Researcher
C. Lawrence Zitnick
Current role not listed
Zitnick co-created COCO, a dataset that became a standard test for whether AI can recognize and describe objects in everyday scenes. He later launched Open Catalyst, which uses AI to search for materials that could store renewable energy more efficiently.
Career & education
Previously
MetaApr 2017-Mar 2026Research Lead / Research Director, FAIR
Microsoft Research2004-2015Researcher -> Research Manager
MetaApr 2017-Mar 2026Microsoft Research2004-2015Education
Carnegie Mellon UniversityWork and education history is primarily focused on AI-relevant roles and may not be comprehensive.
Citation Trend
Total citations to scholarly work, including research papers, technical reports, books and theses, as recorded by Google Scholar. Each point is a dated snapshot.
citations146,960As of Nov 1, '26
citations+2,131Since last snapshot, Oct 1, '26
Selected contributions
Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context
With Tsung-Yi Lin, Michael Maire, Serge Belongie, Lubomir Bourdev, Ross Girshick, James Hays, Pietro Perona and others ·A dataset of everyday scenes with individual objects labeled and outlined.
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Reviewed August 28, 2026 · Checked for accuracy and new information.