Paul Harrison

PhD, data scientist, Python developer, and AI enthusiast.

Warwick, United Kingdom

Summary

I am a multidisciplinary PhD graduate with three years commercial data science and Python development experience, working on internal and client projects ranging from PoCs to production ready machine learning systems. I am looking for a senior position where I am able to strongly influence company direction and have a demonstrable positive impact.

Languages:

English

Favorite Python Packages:

Pandas, Scikit Learn, Flask, TensorFlow, Pyparsing.

Experience

Data scientist & development team lead - CognitionX, London, UK

December 2016 - Present

I currently have a number of responsibilities across data science, technical leadership, and product management to bring CognitionX’s product - a market intelligence platform for the AI space - to market. These include:

• Day-to-day leadership of the platform development team, including personnel management, running daily stand-ups, and conducting code reviews.
• Product management, working directly with the CEO and Head of Product to develop user journeys, determine the product roadmap, and prioritise features.
• Conducting user interviews to gather product feedback.
• Managing the hiring process and conducting interviews for internal roles across data science, software engineering, and UX/UI design.
• Platform architecture design.
• Developing metrics to rank AI-related resources based on public and proprietary data.

Data scientist - Think Big, a Teradata Company (formerly Big Data Partnership), London, UK

October 2014 - December 2016

During this position I worked on client projects in a range of sectors, such as ad-tech, healthcare, and aviation. Projects included:

• Reducing customer churn on e-commerce sites.
• Using computer vision methods for targeted advertising.
• Data visualisation for the National Air Traffic Services.
• Innovate UK funded project to identify negative outcomes in type-II diabetes patients.

Methods I have used throughout these projects include standard supervised (e.g. logistic regression, SVMs, and random forests) and unsupervised (eData scientist & technical lead.g. k-means, DBSCAN, and PCA) machine learning methods, survival analysis, mixed Markov models, and deep learning (convolutional neural networks).

In addition to my primary role I was involved in many other areas of the business, including delivering technical training, providing SME support throughout the sales process, and working on devops and engineering components for internal projects. In particular, I wrote the training course “Introduction to Data Science in a Big Data World”, which generated revenue in excess of £250,000 in its first six months. Note that Big Data Partnership was acquired by Think Big, a Teradata Company in July 2016.

PhD: Experimentally Verified Reduced Models of Neocortical Pyramidal Cells - University of Warwick, UK

October 2011 - February 2015

Neurons are the fundamental components of the nervous system and a quantitative description of their properties is a prerequisite to understanding the complex structures they comprise, from microcircuits to networks. I was quantifying variability of these properties in pyramidal-cell populations of the neocortex using a combination of intracellular recording, single-neuron modelling, and statistical analysis. I built and open-sourced algorithms to generate populations of mathematical model neurons that respect the observed parameter variability and covariability.

Research scientist - AWE, Aldermaston, UK

September 2008 - September 2010

In this position I used finite element methods and numerical analysis to model the propagation of high pressure shock waves in piezoelectric materials initiated by high velocity impacts, with the aim of optimising the electrical output of the system. In addition, I was enrolled on the AWE graduate training programme, involving a range of complementary skills training, such as project management, and oral and written communication skills. During the programme I led a team of six graduates in raising over £14,000 by organising multiple fundraising events and negotiating donations from local businesses

Skills

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ansible, Artificial Intelligence, Backend Development, Big Data, Data Science, DevOps, Elasticsearch, Flask, Git, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Hadoop, Heroku, Linux, Machine Learning, MongoDB, MySQL, Natural Language Processing, NumPy, Pandas, SQLAlchemy, SciPy, Spark, TensorFlow, Terraform, Test-Driven Development, Vagrant, Virtualenv, Web Development