Chris McKinlay

Chris McKinlay is a seasoned engineering leader with extensive experience in machine learning and software development. Currently serving as Team Lead at Helm.ai since June 2022, Chris previously held similar leadership roles at Kitty Hawk, where responsibilities included guiding a team on the Heaviside project's path planning and simulation utilities. As Principal Engineer at Formation, Chris led the creation of a machine learning product and was the lead inventor on a patent, while also contributing as a Staff Engineer by developing reinforcement learning training pipelines. Prior experience includes being a Senior Data Scientist at DataScience, Inc., leading a team in machine learning pipeline implementations, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota. Educationally, Chris earned a PhD in Mathematics from UCLA, where Chris also served as a Teaching Assistant and worked as a Visiting Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.