PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Danfei Xu

Danfei Xu is a robotics researcher whose work helps robots learn from demonstrations, plan with language models, and transfer skills across robot types. He earned computer science degrees at Columbia and Stanford, then coauthored Neural Task Programming, DenseFusion, ProgPrompt, and Open X-Embodiment. In 2022 he joined Georgia Tech as an assistant professor while working as a research scientist at NVIDIA AI Research, and the National Science Foundation gave him a CAREER award in 2025. He is an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, a research lead at NVIDIA GEAR, and directs the Robot Learning and Reasoning Lab.

Now at
NVIDIA and Robot Learning and Reasoning Lab
Works
117
Citations
8,046
h-index
30
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2015–2021

    Columbia and Stanford degrees

    He earns a B.S. in computer science from Columbia University in 2015 and a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University in 2021.

  2. 2018

    Neural Task Programming

    In 2018, he coauthors Neural Task Programming (NTP), a framework that turns task specifications such as video demonstrations into hierarchical robot programs.

  3. 2019

    DenseFusion object poses

    In 2019, he coauthors DenseFusion, a framework that estimates the 6D poses of known objects from RGB-D images.

  4. 2022

    Georgia Tech and NVIDIA

    In 2022, he joins Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing as an assistant professor and works as a research scientist with NVIDIA AI Research.

  5. 2022

    ProgPrompt for robot plans

    In 2022, he coauthors ProgPrompt, which uses program-like prompts to generate robot task plans for specific environments, robot capabilities, and tasks.

  6. 2023

    Open X-Embodiment dataset

    In 2023, he coauthors Open X-Embodiment, a robot dataset built from 22 robots across 21 institutions, and an RT-X model that transfers experience between robots.

  7. 2025

    An NSF CAREER award

    In 2025, the National Science Foundation gives him a CAREER award for research on models that give robots on-the-job training.

  8. As of October 2026

    Assistant professor and NVIDIA GEAR lead

    As of October 2026, he is an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, a research lead at NVIDIA GEAR, and director of the Robot Learning and Reasoning Lab. His work connects robotics and machine learning. In 2026, he coauthors Human2Any, which learns reusable object-centric interaction priors from human videos for robot manipulation.

Career

  1. Since 2022Georgia Institute of TechnologyAssistant Professor
  2. Since 2022NVIDIAResearch Scientist
  3. NowRobot Learning and Reasoning LabDirector

Education

  1. 2021Stanford UniversityPh.D.
  2. 2015Columbia UniversityB.S.

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 Danfei Xu. 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. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes NVIDIA. 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.
  3. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes NVIDIA. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.
  4. Google alumni have founded or led 133 other organizations, more than any other AI labIncludes NVIDIA. We estimate that alumni of 17 major AI labs went on to found or lead 350 other organizations, including 226 they founded, and we trace 472 career moves directly between 23 labs since 2010.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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

  1. Danfei Xu | School of Interactive Computing ic.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Neural Task Programming: Learning to Generalize Across Hierarchical Tasks stanfordvl.github.io. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. DenseFusion: 6D Object Pose Estimation by Iterative Dense Fusion arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. New Faculty Q&A with Danfei Xu | College of Computing cc.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. ProgPrompt: Generating Situated Robot Task Plans using Large Language Models arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Open X-Embodiment: Robotic Learning Datasets and RT-X Models arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Two IC Faculty Receive NSF CAREER for Robotics and AR/VR Initiatives cc.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Danfei Xu faculty.cc.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Human2Any: Human-to-Robot Transfer via Constraint-Aware Compositional Planning arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.