PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Efstratios Gavves

Also known as Stratis

Efstratios Gavves is a computer vision researcher at the University of Amsterdam whose work spans temporal video models, causal representations and robot learning. He earned a computer-vision PhD in 2014 and held a postdoctoral role at KU Leuven from 2014 to 2015. His work includes Dynamic Image Networks for action recognition, CITRIS causal representations and Dream to Manipulate world models; he also received an ERC Starting Grant, directed UvA’s AI bachelor’s programme and co-founded Calli Labs. As of October 2026, he is Professor of Physical AI at UvA, directs the QUVA and POP-AART labs, and is an ELLIS Scholar.

Now at
University of Amsterdam and Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
Badges

Timeline

  1. 2014–2015

    A PhD and Leuven postdoc

    He completes a PhD in computer vision at the University of Amsterdam in 2014 and holds a diploma in electrical and computer engineering. At KU Leuven, he works as a postdoctoral researcher from 2014 to 2015; his doctoral dissertation is Nuances in Visual Recognition.

  2. 2016

    Dynamic image networks

    At CVPR 2016, he coauthors Dynamic Image Networks for Action Recognition. Its rank-pooling method compresses a video’s temporal evolution into one RGB image that existing convolutional networks can process.

  3. 2020

    An ERC Starting Grant

    In 2020, the European Research Council awards him a Starting Grant for Expectational Visual Artificial Intelligence. The project studies computational learning of temporality and the interpretation of possible future visual sequences.

  4. 2022

    CITRIS causal representations

    At ICML 2022, he coauthors CITRIS, a variational autoencoder that learns causal representations from image sequences with interventions. It uses temporal structure and observed intervention targets to identify scalar and multidimensional causal factors.

  5. 2024–2025

    Directing UvA’s AI bachelor’s

    UvA elects him Programme Director of its BSc Artificial Intelligence programme in 2024. In November 2025, he discusses enrolment trends, new courses and a proposed robotics lab as the programme’s director.

  6. 2025

    Dream to Manipulate

    At ICLR 2025, he coauthors Dream to Manipulate, a compositional world model that builds digital twins with Gaussian Splatting and physics simulators. The model generates new imitation-learning data from transformed demonstrations and enables one-shot learning on a real Franka Emika Panda robot.

  7. 2025

    Co-founding Calli Labs

    In 2025, he co-founds Calli Labs and serves as its Chief Science Officer. The company builds AI tools for artists, creators and filmmakers.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor of Physical AI

    In 2026, he becomes an adviser to the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research’s strategic Computer Science board. As of October 2026, he is Professor of Physical AI at the University of Amsterdam and directs the QUVA and POP-AART labs; he is also an ELLIS Scholar in the Amsterdam unit.

Career

  1. Since 2026Netherlands Organisation for Scientific ResearchAdviser to the strategic Computer Science board
  2. Since 2024University of AmsterdamProgramme Director, BSc Artificial Intelligence
  3. From 2025Calli LabsChief Science Officer
  4. 2014–2015KU LeuvenPostdoctoral researcher

Education

  1. 2014University of AmsterdamPhD

From the biography.

  1. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Efstratios Gavves. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of Amsterdam. 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. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes University of Amsterdam. We 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.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Amsterdam. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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

  1. Efstratios Gavves | VIS Lab ivi.fnwi.uva.nl. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. CV - Cees Snoek ceessnoek.info. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. A25: Computer Vision by Learning featuring an invited tutorial by Laurens van der Maaten ceessnoek.info. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. CVPR 2016 Open Access Repository openaccess.thecvf.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Efstratios Gavves receives European Research Grant - Informatics Institute - University of Amsterdam ivi.uva.nl. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. CITRIS: Causal Identifiability from Temporal Intervened Sequences arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Efstratios Gavves — Professor of Physical AI egavves.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. One third fewer first-year students in AI and computer science – how is this possible? folia.nl. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Dream to Manipulate: Compositional World Models Empowering Robot Imitation Learning with Imagination arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Efstratios Gavves | European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems ellis.eu. Checked 21 October 2026.