Biography
I am a final-year PhD Student in Theoretical Computer Science with Dr He Sun at Edinburgh University.
While my PhD says I do theoretical computer science, I have strayed further towards practical machine learning as my PhD has progressed.
My research has focused on the Algorithmic Kadison-Singer problem, clustering, and Connectomics. I was awarded a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics (first class) and an MSc in Data Science (distinction) from the University of Edinburgh. My dissertation, "On the spectral method for finding shortest paths", was recognised as outstanding by the University of Edinburgh. Along with my research, I am interested in real-time entity resolution and its applications.
I love exploring the Highlands by foot and bike. I'm also a keen Fives player and captain of the Edinburgh University Fives team.
Publications
- Is the Algorithmic Kadison-Singer Problem Hard? (ISAAC 23): with Peter Macgregor & He Sun 2022. We show that the Algorithmic Kadison-Singer problem is FNP-hard in certain regimes and give the first quasi-polynomial time algorithm, in the number of vectors.
- Polynomial-Time Algorithms for Weaver's Discrepancy Problem in a Dense Regime (arXiv): with Peter Macgregor & He Sun 2024. We give a polynomial time algorithm for Weaver's Discrepancy Problem when the number of vectors is at least quadratic in the dimension.
- Coreset Spectral Clustering (ICLR 2025, talk): with Gregory Schwarztman, Peter Macgregor & He Sun 2025. We give the first coreset algorithm for spectral clustering that allows spectral clustering to scale to gigantic graph datasets.
- Mini-Batch Kernel $k$-means (arXiv): with Gregory Schwarztman 2024. We give the first mini-batch algorithm for kernel k-means with sublinear iteration time.
- Connectivity Is All You Need: Inferring Neuronal Types with NTAC (bioRxiv): with Gregory Schwarztman, David García-Soriano & Arie Matsliah. 2025. We give a pair of novel semi-supervised and unsupervised algorithms for inferring the types of neurons in the full fly brain connectome, using on the connectivity of the neurons.
Experience
- Summer 2023-: Part time Data Science contractor for Police Scotland, working on detecting organised crime selling stolen bikes online.
- Summer 2019: Data Science Intern at Featurespace, worked on a feature extraction pipeline for application fraud.
Education
- 2021 - Present: PhD Student, University of Edinburgh
- 2020 - 2021: MSc Data Science, University of Edinburgh
- 2016 - 2020: BSc Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Edinburgh
