PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Wenda Zhou

Wenda Zhou is a researcher at OpenAI whose work spans graph neural networks, generative design, code optimization and reasoning models. He studied for a B.A. with MMaths (Part III) at Cambridge from October 2011 to May 2015 and coauthored a 2019 NeurIPS paper on generating valid discrete objects. From 2020 to 2023, he held a Flatiron Research Fellowship, coauthored work on graph neural networks and parametric CAD, and joined OpenAI as a member of technical staff in 2023. He coauthored the OpenAI o1 System Card in 2024, a 2025 paper on competitive programming with large reasoning models, and the GPT-5 System Card published with the August 2025 launch.

Now at
OpenAI
Works
27
Citations
279
h-index
9
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2011–2015

    Maths at Cambridge

    He studies for a B.A. with MMaths (Part III) at Cambridge from October 2011 to May 2015.

  2. 2019

    Generating valid objects

    In 2019, he coauthors a NeurIPS paper that generates discrete objects through local operations that preserve validity. It evaluates the method on molecules and Laman graphs.

  3. 2020–2023

    Flatiron research fellowship

    From 2020 to 2023, he is a Flatiron Research Fellow at the Simons Foundation.

  4. 2021

    Autobahn graph networks

    In 2021, he coauthors Autobahn, a family of graph neural networks that applies local convolutions equivariant to each subgraph’s automorphism group.

  5. 2022

    CAD sketches and code search

    In 2022, he coauthors Vitruvion, a generative model for parametric CAD sketches, and a code superoptimizer that uses neural Monte-Carlo tree search.

  6. 2023

    Joining OpenAI

    In 2023, he joins OpenAI as a member of technical staff.

  7. 2024–2025

    Reasoning systems

    In 2024, he coauthors the OpenAI o1 System Card, which describes large-scale reinforcement learning for chain-of-thought reasoning. In February 2025, he coauthors Competitive Programming with Large Reasoning Models, which reports that reinforcement learning boosts large language model performance on complex coding and reasoning tasks. A GPT-5 System Card published alongside the August 2025 launch also lists him as an author.

  8. As of October 2026

    Researcher at OpenAI

    He works as a researcher at OpenAI, a role he has held since 2023. His work spans AI systems for mathematical and computing problems, code optimization, engineering design, and reasoning.

Career

  1. Since 2023OpenAIResearcher
  2. 2021–2023New York University
  3. 2020–2023Simons FoundationFlatiron Research Fellow
  4. 2018–2020Columbia University

Education

  1. 2015University of CambridgeB.A. with MMaths (Part III)

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

  1. 22 of 133 people shaping AI with a former OpenAI role now work at AnthropicIncludes Wenda Zhou. Our estimates of where OpenAI recruits came from and where 133 people with former OpenAI roles work now, including the companies and labs they founded.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Wenda Zhou. 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.
  3. 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a companyIncludes Wenda Zhou. We estimate that 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a company; 29% of moves starting at a university went to a company, and 76% ended the university role.
  4. Among employers with 30+ full-time cases, OpenAI leads primary technical role H-1B pay at $310,000, and Amazon, Google and Microsoft file 57% of all casesIncludes OpenAI. Across 440,669 certified US H-1B filings from 44 employers (FY2020–FY2026), OpenAI leads primary technical role base pay at $310,000 and xAI leads overall base pay at $290,000.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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

  1. Wenda Zhou wendazhou.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Discrete Object Generation with Reversible Inductive Construction proceedings.neurips.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Wenda Zhou | People in AI · Turing Tree turingtree.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Autobahn: Automorphism-based Graph Neural Nets proceedings.neurips.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. [2109.14124] Vitruvion: A Generative Model of Parametric CAD Sketches arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Computational Mathematics: Machine Learning and Computational Statistics – Simons Foundation simonsfoundation.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. [2412.16720] OpenAI o1 System Card arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. [2502.06807] Competitive Programming with Large Reasoning Models arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. [2601.03267] OpenAI GPT-5 System Card arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.