PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jonathan Ho

Jonathan Ho is a machine learning researcher whose 2020 paper Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models outlined an image generation method that helped provide the foundation for many models today. They began in robot learning at Berkeley, coauthored Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning with Stefano Ermon in 2016, and finished a Berkeley PhD under Pieter Abbeel in 2020. A research scientist position at Google Brain in Amsterdam followed; in 2022, they were among the authors of Imagen, which NeurIPS 2022 named an Outstanding Paper, and they published Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance with Tim Salimans. Also in 2022, Ho co-founded the text-to-image company Ideogram with Mohammad Norouzi, William Chan and Chitwan Saharia, and the company raised $80 million in February 2024.

Now at
Ideogram
Badges

Timeline

  1. 2013–2014

    Robot learning at Berkeley

    As a member of Berkeley's Robot Learning Lab, they coauthor robotics papers with John Schulman and Pieter Abbeel in 2013, among them a method for finding collision-free trajectories by sequential convex optimization. In 2014, they leave Berkeley EECS for a computer science PhD at Stanford.

  2. 2016

    Generative adversarial imitation learning

    In 2016, they present Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning with Stefano Ermon at NeurIPS, and a model-free imitation learning method with Ermon and Jayesh K. Gupta at ICML.

  3. May 2020

    Berkeley PhD and Google Brain

    They complete a computer science PhD at Berkeley in May 2020, advised by Pieter Abbeel, with a thesis titled Deep Generative Models: Imitation Learning, Image Synthesis, and Compression. A research scientist position at Google Brain in Amsterdam follows.

  4. 2020

    Denoising diffusion probabilistic models

    In 2020, they are lead author, with Ajay Jain and Pieter Abbeel, of Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models at NeurIPS. The paper reports a state-of-the-art FID score of 3.17 on unconditional CIFAR10, and the image generation method it outlines helps provide the foundation for many models today.

  5. 2022

    An Outstanding Paper for Imagen

    In May 2022, they appear among the authors of Imagen, a text-to-image diffusion model that reaches a state-of-the-art FID score of 7.27 on the COCO dataset. NeurIPS 2022 lists the paper, Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding, as an Outstanding Paper.

  6. 2022

    Classifier-free diffusion guidance

    In July 2022, they and Tim Salimans post Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance on arXiv, following a short version at a NeurIPS 2021 workshop. The method jointly trains a conditional and an unconditional diffusion model and combines their score estimates to trade off sample quality and diversity.

  7. 2022–2023

    Co-founding Ideogram

    In 2022, they co-found Ideogram with Mohammad Norouzi, William Chan and Chitwan Saharia; all four founders spent time at Google Brain and worked as researchers on Imagen. Ideogram releases its first model, 0.1, in August 2023.

  8. February 2024

    Ideogram's $80 million raise

    In February 2024, Ideogram raises $80 million after releasing its 1.0 model, and Redpoint invests in its Series A in 2024.

Career

  1. From 2022IdeogramCo-founder
  2. From 2020Google BrainResearch Scientist
  3. 2013–2014University of California, BerkeleyMember

Education

  1. 2020University of California, BerkeleyPhD
  2. From 2014Stanford UniversityPhD

From the biography.

  1. Google alumni have founded or led 133 other organizations, more than any other AI labIncludes Jonathan Ho. 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.
  2. Of 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google, 446 work there nowIncludes Jonathan Ho. Our estimates of where the 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google and Google DeepMind work now: 446 at Google and 452 across 278 other organizations.
  3. 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a companyIncludes Jonathan Ho. 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.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Jonathan Ho. 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.

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 Jonathan Ho yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Jonathan Ho cs.stanford.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. UC Berkeley Robot Learning Lab: People rll.berkeley.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Toronto startup Ideogram launches image generator as interest in AI tools shows signs of slowdown - The Globe and Mail theglobeandmail.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. NeurIPS 2022 Awards neurips.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Ideogram (text-to-image model) - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Ideogram | Redpoint Ventures redpoint.com. Checked 21 October 2026.