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// team roots and the people behind the arena
AlgoArena
We’re building the arena that makes CS learning engaging and technical recruiting more real, built by two co-founders and the professor who’s mentored us from the start.
Eli Young
Co-Founder & CEO
Swarthmore College · Class of 2026
AlgoArena's product compass. Eli sets vision and strategy across product, growth, and partnerships, and keeps our roadmap honest. He still ships production code daily, ran applied ML research at UIUC's Center for Digital Agriculture, and competes at ICPC NA South Division 2 (5th, Mid-Atlantic Regional). He founded Lock In, a focus-tracking productivity app on iOS and Android, backed by a Medici Project grant from the 1517 Fund. More on his portfolio.
Product StrategyGTMFounder Operator
Andy Luu
Co-Founder & Advisor
Swarthmore College · Class of 2027
AlgoArena's co-founder, and now an advisor. Andy built the live battle matchmaking and the classroom system, designed our agentic coding environment, and presented our paper on live classroom quizzes at CCSC Southeastern. A Gates Scholar double majoring in Computer Science and Psychology, he builds backends at ContractMatch, was a robotics RA at Haverford, and researches deepfakes, AI assisted programming, and machine learning for protein design. More on his GitHub.
ArchitectureBackendAI Research
Michael Wehar
Advisor
Visiting Assistant Professor, Haverford College
AlgoArena's strategic advisor. Mike shapes classroom adoption, product direction, and positioning across education. He holds a PhD in Computer Science (University at Buffalo) and an MS in Mathematics (Carnegie Mellon), and is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Haverford. He built Word of The Hour (50,000+ users), publishes in formal language theory, has mentored dozens of Tri-Co capstones (AlgoArena included), and meets with us weekly. More on his website.
AcademiaMentorshipStrategy
Where we've studied and worked
Schools, research, competitions, and organizations that shaped the team behind AlgoArena.
Swarthmore College
Eli, Andy, alumni
Bryn Mawr College
Pilot classroom
Carnegie Mellon
Michael Wehar, advisor
Princeton University
Andy, Eviction Lab
UIUC
Eli, REU, Center for Digital Agriculture
University of Melbourne
Andy, CASA study abroad
DIS Copenhagen
Eli, study abroad
Northumbria University
Andy, AI research
Johns Hopkins University
Andy, Rosetta Commons
Northeastern University
Andy, Cooper Lab
ICPC
5th, NA South Div 2, Mid-Atlantic
USDA Agricultural Research Service
Eli, applied ML research
Ready to join the arena?
Start with the team building AlgoArena. Code, compete, create, and hire better.