We are AIO Initiative, a student-run global initiative working to make AI olympiad education available to anyone who wants it. To meet the team and see what else we do besides USAAIO Guide, visit aioinitiative.org.
Co-Founder, Co-President
Dennis (Qicheng) Yang is a junior at Carlmont High School. He qualified for USAAIO Camp during the 2026 season. He also competes in USACO and was a finalist during the ’25 and ’26 seasons. Outside of AI and competitive programming, he likes to find good eats and get extra sleep.
Co-Founder, Co-President
Hi, my name is Lucas and I am a USAAIO Camper this year! The parts of AI that I find the most intriguing are image generation techniques using models such as Diffusion models and VAEs. I also love snowboarding and running cross country, and I’m training for my third half marathon right now.
Co-Founder, Co-President
Hello, I am Henry Wang and I am a junior attending Lynbrook High School. I enjoy practicing math and computer science, and applying my skills to robotics and ML, where I currently research with UC Berkeley’s AUTOLab. Outside of that, I enjoy playing soccer, Clash Royale, and going out with friends. I hope you all have fun learning with our guide :)
Director of Guide
Hi, my name is Quan. I’m an incoming 12th grader and one of the two Canadian invitees for USAAIO Camp this year. Outside of coding or math, you can find me playing Football Manager, squash, biking in the most random places, or doing robotics. Wishing y’all the best on your own IOAI journey.
Director of Guide
Hi, I am Rener. I am currently a junior at Troy High School. My interests include programming, AI, bird watching, and games. I love running reinforcement-learning algorithms in games that I develop and observing their behaviors. I am also a hockey player and a big fan of the Vegas Golden Knights.
Team Member
Hi, my name is Aaditya! I was part of the IAIO 2026 team and was also a USAAIO camper this year. My favorite parts of AI are reinforcement learning and nonconvex optimization. Outside of coding, you can find me reading the Percy Jackson books.
Team Member
Hi! I’m Jerry. I’m currently a senior at South Pasadena High School. I like AI and robots. I competed at IOAI 2026 in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Team Member
Hi! I’m Shiven. I was a USAAIO Camper in 2026 and a top-20 silver medalist in 2025. I’m particularly interested in Graph Neural Networks and mechanistic interpretability. When I’m not wasting Colab tokens, you’ll find me playing the sax or watching basketball.
Team Member
Hi! I’m Sophia, a rising 12th grader in Canada. I have camped in the US and Canadian AI olympiads and enjoy decision tree algorithms the most :)) You can find me either on snow or on water in my free time, usually with a book.
Team Member
Hi, I’m Ryan! I’m a sophomore from Maryland. I was a USAAIO camper last year and I’m very excited to be on the team! My favorite aspects of AI probably include natural language processing and large language models.
Team Member
Hi! I’m Tristan Sun, a senior at Highland Park High School in Dallas, Texas. I’ll be competing at IAIO this year. I love experimenting with LLMs, coding, and learning about math & physics. I’m also an avid reader and writer.
Team Member
Hi, I’m Bryan. I’m a freshman at MIT. I have no time to say more, sorry — I have a linalg test in a couple of days.
Team Member
Hi! I’m Hitaishi Chillara, an IAIO 2027 competitor and a USAPhO Silver Medalist. I became interested in machine learning from a robot dog toy I had as a kid, where I was intrigued by how it stood upright. It got me into robot learning and its underlying physics, and I currently work on robotics systems, where I write Rust firmware and Python machine-learning infrastructure for autonomous robots. I also do astrophysics research, even using machine learning for various physical aspects of astronomy.
Team Member
2025 IOAI
Team Member
Hi! I’m Edward from Carmel, IN, and I am a USAAIO Camper this year. Diffusion models are the most beautiful architecture I’ve learned doing AIO. I also enjoy learning math and physics and smurfing other topics in Science Bowl. In my free time, you can find me twiddling the bamboo flute and running to the bus stop every morning.
Team Member
Hi, I’m Sharan! I’m a junior from Oregon. I enjoy learning AI and coding algorithms and applying my skills to solve real-world problems. I am excited to be part of the team!
Director of Classes
Hi! I’m Ivan Habib, a junior (wow! already?) at Los Gatos High School (in the Bay Area). I was a USAAIO Camper in 2026 and had an absolute blast. I first got into AI through a YouTube video of someone training an RL algorithm to play Trackmania. My favourite parts of AI include reinforcement learning and optimizer dynamics. Outside of AI, I’m an avid fantasy reader whose favourite author is reliably whoever’s book I’m reading right now. Bias aside, everyone should read Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn (and if you like it, the rest of the Cosmere).
Director of Classes
Hi! I’m Jack Wu, currently a sophomore at Lynbrook High School. When I’m free, I like to spend my spare time on hobbies such as ML and cybersecurity. This year, I have been a CAIO Camper and a participant in the IOAI AI Model Track. My favorite sector of artificial intelligence is reinforcement learning, and I love getting to meet and know the wonderful people in the community! :)
Director of Operations
Siddhant is a junior at Westmount Charter School in Calgary, Canada. He enjoys spending time thinking deeply about abstract math and computer science problems. Conducting AI research is something he has been fascinated with and pursues. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer and watching K-dramas.
Director of Operations
Hi, I’m Bharath! I’m a junior from Texas. I’ve been doing AI research at Harvard, and I also compete in competitive programming, where I reached USACO Gold. I’m really excited to be on the team!
Team Member
Hey, my name is George Zhang! I like math and coding as well as AI and robotics. In my free time, I like to create robotics projects, learn about computer vision, play chess, and watch Minecraft videos. I hope to meet amazing people and advance in my studies of AI here.
Team Member
Hi! I’m Hoang Dang, a junior at Mission San Jose High School. I like math, do competitive programming (USACO Silver :p) and am interested in AI. In my free time, I like to play Minecraft and NTE and watch anime. I hope to learn more about AI!
