INCOMING AT UCLA · ROBOTICS SOFTWARE LEAD · AI/ML RESEARCH
Rian
Butala
I reimplement modern ML from the papers up: diffusion, JEPA world models, and LLMs built from scratch in PyTorch. Then I build the perception systems and apps that put them to work.
Selected Work
ALL PROJECTS →
Work Experience
01
Research Assistant
UCLA
Invited as a high school senior to analyze neural recordings and optimize decision transformers with graduate students and faculty.
02
Software Engineer
WakeMates
Sole developer taking the product from concept to deployment alongside the founder.
03
Founding Software Lead & Captain
FRC 10252 / FTC 21781
Built a rookie team's full codebase from scratch and mentored members in computer vision and autonomous path planning.
04
Founding VP, Aerospace Club
Stratford Preparatory
Built and flew autonomous long-range RC aircraft from scratch. Pixhawk, ArduPilot, ExpressLRS.
05
AI/ML Intern
FinanceGPT
Machine learning research and applied work over a summer internship.