The rising stars of self-driving vehicles, from companies like Waymo, Aurora, and Cruise

Qian Chu, 27, TuSimple

As a senior technical project manager at TuSimple, Qian Chu leads the team responsible for technology development, testing, and integration. She was one of TuSimple’s 25 first employees and plays an important role in keeping the development of TuSimple’s automated-driving system on track, a TuSimple spokesperson said. Chu has a knack for quickly finding and solving both technical and procedural issues, the spokesperson said.

Chu joined TuSimple after receiving a master’s degree in systems engineering from Cornell University.

Jay Kuvelker, 28, Kodiak Robotics

Jay Kuvelker is a hardware engineer at Kodiak Robotics, where he’s played a leading role in developing the company’s automated-driving system, as well as its strategies for manufacturing and partnerships. Kuvelker created a key piece of hardware that makes it easier to place sensors on a truck’s mirror mounts and gives the sensors a better view of the objects behind and beside them. He was also in charge of making sure Kodiak’s computing hardware was sturdy enough to handle the stress created by road and weather conditions.

Kuvelker joined Kodiak after working at Uber ATG. He received bachelor’s and masters degrees in engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Himani Arora, 27, Nuro

Himani Arora is a machine-learning engineer at Nuro focusing on perception. (When she was chosen for this list, Arora was working for Ike, which Nuro has since acquired.) At Ike, she became a leader on the company’s perception team and made a significant impact on software responsible for interpreting information from lidar sensors, which bounce beams of light off nearby objects to measure how far away they are, a Nuro spokesperson said.

She was also responsible for creating much of Ike’s machine-learning infrastructure for a neural network that interprets long-range data from lidars and helps Ike’s perception software improve. Arora’s collaborations with other teams at Ike made the company’s technology better able to learn from data collected in challenging situations, the spokesperson said.

Before joining Ike, Arora worked on Uber ATG’s perception team and received bachelor’s and masters degrees in engineering from Delhi Technological University and Columbia University, respectively.

Derek Phillips, 24, Kodiak Robotics

As a software engineer at Kodiak Robotics, Derek Phillips has made an impact on the company’s technology and culture. One of Phillips’ crowning achievements is Kodiak’s Perception Evaluation Engine, which has made it easier for the company to evaluate the efficacy of new code. Phillips has also played a leading role in the company’s data-labeling operation and coordinated across teams to make sure Kodiak’s automated-driving system can process and respond to vehicles on the side of the road.

Beyond his contributions to the company’s technology, Phillips helped lead a discussion at Kodiak this summer about race in the US. He attended Stanford University for his undergraduate and graduate studies in computer science.

Andrey Rykov, 28, Yandex

Andrey Rykov leads the group at Yandex responsible for the company’s dynamic-object perception technology, which identifies and categorizes moving objects like vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists. Rykov developed software that analyzes data from lidar sensors and has played a key role in refining the company’s lidar technology so it can dismiss irrelevant inputs and comprehend objects it hasn’t seen before.

Rykov joined Yandex after earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and mechanics from Moscow State University and a masters degree in math and computer science from Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology.

Melinda Kothbauer, 25, May Mobility

Melinda Kothbauer has made an impact on a wide range of initiatives at May Mobility. In addition to leading a revamp of the company’s perception system in 2020, she also managed a collaborative effort between May Mobility’s software, data infrastructure, autonomy, and vehicle-platform teams on new technology. Kothbauer has also been recognized as the leader of MayID, the company’s committee on diversity, inclusion, and belonging, a May Mobility spokesperson said.

Kothbauer earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Michigan before joining May Mobility.

Hana Lodhi, 26, Waymo

Hana Lodhi is a program manager in Waymo’s fleet-dispatch division, where she’s responsible for supporting on-road tests of updates to Waymo’s technology. Lodhi, who studied nutrition as an undergraduate at Arizona State University, played an essential role in managing the logistical and operational details needed to integrate the newest version of the company’s automated-driving system into Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicles and prepare it to drive on public roads in Arizona and California. Her leadership in that effort caught the attention of Waymo’s operations team, a company spokesperson said.

Luna Yang, 28, Aurora Innovation

Luna Yang is a software engineer at Aurora Innovation, where she’s led a number of important projects. She was the driving force behind the creation of Aurora’s perception framework and played a major role in developing the machine-learning model for the company’s automated-driving system, an Aurora spokesperson said.

Yang also led an initiative to make Aurora’s system better at seeing objects that don’t fit into the categories it’s been trained to recognize and predicting how they’ll move. She’s made an impact on Aurora’s culture by co-founding a resource group for employees who speak English as a second language.

Yang spent three years in China as an actuary after college. After developing an interest in machine learning, she attended a masters program in robotics at Carnegie Mellon University.

Sarah Tang, 30, Nuro

Sarah Tang is a technology manager at Nuro responsible for the company’s motion-planning team, which is developing the decision-making process used by Nuro’s autonomous delivery vehicles. Tang’s team played a critical role in allowing Nuro to put its vehicles on the road in Houston, where they had to be ready to handle narrow roads and maneuver through small openings between parked vehicles, a Nuro spokesperson said. Tang encoded the software that ensures Nuro’s vehicles keep a safe distance from surrounding objects.

Tang studied mechanical and aerospace engineering as an undergraduate at Princeton and received a PhD in mechanical engineering and applied dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania. Before coming to Nuro, she worked as an intern at Google’s self-driving-car project (before it was rebranded as Waymo).

Dave Rubin, 30, Cruise

Dave Rubin is a member of Cruise’s policy-research team, which works to impact legislation and public opinion related to autonomous vehicles. Rubin’s work contributed to the California government’s decision to allow autonomous-vehicle companies to charge passengers for rides in self-driving cars. He is also one of Cruise’s experts on energy policy, promoting government action at the state and federal level to reducing carbon-dioxide emissions.

Rubin received an undergraduate degree in international business and international affairs from American University and a master’s degree in international economics from Johns Hopkins University.

Shir Yehoshua, 29, Waymo

Shir Yehoshua is a software engineer at Waymo and the leader of a team that’s responsible for making sure the company’s automated-driving system can make decisions quickly and reliably. She has a knack for finding ways to making her developers’ jobs easier and refining Waymo’s planning software, a Waymo spokesperson said.

Yehoshua has taken initiative in promoting inclusion and diversity at Waymo by leading a project to eliminate discriminatory language from the company’s codebase, software documentation, and user interfaces.

Yehoshua earned a bachelor’s degree in math and computer science from the University of Chicago.

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