Hirokatsu Kataoka serves as Chief Senior Researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan, with multiple academic affiliations including Academic Visitor at the Visual Geometry Group (VGG) at University of Oxford, Visiting Associate Professor at Keio University, and Adjunct Associate Professor at Tokyo Denki University. He is Principal Investigator of both cvpaper.challenge and LIMIT.Lab, and serves as Research Advisor for SB Intuitions. Dr. Kataoka earned his Ph.D. in Engineering from Keio University (April 2011 - March 2014), where he received the Fujiwara Prize in 2014 as valedictorian equivalent. His research primarily focuses on innovative pre-training methodologies that eliminate dependency on natural image datasets, with his Formula-Driven Supervised Learning (FDSL) framework being particularly influential in the field. Kataoka's research interests center around representation learning with limited data resources, including zero-shot, unsupervised, and synthetic learning approaches. His work explores how visual/multimodal models can be effectively trained with minimal real-world data, addressing critical ethical concerns related to large-scale datasets. He has pioneered methods using fractal geometry, mathematical formulas, and procedural generation to create effective pre-training frameworks that rival traditional ImageNet-based approaches. His publication record shows a clear trajectory toward solving the challenges of learning with limited resources, with recent work expanding FDSL to audio processing, microfossil analysis, and visible-to-infrared translation. His papers consistently address the core challenge of building robust visual recognition systems without relying on massive annotated datasets, with increasing focus on practical applications across diverse domains. Scientific Awards & Recognition ACCV 2020 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award for 'Pre-training without Natural Images' AIST Best Paper Award (2019, 2022) BMVC 2023 Best Industry Paper Finalist Featured in MIT Technology Review His 3D ResNets paper ranks among the top 0.5% most-cited CVPR papers over a five-year period Dr. Kataoka actively advises numerous researchers across multiple institutions, with his research team comprising Ph.D. and Master's students from various universities. He has served as Area Chair for CVPR 2024 and 2025, will serve as IEEE TPAMI Associate Editor beginning in 2025, and organizes the LIMIT Workshop series at major computer vision conferences. His LIMIT.Lab, established in June 2025, serves as a collaboration hub focused on building multimodal AI models under constrained resources including compute, data, and labels.
