Ernest K. Ryu

Ernest Ryu is an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA and a Research Scientist at OpenAI. His research focuses on applied mathematics, deep learning, and optimization. Professor Ryu received B.S. degrees with honors in Physics and Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2010. He earned an M.S. in Statistics and a Ph.D. in Computational and Mathematical Engineering from Stanford University in 2016, where his dissertation received the Gene Golub Best Thesis Award. In 2016, he joined the UCLA Department of Mathematics as an Assistant Adjunct Professor. In 2020, he joined the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Seoul National University as a tenure-track faculty member. He returned to UCLA as an assistant professor in 2024 and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2026. In 2026, he took a leave of absence from UCLA to join OpenAI as a Research Scientist. Link to full CV.