PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Alexander Terenin

Alexander Terenin is an AI researcher whose Gaussian-process methods help decision systems reason about uncertainty. His 2020 posterior-sampling paper earned an ICML Outstanding Paper honorable mention, and his 2021 paper on graph Matérn processes won AISTATS's Best Student Paper award. He earned degrees at UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz and Imperial College London, then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge before joining Cornell's data science center, where he co-led an AI and climate grant project. In September 2026, he is an independent researcher focused on decision-making under uncertainty and is writing Bayesian Decision-making Algorithms.

Timeline

  1. 2020

    Fast posterior sampling

    In 2020, he coauthors “Efficiently sampling functions from Gaussian process posteriors,” which separates the Gaussian process prior from data to support fast posterior sampling. ICML gives the paper an Outstanding Paper honorable mention.

  2. 2021

    Matérn Gaussian processes on graphs

    In 2021, as an Imperial mathematics PhD student, he describes his research as artificial intelligence for learning-based decision systems that understand uncertainty. His coauthored Matérn Gaussian Processes on Graphs extends Matérn processes to undirected graphs and enables standard training with inducing points; AISTATS gives it the Best Student Paper award.

  3. 2021–2022

    PhD and Cambridge postdoc

    While completing his PhD in 2021, he plans to join Cambridge's Machine Learning Group within the Computational and Biological Learning Lab after graduation. He earns a mathematics PhD from Imperial College London in 2022, after B.S. and B.A. degrees at UC Santa Barbara and an M.S. at UC Santa Cruz; by a 2022 Waterloo.AI seminar, he is a Cambridge postdoctoral research associate presenting pathwise conditioning of Gaussian processes for Bayesian modeling.

  4. October 2023

    Decision-making beyond optimization

    In October 2023, he plans to study decision-making algorithms for tasks beyond optimization. He aims to develop theory for constructing and understanding algorithms that balance explore-exploit tradeoffs.

  5. 2024

    Stable sparse Gaussian processes

    In 2024, he coauthors a study that derives inducing-point conditions for stable sparse Gaussian process computations and proposes a modified cover-tree method to find points automatically for low-dimensional tasks.

  6. December 2025

    Active climate monitoring

    In December 2025, he is an Assistant Research Professor at Cornell's Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society and co-leads an AI and Climate Fast Grant project with Sarah Dean. Their Low-Cost Active Climate Monitoring with Underactuated Agents project develops planning and learning algorithms to measure uncertain flows with weather balloons and ocean buoys.

  7. 2026

    Bayesian Decision-making Algorithms

    In 2026, he writes Bayesian Decision-making Algorithms, a book about Bayesian decision-making.

  8. September 2026

    Independent researcher

    In September 2026, he is an independent researcher after serving as an Assistant Research Professor at Cornell. His research focuses on decision-making under uncertainty.

Career

  1. From 2022University of CambridgePostdoctoral Research Associate

Education

  1. 2022Imperial College LondonPhD
  2. University of California, Santa BarbaraB.S. and B.A.
  3. University of California, Santa CruzM.S.

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Alexander Terenin. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Cambridge. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of Cambridge. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  4. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes University of Cambridge. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Alexander Terenin yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Efficiently sampling functions from Gaussian process posteriors proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Awards: Test of Time and Best Papers icml.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Understanding uncertainty and the value of visualisation in AI imperial.ac.uk. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Matérn Gaussian Processes on Graphs proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Paper Awards | Artificial Intelligence and Statistics 2021 aistats.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Waterloo.AI Seminar: Alexander Terenin on Pathwise Conditioning of Gaussian Processes uwaterloo.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. ORIE Colloquium: Alexander Terenin (Cornell Data Science) events.cornell.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. On Successful Research avt.im. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Numerically Stable Sparse Gaussian Processes via Minimum Separation using Cover Trees jmlr.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Grants to support research at nexus of AI, climate science news.cornell.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  11. CDSES assistant research professor Alex Terenin and CS assistant professor Sarah Dean receive AI and Climate Fast Grant award for work on climate monitoring datasciencecenter.cornell.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  12. Alexander Terenin avt.im. Checked 21 October 2026.
  13. Extra Seminar: Alexander Terenin uu.se. Checked 21 October 2026.