Julien Cornebise, Ph.D.

I am a passionate, impact-driven scientist in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, with 20 years in the field, ranging from theorems to hands-on applications and strategy, with an executive streak developed over the years.

I am curently:

• Director of Machine Learning at The Computational Democracy Project, which I joined full-time in November 2024 on a grant for the duration of a large and exciting project, after being an advisor for several years.
• Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at University College London.
• An advisor to several startups in the technology sector, and to several nonprofits, including Amnesty International.
• Occasionally consulting with various companies for 15 years, on a wide variety of AI / machine learning / statistics questions and applications, ranging from vaccine development for pharmaceutical companies to satellite imagery for the European Space Agency.
• Occasionally helping venture funds on due diligence, both on machine learning and on strategy.

Previously:

• I was co-founder and acting Chief Scientific Officer at the startup ShiftLab Ltd (2021-2023), a product lab which we grew to 31 persons.
• I was Director of Research, Head of Element AI’s London Office, with a focus on AI for Good, for two years (2018-2019).
• I was one of the first researchers at DeepMind Technologies Limited (later acquired by Google) from 2012 to 2016. While there:
  • I led fundamental research directions used in early demos and significant fundraising,
  • and helped create and lead its Health Applied Research Team.
• I lived in France, North Carolina (USA), and British Colombia (Canada), and finally now UK, for postdocs at SAMSI/Duke University, UBC Vancouver, and University College London.
• I love sharing the passion through mentoring, and teaching from undergraduate to professional continuing education, although sadly not teaching at the moment.
• I hold
  • an MSc in Computer Engineering,
  • an MSc in Mathematical Statistics,
  • a PhD in Mathematics, specialised in Computational Statistics, from University Paris VI Pierre and Marie Curie and Telecom ParisTech,
  • for which I received the 2010 Savage Award from the International Society for Bayesian Analysis.

Detailed but outdated CV (in PDF)