Hi! Let me talk a bit about myself, without boring you I hope. I am a Machine Learning engineer & researcher, currently focusing on Natural Language Processing, Large Language Models in particular, in the domain of Qualitative Research.
Hey there! I’m thrilled you wanted to learn about me. Let’s dive into who I am. Spoiler alert: I’m a Machine Learning engineer by day (and often by night), who’s deeply in love with the art of teaching computers to understand human language, a.k.a. Natural Language Processing. My current playground? The world of Large Language Models (LLMs) and the fascinating realm of qualitative research.
The Professional Me: The Here and Now
I’ve set up camp at Fathom for the past year and some months (started 2023-Janury, you do the math :) ), diving headfirst into the mesmerizing world of Large Language Models (LLMs) and NLP. Picture me as the Lead Machine Learning Engineer (a fancy title for being a team of one), where I juggle the thrilling world of research and development. Our mission? To revolutionize the qualitative coding space with the might of NLP and LLMs, getting speed and quality with the help of LLM and Human input. Thanks to our nimble team size :face-like-hit-by-a-truck:, we’re like the swiss army knife of tech startups - versatile, quick, and cutting-edge. My day-to-day is a mixtape of working with LLMs, tinkering with our data to forge superior models, reading and implementing experimentations as we need, and dabbling in prompt engineering. Plus, I’m the guardian of our ML infrastructure, ensuring everything runs smoother than a fresh jar of peanut butter.
The Professional Me: The Origin Story
My journey into the tech world began with a mobile app development, right before my undergrad. Swift and app development was my first interest, leading me to create apps with more than couple teams. My curiosity soon pivoted into competitive programming. Not only did I dive into the deep end, but I also began shaping young minds in my university’s ACM branch and battling it out in ACM-ICPC competitions. Oh, and I might have accidentally created a hit with my open-source ACM-ICPC Curriculum that the community kind of loved.
As my undergrad days continued, I got hooked into Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Courses in ML, Deep Learning, and Reinforcement Learning were my jam. My team and I got a gold medal at the HackHouston hackathon with our ML project, MLRPro, and I even moonlighted at NASA, crafting a CO2 anomaly detection system (Dive Deeper Here).
Fueled by my passion for Reinforcement Learning, I found my way to the University of Alberta for my Masters. There, I plunged into projects on Co-Agent Networks and the enigmatic world of Dark Hex, under the tutelage of Martin Mueller and Ryan Hayward. This is where I got very much into Game Theory and Imperfect Information Games. I also had the privilege of taking Richard Sutton’s class and engaging in some mind-bending discussions on RL and AI.
Teaching has always been a part of my journey, from TAing to lecturing on everything from Machine Learning to, believe it or not, 3D printing. My Masters thesis laid the groundwork for Dark Hex strategies, culminating in a robust project you can peek at here. I’ve also dabbled in open-source contributions, including some work on DeepMind’s OpenSpiel.
Personal Me
Other than my professional background: I love going outdoors; the fresh air and the quiet is just phenomenal. I love reading, mostly philosophy and classics, you can follow me on my goodreads. I enjoy baking, I am pretty sure my friends do too. I love playing soccer and volleyball when I get the chance. Time to time I play some Dota 2 or FIFA with some friends. I also did quite a bit of freelance Graphic Designing during my undergrad. Here is my Behance account if you are interested.
I sometimes just sit down and create a new open-source project to have fun and learn a little more about a new technology. You can check out my Github account for those.
I also started 3D modelling and Sculpting two years ago. I have a few projects on Artstation if you are interested. I am still learning, its a lot of fun! I publish my journey here as well.
Recently I got into 3D printing and I am having a blast with it. Currently learning precision modelling with Fusion 360 and printing with my BambuLab P1P. I am working on making my own Wall-E, in a more AI way. I will be publishing my journey under the tag wall-e (Hopefully soon 🤞).
By the way, if you caught a clever joke or two, thank my assistant GPT — turns out, AI’s got a knack for humor as well! (No this sentence was all me…)