PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Byron Boots

Byron Boots is a machine-learning researcher whose work connects robot perception, learning, and control. He studied computer science and analytic philosophy at Bowdoin, built perception and navigation systems at MobileRobots, and earned a machine-learning PhD at Carnegie Mellon in 2012. After a UW postdoctoral role and a Georgia Tech faculty appointment from 2014 to 2019, he returned to UW in 2019 and coauthored DMD-MPC. His research includes Gaussian Process motion planning and Long Range Navigator; he received the NSF CAREER Award in 2018, the RSS Early Career Award in 2020, and the DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2022. As of October 2026, he is UW’s Amazon Professor of Machine Learning, directs the UW Robot Learning Laboratory, and is Overland AI’s co-founder and CEO.

Now at
University of Washington and Overland AI
Works
202
Citations
6,201
h-index
38
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. By 2012

    Education and robotics engineering

    He studies computer science and analytic philosophy at Bowdoin College and works as an engineer at MobileRobots Inc., developing perception and navigation systems for autonomous mobile robots. He completes a machine-learning PhD at Carnegie Mellon in 2012, advised by Geoff Gordon.

  2. 2012–2019

    Postdoctoral and faculty roles

    From 2012 to 2014, he is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington in the Robotics and State Estimation Lab directed by Dieter Fox. From 2014 to 2019, he is an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing and leads the Georgia Tech Robot Learning Lab; his group develops theory and systems that tightly integrate perception, learning, and control. In 2019, he returns to the University of Washington faculty after five years at Georgia Tech and coauthors DMD-MPC, an online-learning approach to model predictive control.

  3. 2018

    Gaussian Process motion planning

    He advises the Georgia Tech team behind Continuous-time Gaussian Process Motion Planning via Probabilistic Inference, which casts the search for a feasible path as probabilistic inference with Gaussian Processes. The paper receives the 2018 IJRR Paper of the Year award, and he receives the NSF CAREER Award in 2018.

  4. 2020

    An RSS Early Career Award

    He receives the RSS Early Career Award for contributions to robot learning in 2020.

  5. 2022

    An Amazon professorship

    In 2022, UW appoints him to the Amazon Professorship in Machine Learning.

  6. 2022

    A DARPA award and a startup

    He receives the 2022 DARPA Young Faculty Award. In 2022, he co-founds Overland AI, which builds autonomous land systems to defend the United States and its allies.

  7. 2025

    Long Range Navigator

    He coauthors Long Range Navigator (LRN). In off-road tests on Spot and a large vehicle, the system reduces human interventions and improves decision speed when integrated into existing navigation stacks.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and startup CEO

    As of October 2026, he is the Amazon Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Washington and directs the UW Robot Learning Laboratory. He is also Overland AI’s co-founder and chief executive officer.

Career

  1. Since 2012University of WashingtonPostdoctoral Researcher
  2. NowOverland AICo-founder and Chief Executive Officer
  3. 2019–2022NVIDIA
  4. 2014–2019Georgia Institute of TechnologyAssistant Professor
  5. 2005–2010Duke University
  6. MobileRobots Inc.Engineer

Education

  1. 2012Carnegie Mellon UniversityPhD
  2. Bowdoin College

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. One-Shot Learning for Semantic Segmentation2017 · British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) · 847 citationsWith Irfan Essa
  2. Information theoretic MPC for model-based reinforcement learning2017 · IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation · 492 citations
  3. Agile Autonomous Driving using End-to-End Deep Imitation Learning2018 · 250 citations
  4. Differentiable MPC for End-to-end Planning and Control2018 · 247 citations
  5. Continuous-time Gaussian process motion planning via probabilistic inference2018 · The International Journal of Robotics Research · 226 citationsWith Frank Dellaert

From OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

  1. Stanford University trained or employed 26 of the 108 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University of Washington. Stanford University trained or employed 26 of the 108 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and employment links for major-prize and best-paper winners.
  2. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes University of Washington. Our estimates of combined and median h-index at AI organizations, using current affiliations and OpenAlex records.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers rose from 2% to 32%Includes University of Washington. We estimate where leading AI researchers worked when their most-cited papers appeared. The company share rose from 2% in 1975–1979 to 32% in 2020–2024.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Washington. Our estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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

  1. Byron Boots videolectures.net. Checked 18 October 2026.
  2. Carnegie Mellon Machine Learning Lunch Seminar cs.cmu.edu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  3. Early Career Awards · Robotics: Science and Systems roboticsconference.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  4. Allen School’s latest faculty additions will strengthen UW’s leadership in robotics, machine learning, human-computer interaction, and more news.cs.washington.edu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  5. Byron Boots, Professor - Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering cs.washington.edu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  6. An Online Learning Approach to Model Predictive Control arxiv.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  7. Georgia Tech Team Wins New Fetch Robot at ICRA’s FetchIt! Mobile Manipulation Challenge cc.gatech.edu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  8. Byron Boots earns RSS Early Career Award for contributions to robot learning news.cs.washington.edu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  9. News · Robot Learning Lab robotlearning.cs.washington.edu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  10. The Future of Warfare Is Here, and the United States Is Falling Behind overland.ai. Checked 18 October 2026.
  11. Overland AI Raises $100 Million to Scale Ground Autonomy with U.S. Armed Forces overland.ai. Checked 18 October 2026.
  12. Long Range Navigator (LRN): Extending robot planning horizons beyond metric maps proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 18 October 2026.