About us

The original AI Racing Tech team has grew out of the UH-Maui class taught in the spring of 2020 in Autonomous Vehicle Technology. The AVTech Class focused on giving Maui students a hands-on and knowledge-based learning experience in both Autonomous Vehicle Technology architecture, structures , and also actual building scaled autonomous vehicles. 

ART expanded in 2021 to include student and faulty contributors from UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon 

In 2022 ART placed 2nd in at the Indy Autonomous Challenge in Texas to become the top ranked American Team, ART then went on to take 3rd in the 2023 Indy Autonomous Challenge at CES.

Meet the Team

Gary Passon

The  AI Racing Tech Team Principal is Gary Passon

Gary brings not only significant technical and engineering background to the team but years of experience in racing having come up from go-kart through amateur road racing to professional road racing to professional oval racing. After college and his racing career he went on to help start, build, and run high-tech companies in Silicon Valley and Southern California before retiring to Maui.

Since returning to Maui he has been active in supporting local schools and their STEM programs as well as more recently helped establish the  UH-Maui AVT class and helping to get the AI Racing Tech Team program underway. He is also the founder of the Maui Robotic Vehicle Association

University Faculty Leads

Dr. Jack Silberman is a lecturer at the University of California San Diego, where he teaches courses on mechanical and aerospace engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and autonomous vehicles. He is also a faculty member at the Contextual Robotics Institute. With over 20 years of experience in automation and robotics, Dr. Silberman has worked on a variety of projects in educational robotics, mobile field robotics, semiconductor automation, biotech, and medical devices. He is currently works for a global leader in medical devices with responsibilities in Canada, Central and Latin America.

Dr. Allen Y. Yang is the Executive Director of the FHL Vive Center for Enhanced Reality at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on emerging technologies in AR, VR, and AI, with a particular interest in Computer Vision, Human-Centered User Experience Design, and Autonomy. He is involved in various educational initiatives and co-founded graduate degree programs in AR/VR, Autonomous Driving, and Blockchain and Defi. Yang's current projects include OpenARK, an open-source AR software developer kit, and Robot Open Autonomous Racing (ROAR), an AI racecar competition.

Dr. John M. Dolan is a Principal Systems Scientist at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, where he focuses on creating systems and methodologies for robots and humans to collaborate on tasks. His research aims to balance maximizing robot autonomy while also creating effective human-machine interfaces. Dolan's research includes developing algorithms for autonomous driving, creating telesupervisory human-robot systems, and studying robot reliability. He has published numerous papers on various topics in robotics and has worked on projects for NASA.

Team Roster

Student names link to their LinkedIn profiles if available*

Siddharth Saha

Sr. Technical Lead

Haoru Xue

Sr. Technical Lead

C.K. Wolfe

Project Mgr &
Sr. Logistics Lead

Jose Olivas
Localization 

Team Lead

Chris Lai

Perception 

Team Co-Lead

Tianlun Zhang

Perception 

Team  Co-Lead

Jad Yahya
Vehicle Dynamics Team Lead

Dvij Kalaria 

Controls Team

Dominic Nightingale

Controls Team

Franco Huang

Perception Team

Jazzy Rao

Simulation Team

Christian Falcon

Track Logictics Team

Zhihao "Cake" Deng

Perception & Media

Junjie Chen

Vehicle Dynamics & Simulation

Xuishi Shen

Vehicle Dynamics & Simulation

Yunhao "Cookie" Cao

Perception & Smulation

Carl Gan

Perception & Simulation

Faculty & Technical Advisors

Shankar Sastry PhD

Francesco Borelli PhD

Wade Koglin

Mark Hoffman PhD

Robert Webber

Past Participants