# Alex Yu

> Alex Yu is a San Francisco-based AI researcher and founder who cofounded Luma AI and served as its CTO. His Berkeley work on pixelNeRF, PlenOctrees and Plenoxels explored ways to reconstruct and render 3D scenes from images. At Luma, he worked on Genie and Dream Machine. His personal site now identifies Luma as a former role and says he is working on image generation.

- **Role:** AI researcher and founder working on image generation
- **Organizations:** Luma AI, Berkeley AI Research, Adobe Research, Google, UC Berkeley CS 61A, SETI: Breakthrough Listen, FHL Vive Center
- **Education:** Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley
- **Known for:** Coauthored pixelNeRF (CVPR 2021), which produces neural scene representations from one or a few images., Coauthored PlenOctrees (ICCV 2021 Oral), reporting more than 150 frames per second at 800×800 resolution in benchmark tests., Coauthored Plenoxels (CVPR 2022 Oral), reporting roughly 100× faster optimization than NeRF on standard benchmarks.

## Career timeline

- **2017-2019** — Research assistant at the FHL Vive Center, working on human and hand projects in OpenARK.
- **2019** — Worked as a Google software engineering intern; helped search for technosignatures with Berkeley SETI; taught CS 61A.
- **2020-2021** — Research assistant in Berkeley AI Research with Angjoo Kanazawa; coauthored pixelNeRF and PlenOctrees.
- **2021** — Graduated from UC Berkeley; interned at Adobe Research; chose a startup path after receiving PhD offers from Stanford and MIT.
- **2021-2022** — Cofounded Luma AI with Amit Jain; his own site lists Luma work from 2022 through 2024.
- **2022** — Coauthored Plenoxels, presented orally at CVPR 2022.
- **2023** — Luma introduced Genie, a text-to-3D model.
- **2024** — Worked on Luma Dream Machine; his personal site lists 2024 as the end of his Luma tenure.
- **2025** — Included in Forbes 2025 30 Under 30 AI list, as reported by UC Berkeley.

## Achievements

- Coauthored pixelNeRF (CVPR 2021), which produces neural scene representations from one or a few images.
- Coauthored PlenOctrees (ICCV 2021 Oral), reporting more than 150 frames per second at 800×800 resolution in benchmark tests.
- Coauthored Plenoxels (CVPR 2022 Oral), reporting roughly 100× faster optimization than NeRF on standard benchmarks.
- Cofounded Luma AI and worked on its Genie and Dream Machine models.
- Named to Forbes 2025 30 Under 30 AI list.

## Latest updates

- **2025-02** — UC Berkeley reported his inclusion in Forbes 2025 30 Under 30 AI list.
- **2024-06** — Luma launched Dream Machine, a generative video model Yu says he worked on.
- **2023-11** — Luma introduced Genie, a text-to-3D model Yu says he worked on.

## Links

- Website: https://alexyu.net/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sx-yu/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/alexyu00
- GitHub: https://github.com/sxyu

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/alex-yu
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-29