PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Manolis Savva

Manolis Savva is a computer scientist at Simon Fraser University whose 3D datasets and simulation tools help train AI systems to understand indoor spaces. Trained in physics and computer science at Cornell, he completed a Stanford PhD under Pat Hanrahan in 2016 and coauthored the ShapeNet, ScanNet and Matterport3D collections of 3D objects and scenes. After a Princeton postdoc and a visiting post at Facebook AI Research, he released Habitat in 2019, a platform for training virtual robots in highly efficient photorealistic 3D simulation that earned an ICCV best paper nomination. His study of blind navigation agents with Erik Wijmans, Dhruv Batra and others won an ICLR 2023 Outstanding Paper Award. He is an associate professor in SFU's School of Computing Science and holds a Canada Research Chair in Computer Graphics.

Works
130
Citations
19,286
h-index
41
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. By 2011

    ReVision at Stanford

    After an undergraduate degree in physics and computer science at Cornell, he studies for a PhD at Stanford under Pat Hanrahan. In 2011, ReVision, his system for automated classification, analysis and redesign of chart images, wins an ACM UIST Notable Paper Award; his coauthors include Maneesh Agrawala, Jeffrey Heer and Li Fei-Fei.

  2. 2015–2018

    The ShapeNet repository

    In December 2015, he and coauthors including Angel X. Chang, Thomas Funkhouser, Leonidas Guibas and Pat Hanrahan present ShapeNet, a richly annotated repository of 3D CAD models organized under the WordNet taxonomy, with more than 3,000,000 models indexed. ShapeNet receives the SGP 2018 dataset award.

  3. 2016–2017

    Princeton, ScanNet and Matterport3D

    He graduates from Stanford in September 2016 and moves to Princeton as a postdoctoral research associate in the university's Computer Graphics and Vision Labs. In 2017, he coauthors ScanNet, an RGB-D video dataset of 2.5M views in 1513 annotated indoor scenes, and Matterport3D, which holds 194,400 RGB-D images of 90 building-scale scenes.

  4. 2018–2019

    The Habitat platform

    He joins Facebook AI Research in Menlo Park as a visiting researcher in July 2018. In February 2019, he releases the AI Habitat platform for training embodied agents such as virtual robots in highly efficient photorealistic 3D simulation. As first author of the Habitat paper, he shares in its ICCV best paper nomination in 2019.

  5. 2019–2020

    Joining Simon Fraser University

    He starts at Simon Fraser University in January 2019. ScanNet receives the SGP 2020 dataset award, and in December 2020 he is appointed Canada Research Chair in Computer Graphics.

  6. May 2022

    A CHCCS early-career award

    In May 2022, he receives the CHCCS Early-Career Researcher Award for contributions to computer graphics, 3D sensing and machine learning. His research helps train AI systems to understand the 3D structure of living spaces and how people interact with objects in them.

  7. 2023

    Maps in blind navigation agents

    With Erik Wijmans, Irfan Essa, Stefan Lee, Ari Morcos and Dhruv Batra, he coauthors "Emergence of Maps in the Memories of Blind Navigation Agents," which wins an ICLR 2023 Outstanding Paper Award. The paper trains AI navigation agents that sense only their own motion and finds that they navigate new environments with about 95% success.

  8. Since May 2024

    Associate professor at SFU

    In May 2024, he is tenured and promoted to associate professor at SFU, where he chairs the School of Computing Science's graduate program committee and holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Computer Graphics. In March 2026, he serves as general chair of the 3DV 2026 conference in Vancouver. Named among the 2025 CS-CAN|INFO-CAN award recipients, he receives its Early Career Research Award in May 2026.

Career

  1. Since 2019Simon Fraser UniversityAssociate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Computer Graphics
  2. From 2018FAIR (Meta)Visiting Researcher
  3. 2016–2017Princeton UniversityPostdoctoral Research Associate

Education

  1. 2016Stanford UniversityPhD
  2. Cornell UniversityUndergraduate degree

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. ScanNet: Richly-Annotated 3D Reconstructions of Indoor Scenes2017 · IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · 4,329 citationsWith Matthias Nießner
  2. ShapeNet: An Information-Rich 3D Model Repository2015 · 2,330 citationsWith Shuran Song and Silvio Savarese
  3. Matterport3D: Learning from RGB-D Data in Indoor Environments2017 · International Conference on 3D Vision (3DV) · 1,855 citationsWith Shuran Song
  4. Semantic Scene Completion from a Single Depth Image2017 · IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · 1,241 citationsWith Shuran Song
  5. Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Research2019 · IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) · 1,231 citationsWith Devi Parikh, Dhruv Batra, Jitendra Malik and Vladlen Koltun

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Manolis Savva. 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. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes Stanford University. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Simon Fraser 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.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Simon Fraser 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.

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 Manolis Savva yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Manolis Savva msavva.github.io. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. NUS School of Computing Calendar of Events events.comp.nus.edu.sg. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. [1512.03012] ShapeNet: An Information-Rich 3D Model Repository arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Manolis Savva msavva.github.io. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. [1702.04405] ScanNet: Richly-annotated 3D Reconstructions of Indoor Scenes arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. [1709.06158] Matterport3D: Learning from RGB-D Data in Indoor Environments arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. [1904.01201] Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Research arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Two computing science professors receive computer graphics awards from CHCCS - School of Computing Science - Simon Fraser University sfu.ca. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. ICLR 2023 Awards iclr.cc. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. Faculty - School of Computing Science - Simon Fraser University sfu.ca. Checked 20 October 2026.
  11. Announcing the 2025 CS-CAN|INFO-CAN Award Recipients – CS-CAN | INFOCAN cscan-infocan.ca. Checked 20 October 2026.