PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Laurent Itti

Laurent Itti studies visual attention, and his 1998 saliency-based model, co-written with Koch and Niebur, appeared in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence. As of October 2026, he is a full professor of computer science, psychology and neuroscience at the University of Southern California. Caltech granted him a PhD in computation and neural systems in 2000, after a master's degree in image processing in Paris in 1994. In 2006, he and Pierre Baldi published 'Bayesian Surprise Attracts Human Attention' in Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems. In September 2010, he was named to direct a $16 million smart vision project.

Works
362
Citations
41,100
h-index
62

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1970–1994

    A master's in image processing

    He is born in Tours, France, in 1970 and earns a master's degree in image processing from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications in Paris in 1994.

  2. 1998

    A saliency model of attention

    In 1998, he, C. Koch and E. Niebur publish a saliency-based model of visual attention in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

  3. 2000

    A doctorate at Caltech

    He completes a PhD in computation and neural systems at Caltech in 2000.

  4. 2006

    A paper on Bayesian surprise

    In 2006, he and Pierre Baldi publish 'Bayesian Surprise Attracts Human Attention' in Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems.

  5. 2010

    A most-cited paper award

    In 2010, Elsevier's Vision Research journal gives Itti and Baldi a top-10 most cited recent paper award for a 2009 article.

  6. September 2010

    A $16 million smart vision project

    In September 2010, he is named to direct a $16 million smart vision project.

  7. December 2013

    Promotion to full professor

    Promotion to full professor comes in December 2013.

  8. As of October 2026

    Full professor at USC

    As of October 2026, he is a full professor of computer science, psychology and neuroscience at the University of Southern California.

Sources and credits

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  1. Laurent Itti - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  2. Laurent Itti - Viterbi Faculty Directory viterbi.usc.edu. Checked 15 October 2026.
  3. A Model of Saliency-Based Visual Attention for Rapid Scene Analysis ilab.usc.edu. Checked 15 October 2026.
  4. Laurent Itti - C-BRIC, Purdue University engineering.purdue.edu. Checked 15 October 2026.
  5. USC computer scientist to direct $16 million smart vision project rdworldonline.com. Checked 15 October 2026.
  6. Laurent Itti's Home Page ilab.usc.edu. Checked 15 October 2026.