Austin Zhao is a Cornell CS student (Class of 2026) and teaching assistant with a strong foundation in algorithms, discrete structures, and machine learning, complemented by minors in ECE, math, and physics. He brings 11 years of hands-on experience across software engineering, robotics, and data science—ranging from training bipedal robots with PPO to deep learning/GPU work at MathWorks. At Cornell he leads discussion sections and office hours for algorithm and discrete courses, demonstrating both technical depth and a talent for mentorship and curriculum development. He has driven curriculum strategy for nonprofit Steel City Codes and built testing and simulation pipelines for lab assistant robots, showing a blend of educational leadership and systems engineering. Comfortable at the intersection of high-level algorithms and practical implementation, he enjoys introducing others to computational and mathematical ideas while building reproducible tooling and simulations.
11 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science - BS, Computer Science, 4.05/4.0, Bachelor of Science - BS, Computer Science, 4.05/4.0 at Cornell University
Dual Enrollment, General Studies, Dual Enrollment, General Studies at Hunter College
High School Diploma, General Studies, High School Diploma, General Studies at Hunter College High School
Contributions:1 PR, 23 pushes, 4 branches in 4 months
tekton
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Austin Zhao - Teaching Assistant at Cornell Cup Robotics