Song-Chun Zhu
Also known as S.-C. Zhu, S.C. Zhu, Songchun Zhu, Song‐Chun Zhu, 朱松纯
Song-Chun Zhu is a computer-vision researcher whose image-parsing work unifies segmentation, detection and recognition. He earns degrees at the University of Science and Technology of China and Harvard, then holds faculty posts at Stanford, Ohio State and UCLA. His 2003 image-parsing paper won the ICCV Marr Prize, and IAPR gave him the 2008 Aggarwal Prize for work on visual-pattern modeling. In 2020, he takes a directorship at BIGAI and chair professorships at Peking and Tsinghua; in 2025, he coauthors The Tong Test on general-intelligence evaluation. As of October 2026, he is BIGAI's founding director and dean of Peking University's School of Intelligence Science and Technology.
- Now at
- Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, Peking University and Tsinghua University
- Works
- 621
- Citations
- 26,477
- h-index
- 72
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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1991–1997
Studying vision and mathematics
He earns a BS at the University of Science and Technology of China in 1991. Harvard awards him an MS in 1994 and a PhD in 1996; he then works in applied mathematics at Brown and lectures in computer science at Stanford.
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1998–2006
From Ohio to UCLA
At Ohio State, he becomes an assistant professor in 1998. He joins UCLA as an associate professor in 2002, then becomes a professor of statistics and computer science in 2006.
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2003
Parsing images in one model
His 2003 paper, Image Parsing: Unifying Segmentation, Detection and Recognition, joins segmentation, detection and recognition in one image-parsing framework. ICCV awarded it the Marr Prize.
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2008
A prize for visual models
The International Association for Pattern Recognition gives him its Aggarwal Prize for a unified foundation for visual-pattern conceptualization, modeling, learning and inference.
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2020
Taking an AI institute role
He becomes director of the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence. He also becomes a chair professor at Peking University and Tsinghua University and directs Peking University's Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
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2025
Testing general intelligence
He coauthors The Tong Test, a 2025 book on evaluating artificial general intelligence through dynamic embodied, physical and social interactions.
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As of October 2026
Leading AI in Beijing
He serves as founding director of BIGAI and dean of Peking University's School of Intelligence Science and Technology. He also holds chair professorships at Peking University and Tsinghua University.
Sources and credits
Photo: 中国新闻社, via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY 4.0. Source: commons.wikimedia.org. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.
