PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Dan Cireşan

Also known as Dan Claudiu Cireșan, Dan Ciresan

Dan Cireşan is an AI researcher whose GPU-based deep neural networks advanced visual recognition across handwriting, traffic signs, biological images and forest trails. During his 2008 PhD at Politehnica University of Timișoara, he used CUDA to develop convolutional networks. At IDSIA, DanNet helped win computer-vision contests, and his work advanced handwriting recognition, neuronal-membrane segmentation, mitosis detection and robot navigation. In 2017, he said he planned to leave IDSIA and focus on a startup.

Works
45
Citations
16,820
h-index
24

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2008

    PhD experiments with CUDA

    In 2008, during the final year of his PhD at Politehnica University of Timișoara, he runs neural-network experiments on 20 computers for his thesis. That summer, he optimizes CUDA code that begins a large convolutional deep neural network.

  2. 2011

    DanNet wins vision contests

    DanNet becomes the first CNN to win computer-vision contests in 2011. His IDSIA team reaches better-than-human performance in the German traffic-sign benchmark at IJCNN 2011.

  3. 2011

    Handwritten digit recognition

    He coauthors Handwritten Digit Recognition with a Committee of Deep Neural Nets on GPUs, which reports a 0.31% error rate on MNIST using a committee of multilayer perceptrons.

  4. 2012

    Multi-column image classification

    In 2012, he coauthors Multi-column Deep Neural Networks for Image Classification. The model reaches near-human performance on MNIST and outperforms humans by a factor of two on traffic-sign recognition.

  5. 2012–2013

    Segmenting neurons and mitoses

    At IDSIA, he and Alessandro Giusti use deep neural networks to segment neuronal structures in electron-microscopy stacks; in 2012, their team reports the only pixel-error result to outperform a human observer. In 2013, their entry in the MICCAI mitosis-detection challenge scores 26.5% higher F1 than the second-best entry.

  6. 2013

    Chinese character classification

    He and Jürgen Schmidhuber coauthor Multi-Column Deep Neural Networks for Offline Handwritten Chinese Character Classification, which reports best-known recognition rates on the ICDAR 2011 and 2013 handwriting competitions, approaching human performance.

  7. 2015

    Forest-trail visual perception

    In 2015, he coauthors A Machine Learning Approach to Visual Perception of Forest Trails for Mobile Robots, a machine-learning study of how robots perceive forest trails.

  8. 2017

    A planned startup move

    He says he will leave his position at IDSIA in February 2017 to focus on a startup.

Career

  1. Until 2017Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence Studies
  2. 2011–2015University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland
  3. 2010–2016Università della Svizzera italiana

Education

  1. 2008Politehnica University of TimisoaraPhD

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

  1. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Università della Svizzera italiana. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Università della Svizzera italiana. 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. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our 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. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIWe estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.

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 Dan Cireşan yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Dan Ciresan | CUDA Spotlight | NVIDIA nvidia.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. 2011: DanNet triggers deep CNN revolution people.idsia.ch. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Dan Claudiu Cireșan people.idsia.ch. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Handwritten Digit Recognition with a Committee of Deep Neural Nets on GPUs arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Multi-column Deep Neural Networks for Image Classification arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Multi-Column Deep Neural Networks for Offline Handwritten Chinese Character Classification arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.