Dr. Fei-Fei Li

The “Godmother of AI”

Dr. Fei-Fei Li is a Chinese-American computer scientist known for her pioneering work in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in computer vision.

She is best known for establishing ImageNet, the dataset that enabled rapid advances in computer vision in the 2010s.

Widely known as the “Godmother of AI” for her groundbreaking work in computer vision, which serves as a foundation for many image-recognition artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

She is the Sequoia Capital professor of computer science at Stanford University and former board director at Twitter. Li is a co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and a co-director of the Stanford Vision and Learning Lab.

AI is a new discipline. We have a chance to shape the future of this field, and we have a chance to not make the mistakes of the past.

Early Life and Immigration Journey

Li was born in Beijing, China in 1976, and grew up in Chengdu until age 15. Fei-Fei Li grew up in Chengdu, China, before emigrating with her parents to New Jersey in 1992 when she was 15 years old. Despite being new in a foreign country, Fei-Fei excelled in high school and earned a spot at prestigious Princeton University. She worked odd jobs to help support herself and her family and spent her weekends working at her parents dry-cleaning business.

Educational Background

Princeton University (1995-1999)

  • B.A. in Physics, but had also taken significant courses in mathematics and engineering
  • B.A. degree in physics from Princeton in 1999 with High Honors

California Institute of Technology (2001-2005)

  • PhD degree in electrical engineering from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2005
  • Her graduate studies were supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans

Career Trajectory

Academic Positions:

  • From 2005 to 2006, Li was an assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and from 2007 to 2009, she was an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Princeton University. She joined Stanford in 2009 as an assistant professor, and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2012, and then full professor in 2018.

Industry Leadership:

  • She also served as Chief Scientist of AI/ML at Google Cloud and is the director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 2013 to 2018.
  • In May 2020, Li joined the board of directors of Twitter as an independent director. On October 27, 2022, following Elon Musk’s purchase of the company, Li and eight others were removed from Twitter’s nine-member board of directors

Revolutionary Research Contributions

ImageNet: The Foundation of Modern AI

Fei-Fei is the lead inventor of ImageNet, a collection of 15 million precisely labeled photographs organized into 22,000 categories, which advanced machine vision through intensive exposure to the visual world. ImageNet was by far the largest publicly available dataset at the time of its release in 2009, and its unprecedented depth and detail had a transformative effect on a class of algorithms known as Convolutional Neural Networks.

Research Scope

Li works on artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, cognitive neuroscience, and computational neuroscience. She has published more than 300 peer-reviewed research papers.

Current Entrepreneurial Ventures

World Labs (2024)

In 2024, Fei-Fei Li raised $230 million for a startup called World Labs, which she and three colleagues founded to develop a “spatial intelligence” AI technology that can understand how the three-dimensional physical world works. These models, the group hopes, will allow people to imagine and create 3D spaces that could be roamed and explored like a video game—with potential applications like flight training simulations, physics experiments, or urban planning.

Awards and Recognition

Recent Major Honors:

  • 2025: Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering jointly with Yoshua Bengio, Bill Dally, Geoffrey E. Hinton, John Hopfield, Jen-Hsun Huang and Yann LeCun
  • VinFuture Prize (2024)
  • Intel Lifetime Achievements Innovation Award (2023)
  • Time 100 AI Most Influential People (2023)

Academy Memberships:

  • Elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine in 2020, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021

Advocacy for Diversity and Inclusion

AI4ALL: Transforming the Field

In 2017, she co-founded AI4ALL, a nonprofit organization working to increase diversity and inclusion in the field of artificial intelligence. Since then, AI4All has formed partnerships with universities across the country to provide college-level AI programs for students from historically underrepresented groups and free curriculum resources that educators can use to increase access to AI education in their communities.

Impact and Scale

As of December 2022, AI4ALL has reached more than 10,000 people in each of the 50 states and around the world. The existence of this type of program is crucial given that only 14% of people working in the world of AI are women and only 11% are Hispanic or Black.

Human-Centered AI Leadership

Building on her mission to ensure that diverse voices are heard and represented in scientific research, Li also established HAI in 2019 alongside John Etchemendy, former provost at Stanford University and the Patrick Suppes Family Professor at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Science. “HAI’s goal is to put the well-being of individuals and society at the center of designing, developing and deploying of AI technology,” Li said.

Policy and Global Influence

Government Advisory Roles:

  • On August 3, 2023, it was announced that Li was appointed to the United Nations Scientific Advisory Board, established by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
  • Li has been working with policymakers nationally and locally to ensure positive and human-centered progress in AI technologies, including a number of U.S. Senate and Congressional testimonies

Recent Policy Contributions:

  • In February 2025, at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, Li stated that AI governance should be based on science rather than “science fiction,” and urged a more scientific approach to assessing AI capabilities and limitations.
  • After Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the state’s AI safety bill, SB 1047, he tapped Li to co-author a report about AI policy. Published in June, the report put forward research-informed recommendations for the governance of generative AI

Personal Philosophy and Vision

She believes that AI poses a very limited risk because it is developed and designed by humans. “I often tell my students not to be misled by the name ‘artificial intelligence’ – there is nothing artificial about it. AI is made by humans, intended to behave by humans, and, ultimately, to impact humans’ lives and human society.”

