Durk (Diederik P.) Kingma is a computer scientist focused on scalable machine learning and generative modeling. Kingma co-invented the variational autoencoder and, with Jimmy Ba, the Adam optimizer; was part of OpenAI's founding team; later worked at Google Brain / DeepMind; and since 2024 has researched large-scale machine learning at Anthropic.12
At a glance
- Current role
- Researcher (large-scale machine learning)
- Company
- Anthropic
- Education
- University of Amsterdam
- Honors
- 1
- Sources cited
- 2
- Profile reviewed
Accomplishments
Research contributions
Kingma's contributions include the variational autoencoder (VAE), the Adam optimizer (with Jimmy Ba), Glow, and variational diffusion models. In 2025, the Adam paper received the ICLR Test of Time Award.12
Labs and career
Kingma obtained a PhD (cum laude) from the University of Amsterdam in 2017, advised by Max Welling. Kingma was part of OpenAI's founding team (2015–2018), a research scientist at Google Brain / DeepMind (2018–2024), and since 2024 has researched large-scale machine learning at Anthropic.1
Timeline
- Kingma joined OpenAI as part of the founding team.1
- Kingma completed a PhD (cum laude) at the University of Amsterdam.1
- Kingma joined Google Brain / DeepMind as a research scientist.1
- Kingma began research on large-scale machine learning at Anthropic.1
- Adam optimizer paper received the ICLR Test of Time Award.2
Other documented roles
Roles the sources document that are not confirmed as current.
- Research Scientist (Google Brain / DeepMind), Google DeepMind (2018 – 2024)1
- Founding team; Research Scientist; led Algorithms team, OpenAI (2015 – 2018)1
Honors and recognition
Where they work
- Anthropic 40 people in the wiki
Open roles at Anthropic (685)
- Enterprise Account Executive - Manufacturing Industries, TaiwanSingapore · On-sitePosted Oct 24, 2026
- Product CounselSan Francisco, CA · On-sitePosted Oct 24, 2026
- Incident Manager, SafeguardsSan Francisco, CA | New York City, NY |… · On-sitePosted Oct 24, 2026
Related people
- Jascha Sohl-DicksteinAlso at Anthropic
- Diederik P. KingmaAlso at Anthropic
- Ethan PerezAlso at Anthropic
- Rohan TaoriAlso at Anthropic
- Ben MannAlso at Anthropic
- Stefano ErmonImage, video, and 3D generation · Language models
- Sébastien BubeckLanguage models · Machine-learning theory
- Beren MillidgeLanguage models · Machine-learning theory
- Yang SongImage, video, and 3D generation · Machine-learning theory
- Jürgen SchmidhuberMachine-learning theory · Language models
Suggest a correction or removal
Profiles cover public professional work only, and each statement cites a source. If something is out of date, missing or wrong, tell us and link a source. People can also ask for their profile to be corrected or removed.
References
2 sources · profile reviewed Oct 23, 2026 · data updated Oct 23, 2026