Ramesh Raskar has been named the 2021 EI Scientist of the Year, an award given by the IS&T Society to a member of the electronic imaging community who has made significant and substantial contributions to the field of electronic imaging via research, publications, or service. Raskar received the award at the 2021 Electronic Imaging Symposium, where he also led the plenary talk Making Invisible Visible.

Raskar is being recognized for his holistic impact on computation imaging innovations, spanning across femto-photography, eye health imaging, computer vision, augmented reality, geospatial tech, and 3D displays.

As NEC Career Development Professor, Raskar leads the Camera Culture research group, with a focus on machine learning and imaging for health and sustainability. The group's research encompasses multiple fields including the physical (such as sensors and health-tech), digital (automated and privacy-aware machine learning), and global (geomaps, autonomous mobility) domains.

"Our Camera Culture research group at the MIT Media Lab aims to make the invisible visible, inside our bodies, around us, and beyond,” says Raskar. “The work by our students, postdocs, and collaborators over the years has led to scientific breakthroughs and to startups, and also to social impact. I want to thank this dynamic community."

Raskar holds more than 100 patents, and has helped foster a number of Media Lab spinoff companies and organizations, most recently Akasha Imaging, Brelyon, and the PathCheck Foundation.