Phil Duan
Also known as Pengfei Duan, 段鹏飞
Phil Duan is a Director of Engineering at Tesla AI, where his team focuses on self-driving at scale. He studied optic information science in China before earning an Ohio University master's degree in electrical engineering in 2011 and a PhD in avionics in 2018. His Ohio years included an autonomous snowplow project and aircraft-safety research that earned him an RTCA aviation award in 2019. Before joining Tesla in 2017, he worked on indoor navigation at Eurecat and GNSS engineering for Trimble and Samsung. At Tesla, he created the Occupancy Network for 3D scene modeling and presented a vision foundation model talk at CVPR in 2023.
- Now at
- Tesla
Timeline
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2011–2018
From China to Ohio
He earns an undergraduate degree in optic information science in China, then an Ohio University master's in electrical engineering in 2011 and a PhD in Avionics in 2018.
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2012
An autonomous snowplow
At the 2012 Student Expo, he shows an autonomous snowplow built with Ohio University engineering students.
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Before 2017
GNSS and indoor navigation
Before he joins Tesla in 2017, he works on indoor navigation as a visiting scholar at Eurecat in Catalonia and gains GNSS engineering experience at Trimble and Samsung.
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2017–2022
Joining Tesla Autopilot
He joins Tesla's Autopilot project as a software engineer in 2017 and leads one of its teams by 2022.
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2019
A dissertation award
In 2019, he receives the RTCA William E. Jackson Award for his aircraft-safety dissertation.
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2022
Building the Occupancy Network
At Tesla AI Day in 2022, he describes the Occupancy Network as a model of the physical world in 3D around Tesla cars. He creates Tesla's Occupancy Network.
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June 2023
Vision models for driving
At the June 2023 CVPR workshop, he presents Tesla's talk “Building Vision Foundation Models for Autonomous Driving.”
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As of October 2026
Director of Engineering at Tesla AI
He is a Director of Engineering at Tesla AI, where his team focuses on solving self-driving at scale. He leads AI development for Tesla's Robotaxi launch and Full Self-Driving v14 release.
Sources and credits
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