Meet our Students - Cohort 3

Student

Bio

Chris Blackman

“Having worked as a software developer in industry, the DA CDT gives me the opportunity to dive so much deeper into the details of my project while still focussing on the real-world application of my research. Working with a cohort of people with diverse interests helps me to keep a broad view of the cutting-edge of data science and algorithm development, beyond just the scope of my own project.”

Alex Bird

“The Distributed Algorithms CDT allows me to further pursue interests I developed during my bachelor’s and master degrees in a free and enthusiastic environment. The collaborative nature of the CDT programme encourages the development of strong inter personal skills whilst allowing me to learn from people who are, or are becoming, experts in their field.”

Oliver Dippel

"In my topic I combine the closest mimic of human thinking expressed by algorithms with the awareness of uncertainty illustrated by a prior distribution over unknown parameters. The CDT community supports me in every possible way, be it in the professional exchange of conceptual ideas or in the encouragement of parallel programming for computational heavy calculations and the simultaneous provision of HPC's. Moreover, I am in the midst of a fantastic company of enthusiastic academics and exciting industry partners."

Jinhao Gu

"My project is about discovery of novel materials for healthcare with the application of Bayesian Optimisation. Being a PhD student within CDT offers me a great opportunity to collaborate with both academic and industrial experts. Moreover, doing research as a part of a cohort, I am able to learn from other's expertise and discuss my own ideas within a really nice team."

William Jeffcott

“I previously completed a 4-year MMath degree at Durham University and have since worked in industry. I am looking forward to starting to work on my PhD via the DA CDT as it will offer me the opportunity to collaborate with lots of bright minds, in an environment where knowledge sharing is used for maximum advancement."

George Jones

“After completing an MEng in Aerospace Engineering, I left university with only a job in mind but as time went on, I kept finding myself looking for PhD opportunities. There was not a large amount that both appealed to me and had some sort of real-world application - this is when I discovered the DA CDT.

After having a conversation with Simon Maskell and Jason Ralph, I was convinced that the DA CDT was for me. The cohort approach really stood out to me and is a major contributing factor as to why I applied. I look forward to getting further into my project here at Liverpool and would recommend reaching out to any of the members here if you are interested!”

Andrew Millard

“The DA CDT has not only given me the opportunity to expand my skill set, but also allowed me to apply my current and expanding knowledge to real world applications, with heavy backing from an industry partner. The CDT really encourages us all to be an active member of the research community, and we are provided with all the tools necessary to be valued contributors to it. We are also incentivised to indulge our curiosity as this could lead to new, exciting and novel theories and practises that could potentially bring solutions to complex problems.”

Kieron McCallan

“The CDT is a great place to work with people with a lot of different experiences. I chose to join because I came from a Physics background and knew how helpful it would be to be surrounded by people from lots of different backgrounds, where everyone is able to pitch in and help. Having someone to turn to definitely makes the whole PhD experience less overwhelming.”

Josh Murphy

“The DA CDT affords me the opportunity to conduct innovative, impactful research into my project, Scalable Online Machine Learning, in a friendly and supportive environment. I am particularly grateful to be able to draw upon the wealth of expertise and experience that the members of the CDT cohorts and the supervisory team possess.”

Benjamin Rise

“Joining the CDT has been an incredible opportunity for me. My project is focused on efficiently analysing the content of vast volumes of high-resolution imagery with distributed machine learning techniques such as federated learning. The CDT gives you an incredible amount of scope for independent research, while also collaborating with a large cohort of students with fantastic academic supervisors and industry partners, making it a very exciting place to work.”

Will Pearson

"I’m happy to be in a setting where I can explore new ideas amongst a group of friendly individuals. This PhD provides me with excellent resources for learning about AI and Machine Learning, including opportunities and guidance from industry leaders and access to a huge support network across several university departments."              

Jianyang Xie

"My project will focus on the development of machine learning and high-performance computing methods for the accurate and effective recognition of human action and behavior. I'm looking forward to working with the DA CDT on my project."