PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Hedvig Kjellström

Also known as Hedvig Sidenbladh

Hedvig Kjellström, who published her early work as Hedvig Sidenbladh, is a computer vision researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology who studies how computers can interpret human and animal behavior. Her 2000 ECCV paper with Michael Black and David Fleet on tracking 3D human figures from 2D image motion won the Koenderink Prize, a test-of-time award, in 2010. After a 2001 KTH doctorate on probabilistic 3D tracking of human motion and a period at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, she returned to KTH in 2007 and by 2017 headed its Department of Robotics, Perception and Learning. Later work applied machine learning to horses, from a 2019 study that recognized pain in horse videos to DESSIE, a 3D horse motion model presented in 2025, when she also served as a CVPR program chair. She is a professor in KTH's Division of Robotics, Perception and Learning and co-PI of the Digital Futures project Humanizing the Sustainable Smart City eXtended.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 1990s

    Engineering physics at KTH

    In the early 1990s, she begins engineering physics studies at KTH, where a final course in computer vision draws her straight into a PhD in the subject. Exchange years in the US follow during her doctorate.

  2. 2000

    Tracking people in 3D

    Publishing as Hedvig Sidenbladh, she presents "Stochastic Tracking of 3D Human Figures Using 2D Image Motion" with Michael Black and David Fleet at the European Conference on Computer Vision in Dublin in June 2000; the work introduces particle filtering for tracking 3D articulated human motion. A NIPS 2000 paper with Dirk Ormoneit, Black and Trevor Hastie learns a statistical model of periodic 3D human motion and uses it as a prior for Bayesian tracking.

  3. 2001–2007

    A KTH PhD, then FOI

    She earns her PhD at KTH in 2001 with the thesis "Probabilistic Tracking and Reconstruction of 3D Human Motion in Monocular Video Sequences," advised by Jan-Olof Eklundh and Michael Black. After the doctorate, she works at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOI, and returns to KTH in 2007.

  4. 2010

    The Koenderink Prize

    Her ECCV 2000 paper with Black and Fleet wins the 2010 Koenderink Prize, given at ECCV for fundamental contributions in computer vision to a paper that has withstood the test of time.

  5. 2016–2017

    Professor and department head

    In 2016, she is one of the professors at KTH's academic ceremony, with the title Professor of Computer Science; her team builds machine learning models of how people produce non-verbal cues such as body movements, facial expressions and gaze. By September 2017, she heads KTH's Department of Robotics, Perception and Learning and is an affiliate professor in the Perceiving Systems department of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany.

  6. 2019

    Recognizing pain in horses

    Working with Sofia Broomé, Karina Bech Gleerup and Pia Haubro Andersen, she coauthors a CVPR 2019 paper on a deep recurrent two-stream network that tells pain from non-pain in videos of horses. The models surpass veterinary expert performance.

  7. 2025

    DESSIE and CVPR 2025

    She is one of the program chairs of CVPR 2025. In April 2025, KTH and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences present DESSIE, a 3D motion model she develops with Elin Hernlund that reconstructs the motion of horses from video using disentangled learning.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor at KTH

    As a professor in KTH's Division of Robotics, Perception and Learning, she studies how computers can interpret human and animal behavior, and she is co-PI of the Digital Futures project Humanizing the Sustainable Smart City eXtended. In April 2026, she coauthors a paper on a museum dome installation that lets visitors conduct a recorded symphony orchestra through gesture recognition. Karolinska Institutet lists her as a speaker on trust in AI for its Engineering the Future of Medicine conference in November 2026.

Career

  1. Since 2007KTH Royal Institute of TechnologyProfessor, Department Head
  2. From 2017Max Planck Institute for Intelligent SystemsAffiliate Professor
  3. 2001–2007Swedish Defence Research Agency

Education

  1. 2001KTH Royal Institute of TechnologyPhD

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes KTH Royal Institute of Technology. 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.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes KTH Royal Institute of Technology. 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.
  3. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes KTH Royal Institute of Technology. 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.
  4. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 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 Hedvig Kjellström yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Professor's tip: Discussion is the best route to lasting knowledge kth.se. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Michael J. Black - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Learning and Tracking Cyclic Human Motion proceedings.neurips.cc. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Hedvig Kjellström - The Mathematics Genealogy Project mathgenealogy.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. David J. Fleet: Koenderink Prize cs.toronto.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Hedvig Kjellström | KTH (Professors 2016) kth.se. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. 1st PDC-SeRC seminar – Building machines that understand human body language e-science.se. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. [1901.02106] Dynamics are Important for the Recognition of Equine Pain in Video arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  9. CVPR 2025 Organizers cvpr.thecvf.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  10. AI helps decode horse body language for better veterinary care slu.se. Checked 19 October 2026.
  11. Hedvig Kjellström | Digital Futures digitalfutures.kth.se. Checked 19 October 2026.
  12. [2604.27957] Real-Time Control of a Virtual Orchestra by Recognition of Conducting Gestures arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  13. Engineering the Future of Medicine – Methods, Models and Innovation news.ki.se. Checked 19 October 2026.