PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Vittorio Ferrari

Vittorio Ferrari is a principal research scientist at Meta Reality Labs, where he works on realistic avatars for wearable devices. He received a PhD from ETH Zurich in 2004, then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at INRIA Grenoble and the University of Oxford, and was an assistant professor at ETH Zurich from 2008 to 2012. Between January 2012 and October 2019 he led the CALVIN research group at the University of Edinburgh. In 2012 he received an ERC Starting Grant and the best paper award at the European Conference in Computer Vision, and in April 2018 he announced Open Images V4 at Google, with 15.4 million bounding boxes. He was a full professor at the University of Edinburgh, served as program chair for ECCV 2018 and general chair for ECCV 2020, and from 2023 to 2025 he was director of science at Synthesia.

Now at
Meta
Works
319
Citations
32,661
h-index
67

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 17 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2004–2012

    A doctorate and ETH Zurich

    He receives a PhD from ETH Zurich in 2004. Postdoctoral research takes him to INRIA Grenoble in 2006–2007 and the University of Oxford in 2007–2008, and from 2008 to 2012 he is an assistant professor at ETH Zurich on a Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship.

  2. 2012–2019

    Leading the CALVIN group

    Between January 2012 and October 2019 he leads the CALVIN research group at the University of Edinburgh.

  3. 2012

    An ERC grant and ECCV award

    In 2012 he receives an ERC Starting Grant and the best paper award at the European Conference in Computer Vision.

  4. April 2018

    Open Images version four

    In April 2018 he announces Open Images V4 as a research scientist in machine perception at Google. The release contains 15.4 million bounding boxes for 600 categories on 1.9 million images.

  5. 2018–2020

    A full professorship and ECCV chairs

    He is a full professor at the University of Edinburgh. He serves as program chair for ECCV 2018 and general chair for ECCV 2020.

  6. 2023–2025

    Director of science at Synthesia

    In 2023 he is director of science at Synthesia, after a principal scientist post at Google where he led groups on computer vision and machine learning.

  7. As of October 2026

    Avatars at Meta Reality Labs

    He is a principal research scientist at Meta Reality Labs, working on realistic avatars for communication on wearable devices.

Sources and credits

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

  1. ILCC Archive of Talk Information homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk. Checked 16 October 2026.
  2. Ferrari, Vittorio (19..-.... ; auteur en informatique) | Canal U canal-u.tv. Checked 16 October 2026.
  3. Vittorio Ferrari sites.google.com. Checked 16 October 2026.
  4. Announcing Open Images V4 and the ECCV 2018 Open Images Challenge research.google. Checked 16 October 2026.
  5. Vittorio Ferrari joins Synthesia's R&D team synthesia.io. Checked 16 October 2026.