Philipp Michel

Perception | Robotics | ML/AI | Product | Derivatives Trading

Experience

2020-now Amazon Head of Perception & Planning Seattle, WA

2019-2020 Amazon Principal Product Manager - Technical Seattle, WA

2018-now The University of Tokyo Project Assistant Professor Tokyo, Japan

2018-2019 The Partnership on AI Committee Member San Francisco, CA

Representing The University of Tokyo
Member of the committees on Safety Critical AI and on Collaborations between People and AI Systems

2017-2019 Toyota Motor Corporation Global AI Strategy Advisor Worldwide

2016-17 Toyota Research Institute Senior Manager, Machine Intelligence Palo Alto, CA

Devised and executed TRI’s machine learning strategy
Built world-class ML team from scratch
Led ML algorithms, infrastructure, model/data management and on-platform deployment efforts
Applied to autonomous vehicles and robotics, focus on perception tasks
Business development / investment / research partnership advisory

2015-16 Google, Inc. / Alphabet, Inc. Senior Roboticist / Software Engineer Mountain View, CA

Advanced perception / computer vision deployed on multiple confidential robotic platforms
Object detection & real-time tracking (monocular and depth-based) for manipulation and navigation (wheeled+legged)
High frame-rate localization / pose estimation
Machine learning

2008-15 Goldman Sachs Japan, Co. Ltd. Vice President, Equity Derivatives Trading Tokyo, Japan

Head, Asia Quantitative Volatility Trading. Low latency, high Sharpe ratio algorithmic options trading in Japan, Korea, and India (2013-2014)
Traded the firm’s index derivatives book in Japan (Nikkei, Topix, etc.). Consistently high yearly P&L (2008-2013)
Deep experience in pricing / hedging / market making volatility and delta-one products including options, light exotics, var/vol swaps, div swaps, forwards, rolls, etc.
Actively traded cross-country positions in S&P, Eurostoxx and Asian underlying assets
Trading lead for several automation projects in pricing, market making, systematic trading / hedging

2007 UBS Summer Associate, Equities Trading Stamford, CT / New York, NY

Rotations: Quantitative strategies. Electronic volatility trading. Derivatives trading.
Offer for permanent employment

2004 Wolfram Research International Developer, Special Projects Office Waltham, MA

Wrote and optimized computer vision / image processing algorithms for Mathematica

2002 Goldman Sachs International Summer Analyst London, UK

2004-08 Carnegie Mellon University Ph.D. Robotics (May 08), M.S. Robotics (May 06) Pittsburgh, PA

2003-04 Yale University Postgraduate Fellow (Robotics) Computer Science Department New Haven, CT

2000-03 Cambridge University M.A. & B.A. (Hons), Computer Science Cambridge, UK

2005-08 AIST Digital Human Research Center Visiting Researcher, Humanoid Robotics Tokyo, Japan

Nvidia Fellowship (2006-07)
Triple Scholar of Churchill College Cambridge for outstanding academic performance
Fellow of Cambridge University European Trust
Scholar of the German National Merit Foundation (top 0.2% of students)
Cambridge University prize for outstanding undergraduate dissertation