PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Cheng-Lin Liu

Also known as 刘成林

Cheng-Lin Liu is a pattern-recognition researcher whose work focuses on character recognition and document analysis. He studied engineering and pattern recognition in China, held postdoctoral posts in Korea and Japan, and worked at Hitachi before joining the National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition in 2005. His research includes a 2000 paper on confidence-based candidate selection for large character sets and a 2016 benchmark study of handwritten Chinese character recognition. He received the IAPR/ICDAR Young Investigator Award in 2005 and became an IAPR Fellow in 2012. As of October 2026, he is a professor and vice president at the Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice dean of UCAS's School of Artificial Intelligence.

Works
633
Citations
23,543
h-index
63
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1989–1995

    Engineering and pattern recognition

    He earns a B.Sc. in electronic engineering at Wuhan University in 1989, a master's degree at Beijing Polytechnic University in 1992, and a Ph.D. in pattern recognition and intelligent control at the Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1995.

  2. 1996–1999

    Postdoctoral research in Korea and Japan

    He holds postdoctoral appointments at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology from March 1996 to March 1999.

  3. 1999–2004

    Hitachi research and character selection

    He joins Hitachi's Central Research Laboratory in 1999 and becomes a senior researcher there in 2002. In 2000, he and Masaki Nakagawa publish a paper on confidence-based candidate selection for large character sets.

  4. Since 2005

    Professor at NLPR

    He joins the National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition (NLPR) as a professor in 2005 and focuses his research on character recognition and document analysis.

  5. 2005

    An IAPR/ICDAR award

    In 2005, he receives the IAPR/ICDAR Young Investigator Award.

  6. 2012

    IAPR Fellowship

    In 2012, IAPR names him a Fellow for contributions to character recognition and document analysis, and for service to the association.

  7. 2016

    A handwritten Chinese benchmark

    In 2016, Xu-Yao Zhang, Yoshua Bengio and Cheng-Lin Liu publish a comprehensive study and new benchmark for online and offline handwritten Chinese character recognition.

  8. As of October 2026

    Vice president and vice dean

    As of October 2026, he is a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems, vice president of the Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and vice dean of UCAS's School of Artificial Intelligence.

Career

  1. Since 2016University of Chinese Academy of SciencesVice Dean
  2. Since 2005Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of SciencesProfessor
  3. Since 2002Chinese Academy of SciencesVice President
  4. 2024–2026ShanghaiTech University
  5. 2019–2023Donghua University
  6. 2019–2024University of Science and Technology of China
  7. 2015–2021Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology
  8. 2011–2025East China University of Science and Technology
  9. 1999–2004HitachiSenior researcher
  10. 1996–1999KAISTPostdoctoral researcher
  11. 1996–1999Tokyo University of Agriculture and TechnologyPostdoctoral researcher

Education

  1. 1995Chinese Academy of SciencesPh.D. in pattern recognition and intelligent control
  2. 1992Beijing Polytechnic UniversityMaster's degree
  3. 1989Wuhan UniversityB.Sc. in electronic engineering

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

Most-cited works

  1. Action recognition by dense trajectories2011 · 2,180 citationsWith Cordelia Schmid
  2. Dense Trajectories and Motion Boundary Descriptors for Action Recognition2013 · International Journal of Computer Vision · 1,669 citationsWith Cordelia Schmid
  3. Vehicle Detection in Satellite Images by Hybrid Deep Convolutional Neural Networks2014 · IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters · 622 citations
  4. Practical Block-Wise Neural Network Architecture Generation2018 · IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · 553 citations
  5. Handwritten digit recognition: benchmarking of state-of-the-art techniques2003 · Pattern Recognition · 543 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Chinese Academy of Sciences. Our estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers rose from 2% to 32%Includes Chinese Academy of Sciences. We estimate where leading AI researchers worked when their most-cited papers appeared. The company share rose from 2% in 1975–1979 to 32% in 2020–2024.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Chinese Academy of Sciences. Our estimates of combined and median h-index at AI organizations, using current affiliations and OpenAlex records.
  4. Stanford University trained or employed 26 of the 108 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Stanford University trained or employed 26 of the 108 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and employment links for major-prize and best-paper winners.

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 Cheng-Lin Liu yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Cheng-Lin Liu (刘成林) PhD nlpr.ia.ac.cn. Checked 18 October 2026.
  2. 刘成林-中国科学院大学-UCAS people.ucas.edu.cn. Checked 18 October 2026.
  3. Chronological List of IAPR Fellows – International Association for Pattern Recognition iapr.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  4. Online and Offline Handwritten Chinese Character Recognition: A Comprehensive Study and New Benchmark arxiv.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  5. CEII 2026 ceii.asia. Checked 18 October 2026.