Paul M Hubel

Paul M. Hubel is Chief Scientist of Camera Technology at Apple Inc., where he leads advancements in color and image processing and image quality for digital photography. He played a key role in developing many aspects of computational photography such as multi-image fusion, multi-prime camera systems, stabilization, and depth features (portrait mode) that led to the exponential growth of photography. Hubel has contributed core color and imaging technologies to Apple products since 2008.

He earned a BS in optical engineering from the University of Rochester and a DPhil in engineering science from Oxford University. His doctoral thesis was on color reflection holography. During his studies, he spent three summers working on surface physics, holography, and color science at The Rowland Institute for Science. 

Hubel began his career as a research fellow at MIT Media Lab, where he taught courses and did research on conventional, synthetic, and electronic (video) color holographic displays developing many new processes for color reproduction in holography. Upon completion of his fellowship, he spent ten years at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories as a member of technical staff and then principal scientist in the printing technology department. His work at HP focused on illumination estimation, tone correction and color rendering for digital cameras, as well as color reproduction for scanners, copiers, and printers. He then spent six years as chief image scientist for Foveon, Inc where he continued his work in color processing, tone mapping, image signal processing (ISP) architecture design, and sensor optical simulations.

Hubel has been actively involved in IS&T and ISO TC42 on Digital Photography for most of his career. Notable recent contributions are the invention and standardization of HDR still image formats which are now ubiquitous in the industry. As an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, Hubel founded the society’s first student chapter and enjoyed attending the Annual Meeting where the chapter demonstrated optical experiments to local teachers. In 2026, he received the Edwin Land Medal.