Winston Hsu

Professor Winston Hsu is a distinguished faculty member in the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Taiwan University, where he has served as a full professor since 2015. He is the co-director of the Communications and Multimedia Laboratory (CMLab) and founder of the MiRA (Multimedia indexing, Retrieval, and Analysis) research group. Additionally, he serves as the Founding Director for NVIDIA AI Lab at NTU, the first such lab in Asia.

Professor Hsu received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University in 2007 under the supervision of Professor Shih-Fu Chang. Prior to his academic career, he was a founding engineer and research manager at CyberLink Corp., now a public image/video software company.

• National Taiwan University (2007-Present): Professor (2015-Present), Assistant/Associate Professor (2007-2015)
• MobileDrive (2021-2024): CTO and Vice President (Joint Venture between Foxconn and Stellantis)
• IBM TJ Watson Research Center (2016-2017): Visiting Scientist
• Microsoft Research Redmond (2014): Visiting Researcher
• Columbia University (2007): Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering

Professor Hsu's research focuses on machine learning, computer vision, large-scale image and video search and recognition, and embedded AI. His work spans from fundamental research in visual recognition to practical applications in automotive systems, medical imaging, and e-commerce. He has pioneered work in disguised face recognition, low-resolution face hallucination, 3D model search, and virtual try-on systems. His current research emphasizes Embodied AI, integrating perception, action, and learning technologies for applications in automotive and robotics domains.

His research group has produced numerous influential publications, particularly in top computer vision and multimedia conferences like CVPR, where they won first place in the Disguised Face Recognition competition in 2018. Their work spans diverse application areas including security, medical diagnostics, automotive systems, and e-commerce solutions, demonstrating strong translation from academic research to real-world impact.

• IBM Research Pat Goldberg Memorial Best Paper Award (2018)
• First Place, IARPA Disguised Faces in the Wild Competition (CVPR 2018)
• Best Brave New Idea Paper Award, ACM Multimedia 2017
• NVIDIA AI LAB Award (First in Asia, 2016)
• First Place, MSR-Bing Image Retrieval Challenge (2013)
• World's Top 2% Scientists (2023)

Professor Hsu actively mentors students and researchers, with his group consistently recruiting PhD students, postdocs, and research assistants. He has successfully bridged academia and industry through multiple collaborations, including his role as CTO at MobileDrive (a joint venture between Foxconn and Stellantis) from 2021-2024. His research has been supported by significant industry partnerships with Microsoft, IBM, and NVIDIA, as well as government grants from Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology.

His laboratory, the Communications and Multimedia Laboratory (CMLab), maintains strong industry connections and focuses on cutting-edge research in visual AI. The lab has produced numerous award-winning projects and maintains active collaborations with global technology companies, particularly in the automotive and consumer electronics sectors.