# Sebastian Raschka

> Sebastian Raschka is a German-born AI/ML researcher, educator, and author who has built one of the most trusted independent voices in the machine learning community. Through his Substack newsletter 'Ahead of AI' (184,000+ subscribers), bestselling books like 'Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch)', and 91,000+ starred GitHub repositories, he demystifies cutting-edge AI for practitioners worldwide. After a stint as an Assistant Professor at UW-Madison and a role as Staff Research Engineer at Lightning AI, he now runs RAIR Lab as an independent researcher, writer, and consultant.

- **Role:** Founder at RAIR Lab (Raschka AI Research)
- **Organizations:** RAIR Lab, Lightning AI (former), University of Wisconsin-Madison (former), Michigan State University (former)
- **From:** Herne, Germany
- **Nationality:** German
- **Education:** PhD, Computational Biology / Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Michigan State University
- **Known for:** Newsletter 'Ahead of AI' surpassed 184,000 subscribers on Substack - among the top tech publications on the platform, LLMs-from-scratch GitHub repo: 91,300+ stars, one of the most-starred ML repositories on GitHub, 37,400+ GitHub followers across 149 repositories

## Career timeline

- **2012** — Began PhD at Michigan State University; discovered machine learning through a statistical pattern classification course
- **2015** — Released mlxtend, open-source Python library for ML extensions
- **2017** — Completed PhD; 'Python Machine Learning' hit #1 Amazon bestseller
- **2018** — Joined University of Wisconsin-Madison as Assistant Professor of Statistics
- **2022** — Joined Lightning AI as Staff Research Engineer; launched 'Ahead of AI' newsletter on Substack
- **2022** — Published 'Machine Learning with PyTorch and Scikit-Learn' (Packt)
- **2024** — Published 'Machine Learning Q and AI' (No Starch Press) and 'Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch)' (Manning)
- **2024** — LLMs-from-scratch GitHub repository surpassed 91,000 stars
- **2025** — Founded RAIR Lab LLC; left Lightning AI to operate as independent researcher
- **2025** — Spoke at PyTorch Conference 2025 in San Francisco
- **2026** — Featured on Lex Fridman Podcast #490 alongside Nathan Lambert
- **2026** — Keynote speaker at PyCon DE & PyData 2026 in Darmstadt

## Achievements

- Newsletter 'Ahead of AI' surpassed 184,000 subscribers on Substack - among the top tech publications on the platform
- LLMs-from-scratch GitHub repo: 91,300+ stars, one of the most-starred ML repositories on GitHub
- 37,400+ GitHub followers across 149 repositories
- 426,700+ followers on Twitter/X
- Multiple Amazon bestselling ML books, translated into several languages
- Co-developed LitGPT at Lightning AI - production-grade open-source LLM library
- PyCon DE & PyData 2026 Keynote Speaker
- Lex Fridman Podcast #490 guest (4.5-hour conversation on state of AI in 2026)
- Former arXiv moderator for the machine learning category
- mlxtend library: 5,000+ GitHub stars, a decade-long Python ML ecosystem staple

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Keynote speaker at PyCon DE & PyData 2026 in Darmstadt: 'From Scratch to Scale: Turning LLM Code into Architecture Insights'
- **2026-02** — Appeared on Lex Fridman Podcast #490 ('State of AI in 2026') alongside Nathan Lambert - a 4.5-hour conversation
- **2025-10** — Spoke at PyTorch Conference 2025 in San Francisco
- **2025-08** — 'Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch)' entered Manning Early Access Program (MEAP)
- **2025-01** — Founded RAIR Lab LLC as an independent research and consulting entity after leaving Lightning AI

## Links

- Website: https://sebastianraschka.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastianraschka/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/rasbt
- GitHub: https://github.com/rasbt
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SebastianRaschka

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/sebastian-raschka
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-23