About Me



I graduated with a MS in mechanical engineering (with a focus on control systems) from UC Berkeley in May 2021. I obtained my BS in mechanical engineering from MIT in May 2019. I currently live in Washington DC as Machine Learning Software Engineer in the field of autonomous driving. My current work lies at the intersection between traditional motion planning and deep learning.

Below, you will find information about my course projects, personal projects, internships, and more.

Professional Experience

Machine Learning Software Engineer II (Apr 2023 - Present)
Forest Machine Learning Software Engineer (Feb 2022 - Mar 2023)
Mountains Autonomous Driving Software Engineer (Jun 2021 - Dec 2021)

Internship Experience

Software Engineering Intern (2019)
Forest Controls Engineering Intern (2018)
Mountains Robotics Engineering Intern (2017)
Mountains Undergrad Research Assistant (2016)

Education

UC Berkeley
MS in Mechanical Engineering (2019-2021)
GPA: 3.9/4.0
Forest MIT
BS in Mechanical Engineering (2015-2019)
GPA: 4.9/5.0
Duluth High School (GA)
GED (2013-2015)
GPA: 101.35/100.0
Gainesville High School (GA)
2011-2013
GPA: 4.2/4.0

Portfolio

C++ Library of Motion Planning Libraries

C++ Implementations of common motion planning algorithms including Dijkstras, A*, Hybrid A*, RRT and RRT*.

C++ Reeds-Shepp Curves for 2D Kinematic Car Motion Planning

A C++ header-only library to generate Reeds Shepp Curves for a simple kinematic car that has a fixed turning radius and can move forward and backwards.

Quadrupedal Locomotion with DRL

MS Capstone: Realizing different quadrupedal gaits with periodic reward composition and deep reinforcement learning

Autonomous RC Racecar

MIT 6.141: Robotic Science and Systems Capstone Course

Building a Robot from Scratch

MIT 2.007: Design and Manufacturing I

Shio-yo: World's First Ramen Yoyo

MIT 2.008: Design and Manufacturing II

Foldable Origami Robots with Computer Vision

MIT CSAIL UROP Summer 2016

CADs in Solidworks

Brain Power: Winter Externship

Get In Touch

Interested in connecting? Send me a message here or send me an e-mail at johnsjli [at] berkeley [dot] edu.