Wasu Top Piriyakulkij

I’m on the job market for research scientist roles in industry, starting Summer 2027. Here’s my resume — feel free to reach out!

Hi! I’m Top Piriyakulkij. I’m a fifth-year Computer Science PhD student at Cornell University, where I’m fortunate to be advised by Kevin Ellis. I’ve previously spent time as a student researcher at Google DeepMind, working with Kevin Murphy and Wolfgang Lehrach, and as a research intern at Microsoft Research, working with Niranjani Prasad. (And yes, I intend to keep my Kevin collaboration streak going).

My research is on world models: how agents learn models of their environment on the fly and use them to plan and act. I’ve worked on how to acquire them (LLM-SMC-S, NeurIPS 2024), how to represent them (PoE-World, NeurIPS 2025 Spotlight), and how to leverage them for decision-making (AgentOWL, NeurIPS 2026).

Before Cornell, I did my undergraduate degree at Brown University, where I double majored in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. Back then, I worked on machine learning system with Stephen Bach.

Selected publications

2026

NeurIPS 2026

Joint Learning of Hierarchical Neural Options and Abstract World Model

Wasu Top Piriyakulkij, Wolfgang Lehrach, Kevin Ellis, and 1 more author

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 2026

arXiv Bib PDF

@inproceedings{piriyakulkij2026agentowl,
  author = {Piriyakulkij, Wasu Top and Lehrach, Wolfgang and Ellis, Kevin and Murphy, Kevin},
  title = {Joint Learning of Hierarchical Neural Options and Abstract World Model},
  year = {2026},
  booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}
}

2025

NeurIPS 2025
(Spotlight)

PoE-World: Compositional World Modeling with Products of Programmatic Experts

Wasu Top Piriyakulkij, Yichao Liang, Hao Tang, and 3 more authors

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 2025

arXiv Bib PDF Website

@inproceedings{piriyakulkij2025poeworld,
  author = {Piriyakulkij, Wasu Top and Liang, Yichao and Tang, Hao and Weller, Adrian and Kryven, Marta and Ellis, Kevin},
  title = {PoE-World: Compositional World Modeling with Products of Programmatic Experts},
  year = {2025},
  booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}
}

2024

NeurIPS 2024

Doing Experiments and Revising Rules with Natural Language and Probabilistic Reasoning

Wasu Top Piriyakulkij, Cassidy Langenfeld, Tuan Anh Le, and 1 more author

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 2024

arXiv Bib PDF

@inproceedings{piriyakulkij2024experiments,
  author = {Piriyakulkij, Wasu Top and Langenfeld, Cassidy and Le, Tuan Anh and Ellis, Kevin},
  title = {Doing Experiments and Revising Rules with Natural Language and Probabilistic Reasoning},
  year = {2024},
  booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}
}