Lilian Weng

Lilian Weng is an AI researcher who co-founded Thinking Machines Lab alongside Mira Murati in 2024. She previously worked at OpenAI from 2018 to late 2024, where she helped build the Applied AI Research team and later led Safety Systems work. In July 2026, Weng left Thinking Machines Lab citing health reasons and rejoined OpenAI to lead a team focused on accelerating internal research, including recursive self-improvement. She holds a Ph.D. in Complex Systems and Networks from Indiana University Bloomington.