During his first semester at the University of Pennsylvania, recently graduated Class of 2025 alum Josh Wangia has continued to explore his passion for Artificial Intelligence, delving deeper into the world he started loving in high school.
Wangia’s first interest in the field evolved from his love for Marvel movies, particularly his interest in JARVIS. In 2023, when Wangia was in his sophomore year, a breakthrough research paper on transformers pushed that fictional interest into a real pursuit.
From there, Wangia immersed himself fully in the world of AI. He first started experimenting with his own AI and soon connected with a Stanford professor, eventually earning a summer research position where he was able to gain firsthand experience in AI work. Additionally, for his senior project, he worked as an AI software engineer for Amazon Web Services.
Since attending UPenn, Wangia has not stopped pursuing his passion in the subject, choosing to major in UPenn’s recently created Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Artificial Intelligence.
“I wanted to go to other schools, but once I got here, I realized this is where I’m meant to be,” Wangia said. “Socially it has been great, and academically this is the premier AI degree for undergraduates. It was kind of foolish to want to go to other places.”
At UPenn, Wangia is no longer just scratching the surface of his passion, but diving deep into the world of AI. Although many of his classes are fundamentals, Wangia is taking one AI specific class: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. In the class Wangia has learned a lot, ranging from linear algebra to a brief overview on the latest AIs.
“People are saying [the class is] killing them and they’ll be glad to be rid of it,” Wangia said. “But for me this is the best part, taking AI-specific classes. It’s sad that I don’t have an AI specific class next semester.”
Wangia has taken his passion outside the classroom as well. For example, he is part of the AI research division, where he not only conducts research but also prepares for hackathons – a short event in which programmers create projects and compete with other groups – alongside peers and receives mentorship from professors.
Additionally, after being introduced by one of his friends, Wangia has joined a new AI startup as a software engineer. The startup is currently in stealth mode, meaning it has not yet publicly launched or revealed its products, so Wangia is working under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
“I really love [working on] this,” Wangia said. “This is really what I came here to do. You can learn a lot of stuff in classes, but at the end of the day, your real strength is going to be your implementation.”
At the startup, Wangia gains hands-on experience building functional AI, not just conducting research. He works directly with two types of AI—model predictive control and reinforcement learning—training and testing models to help the company.
“I’m really focused on gaining as much experience [as] I can get and as many connections as I can make in that field,” Wangia said. “The closer I can get to that, the better.”
Looking into his future, Wangia plans to stay on the academia side of the industry and has ambitious goals, striving to redefine what is possible in the field.
“My primary objective is being part of the team that creates a completely sentient AI, being able to build world models [being able to truly understand the world], something current transformers cannot do,” Wangia said. “I’ll probably end up in academia for a while, unless the industry shifts towards sentience and away from transformers.”
From his early fascination with JARVIS to hands-on work at a stealth AI startup, Josh Wangia has turned his curiosity into action. At UPenn, he is building both academic knowledge and practical experience, preparing to push the boundaries of AI.