.
  3. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Google. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  4. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Google. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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

  1. Deterministic Binary Filters for Convolutional Neural Networks | IJCAI ijcai.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. IMUTube: Automatic Extraction of Virtual on-body Accelerometry from Video for Human Activity Recognition arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Catherine by egctong egctong.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Catherine Tong | Department of Computer Science cs.ox.ac.uk. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Catherine Tong | Innovators Under 35 innovatorsunder35.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Why I: Isomorphic Labs colleagues share what attracted them and inspires their work isomorphiclabs.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Our Tech - Isomorphic Labs isomorphiclabs.com. Checked 22 October 2026.