“I am a shy person, not good at expressing myself, but I insisted on publishing a book because the field of AI cannot lack female voices.”

What Women in the Field Can Learn from Dr. Fei-Fei Li

1. Persist Through Challenges and Use Your Background as Strength

Dr. Li’s journey from immigrating to the US at 15 to becoming the “Godmother of AI” demonstrates extraordinary resilience. Despite being new in a foreign country, Fei-Fei excelled in high school and earned a spot at prestigious Princeton University. She worked odd jobs to help support herself and her family and spent her weekends working at her parents dry-cleaning business. Her immigrant experience and multilingual background became assets, not obstacles, in her career.

2. Think Big and Ask Audacious Questions

“When I do my research, I try to be fearless about asking the most audacious questions,” she said. Li didn’t just create incremental improvements – she fundamentally reimagined how computers could “see” the world through ImageNet, sparking the deep learning revolution.

3. Build Bridges Between Technical Excellence and Human Impact

Dr. Li exemplifies how technical brilliance must be paired with social consciousness. She launched ImageNet — a vast visual database designed for use in visual object recognition software research while simultaneously founding AI4ALL to ensure diverse voices shape AI’s future. Women can learn to position themselves as both technical leaders and advocates for inclusive innovation.

4. Create the Programs You Wish Existed

When Dr. Li saw the lack of diversity in AI, she didn’t wait for others to act. In 2015, Olga Russakovsky, one of his PhD students, told him about her idea for a program to open doors to the fields of computer vision, machine learning, deep learning, and cognitive and computational neuroscience for underrepresented people. Fei-Fei Li and Olga Russakovsky, along with Rick Sommer (Executive Director of Pre-College Studies), founded SAILORS which became AI4ALL. Women should feel empowered to create solutions rather than wait for institutional change.

5. Leverage Your Voice for Policy and Governance

Dr. Li demonstrates how technical expertise translates to policy influence. She has delivered numerous speeches including to the President of the United States, and the Security Council of the United Nations. Women in ML should recognize that their technical knowledge gives them unique authority to shape AI governance and policy.

6. Balance Academic Rigor with Entrepreneurial Vision

According to her Stanford profile, she has been on partial academic leave from January 2024 through the end of 2025 to focus on entrepreneurial ventures. Dr. Li shows that women can successfully navigate between academic research and startup leadership, founding World Labs while maintaining her Stanford position.

7. Insist on Being Heard

“I am a shy person, not good at expressing myself, but I insisted on publishing a book because the field of AI cannot lack female voices.” Despite describing herself as shy, Dr. Li recognized the importance of her perspective and fought to ensure women’s voices are included in AI discourse.

8. Scale Your Impact Through Mentorship and Institution Building

AI4ALL’s more than 100 alumni have together influenced more than 1,000 students in their local communities through local workshops and mini-camps. Dr. Li’s approach shows how individual success can multiply through systematic mentorship and program development.

9. Maintain Scientific Integrity While Advocating for Change

In February 2025, at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, Li stated that AI governance should be based on science rather than “science fiction,” and urged a more scientific approach to assessing AI capabilities and limitations. Women can learn to advocate for diversity and inclusion while maintaining rigorous scientific standards.

10. Define Success on Your Own Terms

Dr. Li’s career shows that success isn’t just about technical achievements – it’s about lasting impact on both the field and society. “There is nothing artificial about artificial intelligence: it is inspired by people, created by people, and, most importantly, it impacts people. […] With the right guidance, AI will make life better.” Women should define their success by the positive change they create, not just traditional metrics.

Key Takeaway: Dr. Fei-Fei Li’s career demonstrates that technical excellence, social consciousness, and institutional change-making are not separate pursuits but interconnected aspects of transformative leadership. Women entering machine learning can learn to be both brilliant researchers and advocates for the kind of field they want to help create.

Professional Profiles:

Books and Publications:

  • “The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI” (2023): Science memoir detailing her journey and AI’s development
  • 300+ Peer-Reviewed Research Papers: Available through Stanford and academic databases
  • ImageNet Database: https://image-net.org/
  • CS231n Course Materials: “Deep Learning for Computer Vision” at Stanford

Organizations and Initiatives:

Media and Talks:

  • TED Talk 2015: “How we’re teaching computers to understand pictures”
  • TED Talk 2024: Recent presentation on AI development
  • Paris AI Action Summit 2025: Keynote on scientific AI governance
  • Various interviews and features in major publications

Recognition and Awards:

  • Wikipedia Profile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fei-Fei_Li
  • Time 100 AI 2023: Recognition as one of most influential people in AI
  • Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering 2025: Joint recipient with AI pioneers
  • National Academy memberships: Engineering, Medicine, Arts & Sciences

Policy and Advisory Roles:

  • United Nations Scientific Advisory Board: Appointed 2023
  • California AI Policy Reports: Co-authored state AI governance recommendations
  • Congressional Testimonies: Multiple appearances before US Congress on AI policy