Benjamin Van Roy is a Professor at Stanford University, where he has served on the faculty since 1998. His research focuses on understanding how an agent interacting with a poorly understood environment can learn over time to make effective decisions. He is interested in the design of efficient reinforcement learning algorithms, understanding what is possible or impossible in this domain, and applying the technology toward the benefit of society. Beyond academia, he leads a DeepMind Research team in Mountain View, and has also led research programs at Unica (acquired by IBM), Enuvis (acquired by SiRF), and Morgan Stanley.
