PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Leyuan Fang

Leyuan Fang is a Hunan University researcher whose AI work spans remote sensing and medical imaging. He earned a B.E. in electrical engineering from Hunan University of Science and Technology in 2008, pursued doctoral study at Hunan University, and held visiting and postdoctoral posts at Duke University. His work includes deep-learning systems for retinal OCT and small-vessel segmentation, a 2019 survey of hyperspectral image classification, and 2025 work on low-bit model quantization. His work on structural sparse representation for high-quality remote-sensing image restoration earned China's second-prize National Natural Science Award in 2019. As of October 2026, he is a full professor at Hunan University and serves as deputy director of the Academic Affairs Office and director of the Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center.

Timeline

  1. 2004–2013

    Electrical engineering and doctoral study

    He earns a B.E. in electrical engineering from Hunan University of Science and Technology in 2008 and studies for a Ph.D. in Hunan University's College of Electrical and Information Engineering from 2008 to 2013. He visits Duke Eye Center's Department of Ophthalmology as a visiting Ph.D. student from 2011 to 2012.

  2. 2013–2020

    Hunan University faculty and Duke postdoc

    He joins Hunan University's College of Electrical and Information Engineering as an assistant professor in 2013. He begins postdoctoral research in biomedical engineering at Duke University in August 2016, becomes an associate professor at Hunan University in 2017, and remains at Duke through September 2018. He becomes a professor in November 2019 and chair of Hunan University's Department of Automation in January 2020.

  3. 2017–2023

    Deep learning for retinal imaging

    In 2017, he coauthors CNN-GS, which combines convolutional neural networks and graph search to segment nine retinal layer boundaries in optical coherence tomography images. In 2023, he coauthors a U-Net-based system that combines local phase congruency and orientation scores to segment small retinal vessels.

  4. 2019

    Deep learning for hyperspectral classification

    In 2019, he coauthors “Deep Learning for Hyperspectral Image Classification: An Overview,” a survey that systematically reviews deep-learning methods for hyperspectral image classification.

  5. 2019

    A National Natural Science Award

    In 2019, he receives China's second-prize National Natural Science Award for contributions to structural sparse representation and high-quality remote-sensing image restoration.

  6. 2025

    Low-bit model quantization

    He coauthors “Allowing Oscillation Quantization: Overcoming Solution Space Limitation in Low Bit-Width Quantization,” a 2025 method for quantization-aware training that uses weight oscillation to explore more quantized solutions.

  7. As of October 2026

    Academic affairs deputy director

    As of October 2026, he is a full professor at Hunan University and serves as deputy director of the Academic Affairs Office and director of the Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center.

Career

  1. Since 2013Hunan UniversityAssistant Professor, Associate Professor
  2. 2016–2018Duke UniversityPostdoctoral Researcher in biomedical engineering
  3. 2011–2012Duke Eye CenterVisiting Ph.D. Student

Education

  1. 2013Hunan UniversityPh.D. study
  2. 2008Hunan University of Science and TechnologyB.E. in electrical engineering

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Hunan University. 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 Hunan University. 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. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Duke University. 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. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Duke University. 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 with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Leyuan Fang yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Leyuan.Fang - Curriculum Vitae sites.google.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Automatic segmentation of nine retinal layer boundaries in OCT images of non-exudative AMD patients using deep learning and graph search - PMC pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Improved fully convolutional neuron networks on small retinal vessel segmentation using local phase as attention - PMC pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Deep Learning for Hyperspectral Image Classification: An Overview arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Allowing Oscillation Quantization: Overcoming Solution Space Limitation in Low Bit-Width Quantization | ICCV 2025 Open Access Repository openaccess.thecvf.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. AIRSA 2026 | Speeches 2026 icairsa.net. Checked 21 October 2026.