Group

Carles Balsells Rodas
PhD student (Computing)

Carles is from Reus, Spain. He graduated with a bachelor in Engineering Physics and Computer Science at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, and a master’s degree in Machine Learning at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. He joined the group in Oct 2021 as a PhD candidate in Computing and a teaching scholar. His research interests are mostly based on machine learning, more specifically causal discovery, representation learning, and sequential data modelling. Apart from doing research, he enjoys studying chess, playing padel, and being around with close friends and family.

Wenlong Chen
PhD student (Computing)

Wenlong obtained his MPhil degree in Machine Learning and Machine Intelligence from the University of Cambridge in 2020. Before that, he graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics and Statistics from McMaster University. He joined the group as a PhD candidate in Computing in Oct. 2021. His research interests include statistical inference, Bayesian deep learning, and uncertainty quantification.

Isuru Shavindra Jayasekera
PhD student (Math, StatML CDT)

Shavindra studied his undergraduate and master's in mathematics at the University of Cambridge, specialising in statistics. Following this, he completed a master's in computational statistics and machine learning at UCL. He joined the group in 2023 as a PhD student in the Modern Statistics and Statistical Machine Learning CDT programme. His research interests include techniques to improve explainability, interpretability and reliability of foundational models as well as applications in the field of chemistry. In his spare time, Shavindra enjoys amongst other things going to music concerts, photography, hiking and trying out new sports.

Naoki Kiyohara
PhD student (Computing, with Edward Johns)

Naoki is from Tokyo, Japan. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Physics at Tokyo University of Science and a master’s degree in Advanced Materials Science at the University of Tokyo. Subsequently, he joined Canon Inc. (Tokyo) and is now at Imperial College London as a PhD student, sponsored through the company's corporate study abroad program. His research is centered around model-based reinforcement learning, with a particular focus on sequential generative models. Moving forward, he aims to significantly enhance exploration efficiency by utilizing models that can capture uncertainties, such as Bayesian models. In his free time, he enjoys playing and listening to classical piano music.

Yingzhen Li
Faculty

I lead my group's research and do my best to help with other members' great work.

Zijing Ou
PhD student (Computing)

Zijing graduated with a B.E. degree from Sun Yat-sen University in Software Engineering and then spent one year interning at Tencent AI lab. He joined the group as a PhD candidate in Computing in Oct 2022. These days he is interested in approximate inference, energy-based models, and interpretable AI. Zijing enjoys playing all kinds of balls in his sparetime, such as basketball, tennis, ping-pong and so on.

Lapo Rastrelli
PhD student (Computing)

Lapo obtained an MEng degree in Biomedical Engineering (Computational stream) at Imperial College London. He joined the group previously as an MRes student and now as a PhD student.

Xiaoyao Qiu
MRes student (Computing)

Xiaoyao got his BEng in Artificial Intelligence from Beijing Institute of Technology (2023) and gained experience through an internship at Samsung Electronics AI Lab. He joined this group as an MRes AI and ML student at Imperial College in fall 2023, and his research project focuses on Score-Based Generative Models. In his free time off research, Xiaoyao enjoys playing badminton, basketball and city walk.

Xavier Sumba Toral
PhD student (Computing)

Xavier obtained his MSc at Concordia and McGill University in Canada. Before that, he did his BEng. at the University of Cuenca in Ecuador. He also worked at the University of Cuenca and Heyday (now acquired by Hootsuite). He joined the group as a Ph.D. candidate in Computing in Feb 2023. These days, he is interested in Bayesian models and approximate inference. In his spare time, he loves running and discovering new places.

Harrison Zhu
PhD student (Statistics, with Seth Flaxman)

Harrison grew up in Beijing, China and did his MSci in Mathematics at Imperial College London and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. He is interested in studying nonparametric Bayesian objects, such as Gaussian processes and Bayesian trees, and approximate Bayesian inference with the hopes of solving environmental and public health problems. He has previously worked with James Hensman at Amazon as an applied scientist intern. Outside of work, Harrison enjoys studying food recipes and playing around with smart home software and hardware. Harrison speaks Mandarin, English and French.