PYTORCH - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President of AI
Alex is the Senior Vice President of AI and Developer Technologies at Arm, where he is responsible for helping developers build their best AI experiences and software applications on the most ubiquitous computing platform on the planet, from Cloud to Edge. Prior to Arm, Alex was VP of Product Management for Machine Learning at Google. At Google he was responsible for TensorFlow and the technologies and infrastructures that power Google's machine learning and AI services. Alex previously led product and engineering for LivePerson, FastCompany's #1 ranked AI company for 2022, where he built technology to enable enterprises to build their own conversational assistants. He held positions at Amazon, leading the core software platforms for Alexa, and product and engineering for Amazon's Search. At Thomson Reuters, Alex oversaw product and technology for news and media, including ultra-low latency AI-driven news categorization and synthetic news for financial professionals. Alex started his career as a software engineer in New York City and he has an MBA from Duke University.
Job Titles:
- Senior Director at NVIDIA
Ankit Patel is a senior director at NVIDIA, leading developer engagement for SDKs, APIs, and tools. He joined NVIDIA in 2011, transitioning from GPU product manager to software product management in virtualization, ray tracing, and AI. Previously, he managed video editing and live production products at Matrox Video and Blackmagic Design. Ankit holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Concordia University and an MBA from Cornell University.
Job Titles:
- Communications and Marketing Associate
Bazil Sterling (he/him) is a Communications and Marketing Associate at The Linux Foundation, where he drives marketing and communications efforts for key open source initiatives, including the PyTorch Foundation, LF Decentralized Trust, and DENT. With a background in journalism, public relations, marketing, and advertising, Bazil is a storyteller who crafts compelling narratives that elevate open source communities. He is particularly passionate about supporting projects advancing sustainability and open collaboration.
Job Titles:
- Senior Principal Technologist at Amazon Web Services
Brian Granger is a Senior Principal Technologist at Amazon Web Services and a professor of physics and data science at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, CA. He works at the intersection of UX design and engineering on tools for scientific computing, data science, machine learning, and data visualization. Brian is a co-founder and leader of Project Jupyter, co-founder of the Altair project for statistical visualization, and creator of the PyZMQ project for ZMQ-based message passing in Python.
Chris (he/him) is a PMP-certified technology leader with a consistent record leading high-performing software teams. He has managed projects for clients such as Samsung and MetLife in addition to distributed blockchain development teams like the Aragon DAC. Chris has been developing mobile and web applications for over 20 years and has been working with the Linux Foundation since May 2018. He holds a Systems Design Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo.
Supporting the PyTorch team within Meta. In the past Damien has worked on compilers, static analysis, programming languages, virtual machines and developer tools. Damien is passionate about developer productivity and building strong organizations to support developers.
Job Titles:
- Event Director, LF Projects
Deb Giles (she/her) is the Event Director for the Linux Foundation's Collaborative Projects, where she oversees global events, including the PyTorch Conference. With over 15 years of experience in producing conferences, corporate meetings, and trade shows, Deb has worked across a wide range of industries including tech, gaming, and construction. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Marketing from Azusa Pacific University. Based in Nashville, TN, Deb enjoys traveling, hiking, and spending time with her dog, Shadow, in her free time.
Dwarak Rajagopal, a seasoned technology leader, boasts over 20 years of experience with pivotal roles at Google, Meta/Facebook, Uber, Apple, and AMD. Currently a Sr. Engineering Director at Google, he leads AI Frameworks and OnDevice ML teams, driving innovations in AI and LLMs on server/mobile for efficiency. At Meta/Facebook, he led the PyTorch Core Frameworks team, advancing AI research to production. His contributions span self-driving software at Uber, graphics technology at Apple, and compiler development at AMD. Dwarak's dedication to democratizing AI, open-source software, and ethical practices defines his commitment to shaping the future of technology.
Job Titles:
- General Manager of Open Source Development at Huawei 's Computing Product Line
Fred Li, General Manager of Open Source Development at Huawei's Computing Product Line, brings over 20 years of technology and open-source experience since 2015. Serving as the platinum director of OpenStack Foundation and representing Huawei in PyTorch Foundation and LF AI & Data, he's a pivotal figure in open source. Fred initiated the openEuler community in 2019, nurturing multiple open-source communities with thousands of engineers and millions of users. With expertise in IT product development, project management, and open-source strategy, Fred is committed to global open-source advocacy.
Job Titles:
- Director of Marketing and Communications
- Director of Marketing and Communications at the Linux Foundation
Jennifer Bly (she/her) is Director of Marketing and Communications at the Linux Foundation where she leads marketing and communications for open source projects like the PyTorch Foundation, High Performance Software Foundation, OpenSSF, and Ultra Ethernet Consortium. She develops marketing strategies that encompass integrated campaigns with an emphasis on public relations, communications, social media engagement, content development, brand storytelling and more. Jennifer has a knack for making complex technical issues easy to understand in ways that motivate people to pay attention and take action. Before joining the Linux Foundation she was the External Relations Manager at the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), where she led the outreach team to increase the organization's visibility in the internet community and develop strategic relationships that build customer growth and engagement. Jennifer earned her MA in Mass Communication from the University of Florida and Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Within PRSA she is active on the Executive Committee of the Technology Section. She is passionate about creating a better internet and enjoys getting the word out about people doing great work in the open source community.
