About Me

(in about 554 words)

Intro

I am an AI researcher at Dyna Robotics, where I work on commercial-grade robotics foundation models. I enjoy thinking about how scalable robot learning, reinforcement learning, and foundation models can create reliable, general-purpose manipulation robots in the real world. In the long term, I’m excited about a future where everyone can easily teach their own robots continuously throughout their lifetime.

I did my graduate degree in robotics at the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, I worked on several directions that reflect this vision:

  • Under the guidance of Professors Eric Eaton, Jorge Méndez Méndez, and Dani S. Bassett, I studied compositional zero-shot data generation, where agents can tackle new tasks by recombining prior knowledge.

  • Supervised by Professors Dinesh Jayaraman and Osbert Bastani, I developed LLM-guided reward design, conducted large-scale RL training for dexterous tool use, and worked on articulated simulation alignment with real-world physics.

  • Working under Professor Kostas Daniilidis, I studied uncertainty-driven residual reinforcement learning to efficiently correct pretrained manipulation policies.

  • I also learned a lot from Marcel Hussing, who focuses on reliable RL, Junyao Shi, who brings internet-scale data knowledge into robotics, and Subin Kim, who I extensively collaborated with on general-purpose manipulation.

Before Penn, I was a researcher at the Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR Singapore under Dr. Senthilnath Jayavelu, focusing on interpretable reinforcement learning, symbolic policies, and latent representations to improve transparency in decision-making. As an undergraduate at VinUniversity with Professor Van-Dinh Nguyen, I applied RL to next-generation telecommunication networks, exploring resource allocation and network slicing, and completed my thesis on adaptive robotic parameter optimization using RL. As an engineering lead intern at Huawei Vietnam, I applied machine learning to IoT systems, leading a project on sleep-stage classification and representing Vietnam at the Asia-Pacific Seeds for the Future Summit.

Selected Media coverage

Selected Awards

  • Full Scholarship, Entrepreneurship Immersion Program, SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University (2024)
  • Team Leader, Top 20 Globally, Huawei Tech4Good Startup Competition (2024)
  • Singapore International Pre-Graduate Award, A*STAR, Ministry of Trade & Industry of Singapore (2023)
  • EXCEL Award for Entrepreneurial Mindset (2022), EXCEL Award for Leadership (2023), VinUniversity
  • Best Research Poster Award, VinUni College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) Day 2023
  • Dean's List, VinUniversity (2021-2023)
  • Co-Founder, led fundraising for agri-fintech startup TinFam, won Most Favorite Team, TechYouth Incubator (2022)

Selected Services

  • President, Penn Robotics Entrepreneurs Club, University of Pennsylvania (2025-2026)
  • Academic Journal Reviewer, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE) (2026)
  • Teaching Assistant, CIS 580 Machine Perception (3D Vision - Graduate Level), University of Pennsylvania (2025)
  • Speaker & Organizer, "How To Train Your Robots" motivational talks, Can Tho, Vietnam (2024-2025)
  • Professional Advisor, Mid-Atlantic Capital Conference, Philadelphia Alliance for Capital & Technologies (2024)
  • Founder, VinUni Football Community, first recreational sports initiative at VinUniversity (2022-2024)
  • Vice President of Professional (Drummer, Guitarist & Vocalist), VinUni Harmony, VinUniversity (2022-2023)
  • English Teacher, "English for Children at Cai Rang Floating Market", Can Tho, Vietnam (2019)