Hadi Salman

Research Lead at OpenAI

01 / ABOUT

A little background.

I am a Research Lead at OpenAI working on advancing the frontier of large language models. I earned my PhD in Computer Science from MIT under the supervision of Aleksander Madry, focusing on building the foundations of robust and reliable machine learning systems to enable their safe and responsible real-world deployment.

Prior to MIT, I spent two years at Microsoft Research—first as an AI Resident, then as a Research Engineer—working on robustness in deep learning. Earlier, I was an intern at Uber ATG working on autonomous driving.

I hold an M.S. in Robotics from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and a dual degree in Mathematics (B.S.) and Mechanical Engineering (B.E.) from the American University of Beirut.

02 / JOURNEY

Research, work
& education.

From mathematics and robotics to robust machine learning and large language models.

June 2023 — Present
OpenAI
Large language models, reasoning, and AI agents.
- Research Lead
  2024 — Present
- Research Scientist
  2023 — 2024
2021 — 2023
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PhD in Computer Science
Advised by Aleksander Madry. Foundations of robust and reliable machine learning.
September 2018 — January 2021
Microsoft Research
Research on safety, security, and robustness in deep learning.
- Research Engineer
  2019 — 2021
- AI Resident
  2018 — 2019
May — August 2018
Uber ATG
Software Engineering Intern
Machine learning for autonomous driving.
Summer 2015 · 2016 — 2018
Carnegie Mellon University
- M.S. in Robotics
  2016 — 2018
  The Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science.
- Graduate Research Assistant
  August 2016 — May 2018
  Machine learning and robotics research advised by Howie Choset and Matthew Travers.
- Summer Scholar Intern
  Summer 2015
  Interned at the Biorobotics Laboratory through the RISS program.
2012 — 2016
American University of Beirut
- Dual degree
  2012 — 2016
  B.S. in Mathematics · B.E. in Mechanical Engineering
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
  December 2014 — June 2016
  Robotics research in the Vision and Robotics Lab.