Thomas Y.L. Lin

21, human, bridging physics and AI, building intelligence by dreaming.

About Me

I grew up in Taiwan and bootstrapped my way to the US at 20. My path is a jump diffusion, driven by curiosity, a pursuit of impact, and a fear of mediocrity.

My inspiration traces back to a childhood fascination with chaos theory, where nontrivial phenomena emerge from simple math. The real aspiration is not merely to explain nature, but to engineer artifacts beyond it. That pursuit carried me through competitive physics programs and into founding a national team for the European Physics Olympiad. There, I won medals and earned early, test-free admission to National Taiwan University.

The year I entered college, ChatGPT emerged and prompted me to shift from physics to AI/ML research. I was fortunate to work with Northwestern University (MAGICS Lab), Gamma Paradigm Capital, and Caltech (AI4Science Lab). Through publications, I attended top conferences and met some of the most brilliant minds on Earth. It became clear the world was bigger than where I started. So I left my home country, applied for transfer, and made it to the University of Washington.

My long-term bet is the experience machine (Nozick, 1974), broadened to any form of life: the right to dream an ego-centric, reversible, and eternal second life. And, in both the world model and H. sapiens senses, dreaming is not escapism but intelligence itself. For humans, it may be the most Renaissance act after eras of slavery and labor, and the most economically efficient way to turn desire into realized utility.

Projects & Publications

Experience

MediaTek San Jose, CA · Jun 2026 - Present

Research Intern

Building a multi-physics world model for chips.

Pitched the Chairman and initiated the project with funding and data.

California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA · Mar 2025 - Present

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF)

Northwestern University Remote · Apr 2023 - Apr 2025

Machine Learning Intern

Gamma Paradigm Capital Taipei, Taiwan · Jun 2023 - Jul 2024

Quantitative Analyst Intern

Education

University of Washington Seattle, WA · 2025 - 2027

B.S. in Physics, Minor in Applied Math

National Taiwan University Taipei, Taiwan · 2023 - Transferred

B.S. in Physics, B.A. in Economics

Ventures & Community

YC AI Startup School

YC AI Startup School

An exclusive social event with speeches from well-known AI figures and networking with top CS students.

ICML Conferences

ICML '24 & '25

Presenting papers at top-tier ML conferences in Vienna and Vancouver. Connecting with some brilliant minds on Earth.

HUAP

Harvard x NTU (HUAP)

A club at National Taiwan University for short-term exchange with Harvard students.

NTU ABC Lab

NTU ABC Lab & Prof. Liao

Biggest blockchain lab in Taiwan with the legendary Prof. Shih-wei Liao.

NTU Phi-Epsilon-Delta

NTU Phi-Epsilon-Delta

An unofficial fraternity founded in my house next to NTU campus.

EuPhO

2022 European Physics Olympiad

Team Taiwan at the 2022 European Physics Olympiad at Slovenia.

Global Reach

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