Yi Ma

Professor Yi Ma is a faculty member at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds the Chair Professor in AI at the School of Computing and Data Science (CDS), University of Hong Kong. He serves as Director of both CDS and the Institute of Data Science (IDS) at HKU since 2024 and 2023, respectively.

His research spans artificial intelligence, computer vision, compressive sensing, and machine learning, with a focus on low-dimensional models for high-dimensional data analysis. He has pioneered work in robust principal component analysis, sparse representation, and deep learning theory, as reflected in his textbook High-Dimensional Data Analysis with Low-Dimensional Models (Cambridge, 2021) and recent position papers.

Key contributions include organizing conferences like the Conference on Parsimony and Learning (CPAL) and developing course EECS 208 at Berkeley, which explores computational principles for AI and data analysis. His work is affiliated with research hubs such as the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR), Center for Augmented Cognition, and Vive Center for Enhanced Reality.

Scientific Honors:

• Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Fellow (2020)
• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellow (2017)
• Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow (2013)
• Office of Naval Research Young Investigator (2005)
• NSF CAREER Award (2004)
• CS TCPAMI ICCV Best Paper Award/David Marr Prize (1999)

He has held leadership roles at institutions including ShanghaiTech University and Microsoft Research Asia, blending theoretical and applied research in structured data modeling and vision-based robotics.