Yost

Growing up in Tracy, California, his first taste of Stanford was at the Stanford University Mathematics Camp, where he fell in love with the beautiful campus and ultimate frisbee. He originally started as a math major, but later switched to computer science, intrigued by the possibilities of artificial intelligence, even though it didn't work so well back then. After doing a couple industrial internships, he decided to try research for a summer with Nils Nilsson, one of the foundational pioneers of artificial intelligence. The experience excited him enough to pursue a Ph.D. program at the University of Edinburgh, where he did a thesis on reinforcement learning. He later worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where he was able to combine his personal passion for aviation as a third-generation pilot with his intellectual passion for artificial intelligence. His research eventually grew into what became a series of international standards for aircraft collision avoidance. In 2013, he returned to Stanford as a faculty member and started a course on decision making under uncertainty, which was the most enrolled course at Stanford in Fall 2025 (outside of COLLEGE101). Along the way, he has graduated 44 doctoral students and wrote four textbooks. Some of his favorite experiences are traveling with Stanford undergraduates as part of the Stanford Bing Overseas Program to places like Scotland, Morocco, Argentina, and India, and also serving as Faculty in Residence at the Stanford House in Oxford. His primary sources of joy are his children, with diverse interests spanning aviation, architecture, violin, and ballet.