Aude Oliva
Cognitive Neuroscientist & Computer Scientist
Senior Research Scientist, CSAIL
MIT Director, MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab
Co-lead, MIT AI Hardware Program
Founder, Perceptual Insights Inc (piinc)
Biography: A computing bilingual scientist, with command of human and machine intelligence for three decades
Aude Oliva is a highly multidisciplinary leader at the intersection of human and artificial intelligence, currently serving as the MIT Director of the MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab, in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. Her expertise is backed by a strong academic foundation, including a Ph.D. from the Institut National Polytechnique of Grenoble, dual M.Sc. degrees in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science (minor in Philosophy) following a French baccalaureate in Physics and Mathematics. She was an Expert at the National Science Foundation (CISE) focusing on computational neuroscience and AI, and at MIT, she currently serves on the committee on Research Computing and Data, in the VPR MIT Office of Research. Her LinkedIn page.
Aude Oliva is a cross-disciplinary thinker operating at the intersection of cognitive science, neuroscience, and computer science to advance the frontier of Computational Perception and Cognition. Her high-impact research leverages the synergy between human and machine intelligence to solve complex challenges in perception, attention, memory, and reasoning. She has been honored with an NSF CAREER Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, the 2023 Donald O. Hebb Award, and she is a 2026 Forbes 50 Innovator. She is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Allen Institute for AI (AI2) and the MIT Press Management. With 200+ publications and three patents, she effectively translates interdisciplinary knowledge into tangible innovation and industrial growth. Her Google Scholar profile (h-index 90).
Strategic Leadership : A 0-1 primary architect of MIT’s modern relationship with the tech industry
Strategic Leadership & Industry Ecosystems
Aude Oliva is a primary architect of high-value collaborations at the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, where she has served as Director of Strategic Industry Engagement from 2021 to 2026. She engineered multi-faceted partnerships with corporate leaders, integrating cutting-edge research, student support, and community building into a unified innovation ecosystem. Her current leadership portfolio includes the new MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab, the MIT AI Hardware Program and directing student initiatives for the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium. A trailblazer in academic-industrial synergy, she launched MIT-Liberty Mutual Collaboration, the MIT-Amazon Science Hub—a landmark multi-year collaboration in AI, robotics, and computing—and the MIT-Google Program for Computing Innovation. Previously, she founded the MIT EECS Alliance, and co-led the MIT Quest for Intelligence.
MIT Director, MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab
As the MIT Director of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, Aude Oliva spearheaded a pioneering, first-of-its-kind academic-industrial lab dedicated to the frontier of AI research and application. Under her leadership, the Lab managed a high-impact portfolio of 215 AI use-inspired and applied projects, translating AI/ML research into a continuous stream of patents (60), 50 real-world business applications, top-tier publications (1600+ peer-reviewed publications representing 214,000+ citations), resulting in a world-class Lab h-index of 206. As of April 2026, she is the MIT Director of the new MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab, an academic-industry powerhouse, pursuing research in AI, algorithms, and quantum computing, to fundamentally reimagine the mathematical and algorithmic foundations that underpin the next era of computing.
Entrepreneurship: Mastering the translation layer between human and AI
Founded by Zoya Bylinskii and Aude Oliva, Perceptual Insights Inc. (PIINC), is a science-driven firm, applying the rigor of perceptual and cognitive research to AI enterprises. Perceptual Insights Inc. provide frontier AI labs with the tools to evaluate and improve their models, and advise enterprises and investors independently benchmark which AI models actually perform best for real-world use cases — not just on leaderboards. Human-in-the-loop is an infrastructure of AI: which model ships, or will be supplanted, which model to use, today or seek to use next, all depends on how carefully these models are evaluated with, by and for people. PIINC provides for real use cases an evaluation process of AI models the way any foundation would be tested.
PIINC collaborates with a Scientific Advisory Network of leading academics and frontier researchers in perception, cognition, and human-centered AI, covering the multimodal spaces of vision, audio, tactile, language, and reasoning. The Insighters bring their scientific perspective and thought partnership to real-world AI development, supporting evaluation strategy, research-informed decision-making, and human-centered model design. If you are interested in joining the network, fill up the contact form on Perceptual Insights Inc.