# Tom Yeh

> Tom Yeh is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado Boulder and the creator of AI by Hand, a wildly popular educational newsletter and community that teaches transformers, LLMs, and deep learning architectures through pen-and-paper calculations. With 62,000+ Substack subscribers, 200,000+ social media followers, and a Feynman-inspired philosophy that you only truly understand what you can build by hand, Yeh has become one of the most influential voices in practical AI education - bridging the gap between black-box hype and genuine first-principles understanding.

- **Role:** Associate Professor of Computer Science at University of Colorado Boulder
- **Organizations:** University of Colorado Boulder, Imagine AI Lab (Principal Investigator), Center for the Brain, A.I., and Child (BAIC, Co-Director), AI by Hand Academy
- **From:** Taiwan
- **Nationality:** Taiwanese-American
- **Education:** B.Sc. Computer Science, Simon Fraser University, M.S. Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Ph.D. Computer Science (Vision-based User Interfaces), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Postdoctoral Fellowship (Human-Centered Computing, Computer Vision, Software Engineering), University of Maryland, College Park (UMIACS)
- **Known for:** 62,000+ Substack subscribers for AI by Hand newsletter (ranked #66 in Technology on Substack), 200,000+ combined social media followers across LinkedIn and X, 7,488 total academic citations with an h-index of 41

## Career timeline

- **2001** — Graduated with B.Sc. from Simon Fraser University, Canada
- **2004** — Received M.S. from MIT
- **2009** — Completed Ph.D. from MIT on vision-based user interfaces; co-created Sikuli, a groundbreaking GUI automation tool using screenshots
- **2009-2012** — Postdoctoral researcher at University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS)
- **2010** — Published VizWiz, enabling visually impaired users to get real-time answers to visual questions (1,200+ citations); Sikuli released as open-source, surpassing 200,000 downloads
- **2012** — Joined University of Colorado Boulder as Assistant Professor of Computer Science; founded the Sikuli Lab
- **2014** — Received CU Boulder Student Affairs Faculty Member of the Year Award
- **2015** — Awarded NSF CAREER Award (Faculty Early Career Development Program)
- **2024** — Launched 'AI by Hand' series on LinkedIn; went viral with 25K+ followers in weeks; launched AI by Hand Substack newsletter and Excel-based GitHub repository (1.3K+ stars)
- **2024** — Presented unified framework for calculating every deep learning architecture by hand at Boston University's CS Research Seminar
- **2025** — Grew AI by Hand to 62,000+ Substack subscribers and 200,000+ social media followers; ranked #66 in Technology on Substack
- **2026** — Launched AI by Hand Academy with structured video courses, including Introduction to Agentic AI

## Achievements

- 62,000+ Substack subscribers for AI by Hand newsletter (ranked #66 in Technology on Substack)
- 200,000+ combined social media followers across LinkedIn and X
- 7,488 total academic citations with an h-index of 41
- Over 150 published research papers across AI, HCI, computer vision, and education
- NSF CAREER Award (2015)
- CU Boulder Student Affairs Faculty Member of the Year (2014)
- Best paper awards and honorable mentions from CHI, UIST, SIGCSE, and MobileHCI
- Research funding from NSF, NIH, DARPA, Knight Foundation, and Piton Foundation
- Co-created Sikuli (2009-2010), a GUI automation tool with 200,000+ downloads
- Published VizWiz (2010), a real-time visual Q&A system for visually impaired users (1,200+ citations)
- AI by Hand Excel GitHub repository grew to 1,300+ stars shortly after launch
- Co-Director of Center for the Brain, A.I., and Child (BAIC) at CU Boulder

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — AI by Hand Academy launched with structured video-based courses including 'Introduction to Agentic AI' covering LLMs, RAG, agents, and tool use.
- **2025-12** — AI by Hand Substack surpassed 62,000 subscribers, ranking #66 in Technology on Substack.
- **2025-02** — AI by Hand featured by Adafruit Industries as a notable educational resource.
- **2024-09** — Presented unified framework for calculating every deep learning architecture by hand at Boston University Computer Science Research Seminar.
- **2024-03** — Held in-person AI by Hand event for AI professionals in collaboration with Dongou.

## Links

- Website: https://www.byhand.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-yeh
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/ProfTomYeh
- GitHub: https://github.com/ImagineAILab
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ai-by-hand

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/tom-yeh
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-22