Bryon Tjanaka is a software engineer at Waymo working on world models and simulation. Bryon recently completed his Ph.D. in the ICAROS Lab at USC, where he researched robotics and AI, particularly applications of quality diversity optimization to reinforcement learning and human-robot collaboration. He was advised by Stefanos Nikolaidis and supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Before that, Bryon completed his undergraduate studies at UC Irvine, where he worked with the indylab and the Mobley Lab and graduated summa cum laude. Concurrent with his studies, Bryon has interned at InstaDeep for a summer, as well as at Google for several summers. During high school, Bryon won the VEX Robotics World Championship with Team 86868.

I am a software engineer at Waymo working on world models and simulation. I recently completed my Ph.D. in the ICAROS Lab at USC, where I researched robotics and AI, particularly applications of quality diversity optimization to reinforcement learning and human-robot collaboration. I was advised by Stefanos Nikolaidis and supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Before that, I completed my undergraduate studies at UC Irvine, where I worked with the indylab and the Mobley Lab and graduated summa cum laude. Concurrent with my studies, I interned at InstaDeep for a summer, as well as at Google for several summers. During high school, I won the VEX Robotics World Championship with Team 86868. In my spare time, I enjoy competing in ballroom dance.