PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Kyros Kutulakos

Also known as Kiriakos Kutulakos, Kiriakos N. Kutulakos

Kyros Kutulakos is a computer vision and computational imaging researcher, a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto and a faculty affiliate of the Vector Institute. After a computer science degree from the University of Crete in 1988, he completed a PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1994 and held appointments at the University of Rochester from 1995 to 2001. His 1999 paper with Steve Seitz, A Theory of Shape by Space Carving, won the Marr Prize at ICCV, and from 2018 his group applied machine learning to structured-light 3D imaging and neural rendering. In 2019, a theory for reconstructing the shape of objects hidden around corners won the CVPR best paper award. Passive Ultra-Wideband Single-Photon Imaging brought him a second Marr Prize in 2023.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 1988–1994

    Degrees at Crete and Wisconsin

    He earns a BS in computer science at the University of Crete in 1988 and a PhD in computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1994. His dissertation, Exploring Objects by Controlling the Point of Observation, is advised by Charles Robert Dyer, and he wins the CVPR best student paper award in 1994.

  2. 1995–2001

    Appointments at Rochester

    He holds appointments at the University of Rochester from 1995 to 2001. In 2001, he receives a Sloan Research Fellowship.

  3. 1999

    Space carving and a Marr Prize

    With Steve Seitz, he introduces a mathematical framework for how a set of photos of a scene determines its 3D shape, along with an algorithm called Space Carving. Their paper A Theory of Shape by Space Carving wins the 1999 David Marr Prize, given to the best paper at ICCV.

  4. 2003–2013

    Program co-chair of CVPR and ICCV

    He serves as program co-chair of CVPR in 2003, of the International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP) in 2010 and of ICCV in 2013. He also holds appointments at Microsoft Research Asia from 2004 to 2005 and from 2011 to 2012, and he earns a Marr Prize honorable mention at ICCV in 2005.

  5. 2017–2019

    A CVPR best paper on Fermat paths

    In 2017, his paper Computational Imaging on the Electric Grid, which shows that everyday cameras can measure properties of the electrical grid, wins the CVPR best student paper award. In 2019, he and coauthors Shumian Xin, Sotiris Nousias, Aswin Sankaranarayanan, Srinivasa Narasimhan and Ioannis Gkioulekas win the CVPR best paper award for A Theory of Fermat Paths for Non-Line-of-Sight Shape Reconstruction, which infers the shape of objects concealed by corners.

  6. 2018–2023

    Machine learning for 3D imaging

    In a May 2018 keynote at ICCP, Rethinking structured light, he outlines adaptive systems that learn on their own how to control their light sources and sensors. His group's machine-learning work for structured-light 3D imaging includes Auto-tuning Structured Light by Optical SGD at CVPR 2020, and its neural rendering work includes Transient Neural Radiance Fields for Lidar View Synthesis at NeurIPS 2023.

  7. 2023

    A second Marr Prize

    With Mian Wei, Sotiris Nousias, Rahul Gulve and David Lindell, he wins the ICCV 2023 Marr Prize for Passive Ultra-Wideband Single-Photon Imaging, which records video that can be played back at 30 Hz for everyday motion or a billion times slower to show light propagating. In December 2023, he receives a Dean's Research Excellence Award from U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor at Toronto and Vector

    He is a professor in the University of Toronto's Department of Computer Science and a faculty affiliate of the Vector Institute. His current work harnesses single-photon cameras and programmable-pixel image sensors for extreme computer vision and scientific imaging, which he presents as The Ultimate Video Camera in a Northwestern distinguished lecture in November 2024 and at Japan's National Institute of Informatics in December 2025.

Career

  1. NowUniversity of TorontoProfessor
  2. NowVector InstituteFaculty affiliate
  3. 2004–2012Microsoft Research Asia
  4. 1995–2001University of Rochester

Education

  1. 1994University of Wisconsin–MadisonPhD in computer science
  2. 1988University of CreteBS in computer science

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Kyros Kutulakos. 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.
  2. 23% of people shaping AI who left a university for a company later returned to a universityIncludes Kyros Kutulakos. We estimate that 468 of the 2,011 people shaping AI who left a university for a company (23%) later returned to a university after a median of 5 years, and 163 of 829 (20%) made the reverse round trip.
  3. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of Toronto. 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.
  4. Of 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google, 446 work there nowIncludes Vector Institute. 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.

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 Kyros Kutulakos yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Keynote | ICCP 2018 iccp2018.ece.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Kiriakos Kutulakos - The Mathematics Genealogy Project mathgenealogy.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Kyros Kutulakos' Home Page cs.toronto.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Transport-Aware Cameras - EPFL memento.epfl.ch. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Kyros Kutulakos wins 2023 Dean’s Research Excellence Award web.cs.toronto.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Vector Faculty Affiliate wins top honours at CVPR 2019 vectorinstitute.ai. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Passive Ultra-Wideband Single-Photon Imaging dgp.toronto.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Kyros Kutulakos - Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence vectorinstitute.ai. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Talk on "The Ultimate Video Camera" by Prof. Kyros kutulakos - National Institute of Informatics nii.ac.jp. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. CS Distinguished Lecture: The Ultimate Video Camera (Kyros Kutulakos) 11/18/2024: Northwestern Events Calendar planitpurple.northwestern.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.