Steven M. LaValle (born 1968 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American computer scientist, and a professor in the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Oulu.

He is best known for his work on rapidly exploring random trees (RRTs), the Oculus Rift, and his book, Planning Algorithms,[1] one of the most highly cited texts in the field.

[4] During a leave of absence from the University of Illinois, LaValle started working from Oulu, Finland for Oculus VR in September 2012, a few days after their Kickstarter campaign.

[6] He developed head tracking methods for the core software, based on IMUs and computer vision, and led a team of perceptual psychologists to provide principled approaches to virtual reality system calibration and the design of comfortable user experiences.

[11] Since 2014, LaValle has been an active angel investor and adviser to startup companies and venture capitalists, in the areas of virtual and augmented reality, and robotics.