Job Titles:
- Release Engineer / LFX Community Architect
- Senior - Level Release Engineer
Jessica Gonzalez (she/her) is a senior-level Release Engineer with 15 years of experience in designing and automating Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment processes. Jessica is part of the Release Engineering (RE) team at the Linux Foundation (LF). For the past 7 years, she has worked closely with Open Source Organizations including Hyperledger, ONAP, Dent, and Magma.
Kismat works as VP S/W of AI Frameworks team at Intel. The team focuses on frameworks like PyTorch, TF and other inference/serving engines. Prior to Intel Kismat worked at Nvidia for 8 focusing on AI S/W frameworks/libs like TensorRT, Deep learning compiler etc.
Luca Antiga is the CTO at Lightning AI. He is an early contributor to PyTorch core and co-authored "Deep Learning with PyTorch" (published by Manning). He started his journey as a researcher in Bioengineering, and later co-founded Orobix, a company focused on building and deploying AI in production settings.
Matt White (he/him) is the Executive Director of the PyTorch Foundation and GM of AI at the Linux Foundation. Matt is a distinguished expert in artificial intelligence and business, renowned for successfully deploying large-scale AI platforms across the telecom, gaming, media, and entertainment industries. With over two decades of experience, Matt has consistently demonstrated his ability to stay ahead of the curve in technological innovation, spearheading advancements in AI applications in diverse domains.
Job Titles:
- Senior Program Manager at the Linux Foundation
- Senior Program Manager for Data Science
Nancy Rausch (she/her) is a Senior Program Manager at the Linux Foundation, specializing in open-source AI. She has extensive experience in AI technology, particularly in renewable energy and healthcare analytics research. Nancy has a track record of leadership, having managed high-performing teams at companies like SAS Institute and IBM. Additionally, she serves on the advisory board of the NSF-funded non-profit LASER Institute, which focuses on AI learning analytics in STEM education. Nancy holds a Master of Science in Data Analytics from Capella University, a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from Duke University, and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Michigan Technological University.
Job Titles:
- Director of Product Management at AMD
Niles Burbank is Director of Product Management at AMD, responsible for a family of data center GPU products. Based in Markham, Canada, he has been involved in the computer hardware industry since 1995 in a range of technical and management roles. Niles shares AMD's passion for working together with the wider community to deliver the software and hardware tools that will advance AI. He holds an MASc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto.
Job Titles:
- Distinguished Engineer at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
Raghu Ganti, a Distinguished Engineer at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, leads the development of tuning and training stack for LLMs on IBM's Hybrid Cloud platform. He has extensive expertise in large scale distributed algorithms and his work on spatiotemporal data analysis has been included in 15+ IBM products.
Job Titles:
- Program Manager
- Program Manager at the Linux Foundation
Regina Nkenchor (she/her) is a Program Manager at the Linux Foundation, where she oversees high-impact projects, including PyTorch, the Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP), and RISE. With over a decade of experience in the technology industry, Regina has successfully led digital transformation initiatives across sectors such as tax, finance, education, retail, and open source ecosystems.
Prior to joining the Linux Foundation, Regina served as a Software Engineer and as an Open Source Program Office (OSPO) Ambassador at IKEA. She holds a Master's degree in Informatics from Halmstad University, Sweden, and a Professional Diploma in Software Engineering from NIIT in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
She also earned a Bachelor's degree in Public Administration and a Diploma in Law from the University of Jos, Nigeria.
Outside of work, Regina enjoys traveling and connecting with new people. Her goal is to empower developers and communities to thrive while fostering a healthier, more inclusive open source ecosystem for everyone.
Steve Wan leads AI at Scale business development at Microsoft, aiming to empower developers to efficiently train and deploy machine learning models at unmatched scale on Azure. A pivotal aspect of this strategy involves enabling and innovating on PyTorch.
Job Titles:
- Senior Cloud Operations Engineer
Thanh Ha is a Senior Cloud Operations Engineer at The Linux Foundation, working on the PyTorch CI infrastructure. A seasoned DevOps professional with over 15 years experience, Thanh excels in Infrastructure Optimization: Enhancing the backbone of software development for scalability and performance, Automation Mastery: Streamlining CI/CD pipelines to accelerate development cycles and ensure consistency, and Quality Assurance: Innovating QA and testing processes to deliver robust, high-quality software. With a passion for merging hands-on technical expertise with industry best practices, Thanh collaborates closely with development teams, driving technological advancements and mentoring emerging talent in the DevOps field.