Science thrives in collaboration. I actively support cross-disciplinary, international, and open collaborations to accelerate innovation. I contribute to and maintain open-source projects that facilitate knowledge exchange and help researchers share their work efficiently.

Reproducibility is a cornerstone of reliable research. I promote best practices in software development for academic projects, including:

• Version control with Git & GitHub.
• Clear documentation & code modularity.
• Use of containerized environments to enable seamless replication of experiments.

Too often, research is tied to proprietary tools that restrict innovation. I push for increased adoption of open-source frameworks, tools, and methodologies to:

• Reduce barriers for researchers worldwide.
• Increase transparency in peer-reviewed research.

By integrating open-source tools in research workflows, we can make academic research more accessible, collaborative, and efficient.

• Project Manager of PettingZoo – A popular RL library designed for multi-agent reinforcement learning environments.
• Vice President of the UCL Photonics Society - Creating and workshops around optics, photonics, and teaching students and researchers good coding practices.
• Ph.D. Researcher – Working on Photonic Integrated Circuits for AI-accelretaion at UCL.
• Teaching Assistant at UCL – Leading Python labs on Applied Machine Learning Systems and Data Acquisition & Processing Systems for the Integrated Machine Learning Systems MSc.
• Former Researcher at Cambridge & Columbia – Experience in analog computing, bioinformatics, and AI-powered neuroscience.

• Machine Learning & AI – Projects on Reinforcement Learning, AI Acceleration, and Reservoir Computing.
• Hardware-Software Integration – Research on Neuromorphic Engineering and AI-powered Circuits.
• Open-Source Contributions – Active participation in AI and multi-agent reinforcement learning libraries.

• 🌐 LinkedIn
• 📧 Email: david.gerard.23@ucl.ac.uk
• 🏗️ Check out my work on GitHub!