Kaya Stechly

I am a Computer Science PhD at Yale interested in learning, computational cognitive science, and language-mediated reasoning in both brains and machines. Previously, I completed a Linguistics M.A. at Arizona State University where I was advised by Kathryn Pruitt and worked in the Yochan lab under Subbarao Kambhampati.

My research is guided by the dual goals of teaching concepts to and distilling symbols from AI systems in human-interpretable form. Much of my work has focused on the investigating much-hyped in-context learning abilities of large language models, especially as applied to classical reasoning and planning tasks. I also work on leveraging the strengths of neural networks in representing tacit knowledge to improve the expressivity and efficiency of symbolic systems.

In my free time, I enjoy swimming, reading and writing fiction, and baking.