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darvin yi — director of ml, upwork · palo alto
frontier AI, shipped.
I build AI systems that move from research to reality. Currently leading ML at Upwork, focused on agentic AI. Former researcher at Stanford, UIC, Cruise, and Magic Leap — with work spanning medical imaging, computer vision, and autonomous systems.
DY
palo alto, ca
stanford phd · princeton bs
research focus
01
Agentic AI
Multi-step reasoning agents that take real-world action across tools, APIs, and workflows.
02
Foundational AIML
Core ML research — learning algorithms, generalization, and representation at scale.
03
Computer Vision
Detection, segmentation, and understanding of visual data across medical and real-world domains.
04
Research → Industry
Bridging frontier methods to shipped products. From paper to production.
projects
Personal Assistant
An AI agent wired into calendar, tasks, and life context. My personal mission control in the browser.
Research Portfolio
Full academic portfolio — publications, career arc, and research areas.
selected research — 3,347+ citations
agentic ai · upwork · 2025
UpBench: A Dynamically Evolving Real-World Labor-Market Agentic Benchmark
mammography · jama network open · 2020
Evaluation of Combined AI and Radiologist Assessment to Interpret Screening Mammograms
federated learning · jamia · npj digital medicine · 2018–2021
organ segmentation · nature scientific data · 2020
CT-ORG: A New Dataset for Multiple Organ Segmentation in Computed Tomography
brain metastases · jmri · stanford aimi · 2019
Deep Learning Enables Automatic Detection and Segmentation of Brain Metastases on Multi-Sequence MRI
experience
2025 → now
Director of Machine Learning
Upwork — Agentic AI, Palo Alto
2020 → 2025
Assistant Professor & Co-Executive Director, Ai-O
University of Illinois Chicago — Ophthalmology & Health Equity in ML
2023
Staff Applied Research Scientist
Cruise — Autonomous Vehicles, SF
2020 → 2023
Principal Computer Vision Scientist
Sirona Medical
2018 → 2020
Deep Learning Scientist, Human-Centered AI
Magic Leap — Sunnyvale
2014 → 2020
PhD, Biomedical Informatics
Stanford University
about
I'm a machine learning researcher and engineer interested in building AI that works in the real world — not just on benchmarks.
My career has moved between academia and industry: a Stanford PhD in biomedical informatics, research roles at Magic Leap, Sirona, and Cruise, five years directing an AI center at UIC, and now leading ML at Upwork where I focus on agentic AI systems.
Outside of work, I'm a photographer, a builder of small web things, and someone trying to live a little more intentionally.