Steven Lu is a Data Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, affiliated with the Machine Learning and Instrument Autonomy group. He also serves as the Technologist for NASA’s Planetary Data System Imaging and Cartography Sciences Node (PDS Imaging Node).

Steven focuses on the applications of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address challenges in science and engineering problems. Notably, he supported and led the development of an image content-based search capability for the PDS ML team, which has been deployed at the PDS Imaging Node since 2017. This tool supports planetary science researchers in quickly finding targets of interest from NASA mission archival datasets, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), Mars Exploration Rover (MER), Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), and Mars 2020. In addition, Steven also often serves as an ML co-Investigator on NASA/JPL science proposals, with projects ranging from spatio-temporal modeling of 3D forest structure to mapping evidence of frost on Mars.

Since joining JPL in 2015, Steven has received the Discovery and Voyager Awards for contributions to NASA/JPL missions. He also received the Deployed Application Award from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) in 2021.

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Education

• Computer Science (MS) - Cal St. Polytechnic University, Pomona
• E-Commerce (BS) - Northeastern University

Research Interests

• Machine Learning for Science Applications
• Active Learning
• Interpretable Machine Learning
• Novelty / Anomaly Detection