University of Pennsylvania
The University of Texas at Austin
Joel LehmanMember of Technical Staff, Open-Endedness team · Lila SciencesResearcher↗
Researcher · Executive
Kenneth Stanley
Lila SciencesSenior Vice President of Open-Endedness
Stanley helped pioneer open-ended AI: systems that discover surprising possibilities instead of pursuing one fixed goal. He co-created NEAT, which lets neural networks evolve,[1] and co-developed novelty search, an approach that rewards exploration.[2] With Joel Lehman, he co-wrote Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned (2015), which applies these ideas to creativity.[3]
Career & education
Current roleLila Sciences2025-presentSenior Vice President of Open-Endedness
Lila Sciences2025-presentPreviously
OpenAI2020-2022Research Science Manager
Uber2017-2020Head of Core (Basic) AI Research
OpenAI2020-2022Uber2017-2020Geometric Intelligence2015-2016
Co-founder and Co-Chief Science OfficerWork 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.
citations33,255As of Nov 12, '26
citations+1,825Since last snapshot, Jun 15, '26
References
- Evolving Neural Networks through Augmenting Topologiesnn.cs.utexas.edu
Stanley and Risto Miikkulainen introduce NEAT, a method that evolves the structure of a neural network as well as its connection weights.
- Abandoning Objectives: Evolution Through the Search for Novelty Alonedoi.org
Joel Lehman and Stanley show how rewarding new behaviors can lead to discoveries that a fixed objective misses.
- Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objectivelink.springer.com
Springer lists Stanley and Joel Lehman as co-authors and describes how the book connects AI experiments to creativity and discovery.
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Reviewed August 9, 2026 · Checked for accuracy and new information.
