PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Kevin Rizk

Kevin Rizk is a mathematics and machine learning researcher whose work examines how neural networks reason and generalize to unseen problems. At EPFL, he received an award for the third-highest mathematics bachelor's GPA in October 2021 and wrote a 2022–2023 master's thesis under Petru Constantinescu. With Emmanuel Abbe, Samy Bengio, and Aryo Lotfi, he won an ICML 2023 Outstanding Paper Award for a mathematical framework of neural-network reasoning and published the Degree-Curriculum algorithm in the Journal of Machine Learning Research in 2024. His 2024 work also included a Stanford CS 224N project on gender fairness in BERT models and an Acta Arithmetica paper on multiplicative independence. Having joined Stanford's Department of Mathematics in September 2023, he is a doctoral student advised by Jan Vondrák as of October 2026.

Timeline

  1. October 2021

    EPFL bachelor's GPA award

    In October 2021, he receives an EPFL award for the third-highest bachelor's GPA, earning a 5.79 average in mathematics.

  2. 2022–2023

    A master's thesis at EPFL

    At EPFL, he writes a 2022–2023 master's thesis on Bhargava's proof of van der Waerden's conjecture under the supervision of Petru Constantinescu.

  3. 2023

    An ICML Outstanding Paper

    He coauthors Generalization on the Unseen, Logic Reasoning and Degree Curriculum with Emmanuel Abbe, Samy Bengio, and Aryo Lotfi for ICML 2023, where the paper wins an Outstanding Paper Award. The study develops the Generalization on the Unseen mathematical framework for neural-network reasoning, and its theory matches experiments on Transformers.

  4. September 2023

    Starting a Stanford PhD

    Stanford's Department of Mathematics welcomes him in September 2023 as one of 11 new PhD students.

  5. 2024

    BERT gender fairness project

    For Stanford's CS 224N course in 2024, he authors the project Fine-tuning and Gender Fairness of BERT Models.

  6. 2024

    A multiplicative independence paper

    With David Crnčević, Felipe Hernández, Khunpob Sereesuchart, and Ran Tao, he coauthors the 2024 Acta Arithmetica paper On the multiplicative independence between n and floor(alpha n).

  7. 2024

    Degree-Curriculum for reasoning

    In 2024, Rizk, Emmanuel Abbe, Samy Bengio, and Aryo Lotfi publish their study of generalization on unseen Boolean functions in the Journal of Machine Learning Research. They introduce Degree-Curriculum, a curriculum learning algorithm that learns monomials more efficiently by incrementing supports.

  8. As of October 2026

    Doctoral student at Stanford

    As of October 2026, he is a doctoral student in Stanford's Department of Mathematics, advised by Jan Vondrák.

Career

Education

  1. 2023EPFLMaster’s thesis
  2. From 2023Stanford UniversityPhD

From the biography.

  1. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes Stanford University. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.
  2. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Stanford University. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Stanford University. 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.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Stanford University. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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

  1. EPFL awards 1179 Master's degrees - EPFL actu.epfl.ch. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Petru Constantinescu petruconstantinescu.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Generalization on the Unseen, Logic Reasoning and Degree Curriculum proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. 2023 Awards icml.cc. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. ICML Outstanding Paper Award for an Apple-MATH EPFL collaboration - EPFL actu.epfl.ch. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Welcome New Graduate Students | Mathematics mathematics.stanford.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Stanford CS 224N | Project Reports web.stanford.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. On the multiplicative independence between n and floor(alpha n) impan.pl. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. Generalization on the Unseen, Logic Reasoning and Degree Curriculum jmlr.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  10. Jan Vondrak's Profile | Stanford Profiles profiles.stanford.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  11. Kevin Rizk | Mathematics mathematics.stanford.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.