Johannes Ballé

I'm a Research Scientist at Google. My current work focuses on lossy image compression, rate–distortion optimization and models of visual perception. I defended my master's and doctoral theses on signal processing and image compression at RWTH Aachen University in 2007 and 2012, respectively, working with Jens-Rainer Ohm. This was followed by a brief collaboration with Javier Portilla at CSIC in Madrid, Spain, and a postdoctoral fellowship at New York University’s Center for Neural Science with Eero P. Simoncelli. There, I studied the relationship between perception and image statistics, and pioneered the use of variational Bayesian models and deep learning for end-to-end optimized image compression. I joined Google in early 2017 to continue working in this line of research. I've served as a reviewer for top-tier publications in both machine learning and image processing, such as NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, Picture Coding Symposium and several IEEE Transactions. I've been a co-organizer of the annual Workshop and Challenge on Learned Image Compression (CLIC) since 2018. A full list of my publications is available on Google Scholar.