Summary

I’m a Lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews. My research interests are broadly in algorithms for data science and machine learning and I always aim to develop theoretically sound algorithms which work well in practice.

Previously I was a PhD student and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh working with He Sun, and I spent a semester at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley.

Please see my research page to learn more about what I work on.

I have a fully-funded PhD studentship available, with a likely start-date of September 2025. The application deadline is 1st March 2025.

If you are interested in studying for a PhD with me, please email me with an outline research proposal describing the problem area you would like to work on. Possible projects include:

• Improving nearest-neighbour search algorithms (e.g., based on kd-trees, HNSW, locality-sensitive hashing).
• Exploring any connection between hierarchical clustering algorithms and nearest-neighbour search algorithms.
• Creating new dynamic or hierarchical clustering algorithms (e.g. based on spectral clustering or DBSCAN).
• Creating dynamic algorithms for numerical linear algebra. For example, maintaining the PCA of a dynamically changing dataset.
• Any other project in the area of algorithmic data science and machine learning.

The full application process is described here, and you should read the guidelines on writing a research proposal in order to help prepare your application.

Contact

Please feel free to get in touch at prm4@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Alternatively, you can also find me in the real world.

0.21a Jack Cole Building
π Potato Ave.
St Andrews, UK
KY16 9SX