PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Iasonas Kokkinos

Also known as Iason Kokkinos

Iasonas Kokkinos is a computer-vision researcher whose work spans semantic image segmentation, dense human pose estimation and 3D reconstruction. After earning engineering and doctoral degrees at NTUA and serving on the faculty of École Centrale Paris, he worked as a Research Scientist at Facebook AI Research and coauthored DeepLab, UberNet and DensePose. In 2018, he left FAIR to co-found the augmented reality startup Ariel AI as Chief Executive, and after Snap acquired the company in 2021, he led Snap's Human3D team and coauthored To The Point and MeshPose. A recipient of a 2026 ICBS Frontiers of Science Award for DeepLab, he is an Associate Professor in Computing at Imperial College London, where he researches human-centric physical intelligence.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 2001–2016

    NTUA, UCLA and École Centrale

    He earns a D.Eng. at NTUA in 2001, completes a PhD there in 2006, and works as a postdoc at UCLA until 2008. He then joins the faculty of École Centrale Paris, where he stays until 2016, and obtains a Habilitation (HDR) from University Paris-Est in 2013.

  2. 2016–2018

    DeepLab and Facebook AI Research

    In 2016, he coauthors DeepLab, which uses atrous convolution and a fully connected conditional random field for semantic image segmentation. From 2016 to 2018, he works as a Research Scientist at Facebook AI Research (FAIR).

  3. 2017–2018

    UberNet and DensePose

    At CVPR 2017, he publishes UberNet, an end-to-end convolutional neural network that jointly handles low-, mid- and high-level vision tasks in a unified architecture. At CVPR 2018, he coauthors DensePose, which establishes dense correspondences between RGB-image pixels and a surface-based representation of the human body for dense human pose estimation.

  4. 2018–2021

    Co-founding Ariel AI

    In 2018, he leaves FAIR to co-found the London startup Ariel AI as Chief Executive alongside CTO George Papandreou, focusing on real-time monocular human reconstruction for augmented reality. Snap acquires Ariel AI in 2021 to expand Snapchat's augmented reality features.

  5. 2020–2024

    Leading Snap's Human3D team

    From 2020 to 2024, he leads the Human3D team at Snap, helping deliver full-body augmented reality experiences to hundreds of millions of Snapchat users.

  6. 2021–2024

    To The Point and MeshPose

    In 2021, he coauthors To The Point with Filippos Kokkinos, a method for reconstructing 3D objects from a single image with weakly supervised 2D-to-3D correspondences. At CVPR 2024, he coauthors MeshPose, which uses weak DensePose supervision to localize mesh vertices in 2D and lift them into a low-poly 3D body mesh for real-time AR.

  7. 2026

    ICBS Frontiers of Science Award

    In 2026, Kokkinos and his DeepLab coauthors receive the Frontiers of Science Award from the International Congress for Basic Science.

  8. Since 2026

    Associate Professor at Imperial

    After serving as an Associate Professor at University College London, he joins Imperial College London in September 2026 as an Associate Professor in Computing in the Department of Computing. At Imperial, he researches human-centric physical intelligence and supervises work in human-centric robot learning.

Career

  1. NowImperial College LondonAssociate Professor in Computing
  2. Until 2026University College LondonAssociate Professor
  3. 2020–2024SnapTeam Lead
  4. 2018–2021Ariel AICEO, Chief Executive
  5. Until 2016École Centrale ParisFaculty Member
  6. Until 2008University of California, Los AngelesPostdoctoral Researcher
  7. FAIR (Meta)Research Scientist

Education

  1. 2013University Paris-EstHabilitation
  2. 2006National Technical University of AthensPhD
  3. 2001National Technical University of AthensD.Eng.

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 Iasonas Kokkinos. 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 Imperial College London. 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 Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Imperial College London. 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.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Imperial College London. 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 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 Iasonas Kokkinos yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. [Archimedes Talks Series] Learning-based 3D understanding of deformable objects using weak and self-supervision archimedesai.gr. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. DeepLab: Semantic Image Segmentation with Deep Convolutional Nets, Atrous Convolution, and Fully Connected CRFs arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Iasonas Kokkinos jkokkin.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. UberNet: Training a Universal Convolutional Neural Network for Low-, Mid-, and High-Level Vision Using Diverse Datasets and Limited Memory openaccess.thecvf.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. DensePose: Dense Human Pose Estimation in the Wild openaccess.thecvf.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Snap Buys UK Tech Startup Ariel AI, Signaling Push Into AR pymnts.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Snap acquires Ariel AI to boost Snapchat augmented reality features cnbc.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. To The Point: Correspondence-driven monocular 3D category reconstruction arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. MeshPose: Unifying DensePose and 3D Body Mesh Reconstruction openaccess.thecvf.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  10. Yuille Team Receives 2026 ICBS Frontiers of Science Award (CCVL, Johns Hopkins) ccvl.jhu.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  11. Iasonas Kokkinos | alphaXiv alphaxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  12. People | Faculty of Engineering | Imperial College London imperial.ac.uk. Checked 22 October 2026.
  13. Scholarships | Faculty of Engineering | Imperial College London imperial.ac.uk. Checked 22 October 2026.