OpenAIFounding Forward Deployed Engineer
Aug 2025 — Present
Sam Passaglia is a founding forward deployed engineer at OpenAI, leading strategic projects with Japanese enterprises. Previously, he was Cohere's first engineer in Japan and led machine learning at ELYZA. His work includes the Rakuda benchmark for Japanese AI assistants and the Yomikata language tool. Before moving into language models, he researched astrophysics at the University of Tokyo and earned a PhD at the University of Chicago.
Sam Passaglia is a founding forward deployed engineer at OpenAI, leading strategic projects with Japanese enterprises. Previously, he was Cohere's first engineer in Japan and led machine learning at ELYZA. His work includes the Rakuda benchmark for Japanese AI assistants and the Yomikata language tool. Before moving into language models, he researched astrophysics at the University of Tokyo and earned a PhD at the University of Chicago.
