University of Central Florida
The Ohio State University
Kenneth StanleySenior Vice President of Open-Endedness · Lila SciencesResearcher↗
Researcher
Joel Lehman
Lila SciencesMember of Technical Staff, Open-Endedness team
Lehman co-invented novelty search, which rewards AI for discovering new behaviors rather than meeting a fixed goal.[1] He co-authored Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned. He also helped develop Go-Explore, which tackles difficult exploration problems by returning to promising places before exploring further.[2]
Career & education
Current roleLila SciencesJun 2025-presentMember of Technical Staff, Open-Endedness team
Lila SciencesJun 2025-presentPreviously
OpenAI2020-2022Research Scientist
Uber2017-2020Senior Research Scientist
IT University of Copenhagen2016-2017Assistant Professor
OpenAI2020-2022Uber2017-2020IT University of Copenhagen2016-2017Work and education history is primarily focused on AI-relevant roles and may not be comprehensive.
Citation Trend
Total citations to scholarly work, including research papers, technical reports, books and theses, as recorded by Google Scholar. Each point is a dated snapshot.
citations15,382As of Nov 7, '26
References
- Joel Lehman — novelty search dissertationjoellehman.com
Introduces and explains behavioral novelty as the search reward.
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