Yuning Chai
Director Of Applied AI Research at Meta
Seattle, Washington, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolYuning Chai is a Director of Applied AI Research based in Seattle, leading efforts at Meta to bridge advanced AI with AR after a decade of research-led engineering across self-driving and mobile vision domains. Trained as a PhD at Oxford’s Visual Geometry Group with prior graduate work at ETH Zurich, she blends deep academic rigor with product-driven impact. She previously built and scaled research organizations at Cruise and Waymo, introducing foundation models, diffusion and uncertainty methods into production probes and publishing top-tier conference work. At Waymo she helped originate the Waymo Open Dataset and led influential papers in motion forecasting, perception and sensor simulation, evidence of her ability to turn prototypes into industry-wide initiatives. Known for growing cross-functional teams and shipping research that catalyzes multi-team programs, she pairs hands-on technical depth with strategic leadership. An understated detail: despite a rapid leadership trajectory, she remains actively involved in model development and prototyping rather than only managing from the sidelines.
5 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Computer Science at University of OxfordDoctor of Philosophy (PhD) Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Computer Science at ETH Zürich
English, German, Chinese, French
Github Skills (1)
autonomous-driving8
Programming languages (1)
Github contributions (1)
waymo-research/waymo-open-dataset
Apr 2021 - Jun 2021
Waymo Open Dataset
Contributions:1 push, 6 comments in 1 month
datasetopen-datasetautonomous-drivingwaymo-open-dataset
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