Alumni Matters: Dr Danial Dervovic

DR DANIAL DERVOVIC

CDT COHORT 2: 2015-19

Research Scientist in the AI Team of JP Morgan Chase & Co.

Research interest: Artificial Intellifence

Q. How did the CDT environment benefit you?

The MRes course in research software development which we took has been very useful, as I use tools and techniques we learned in that course most days at work. Another benefit would be parts of the course where I had to very quickly get up to speed on a new sub-field of research, I find myself needing to do this a lot in my current work.

Q. What was the focus of your PhD?

My PhD mainly focused on theoretical aspects of quantum information, specifically towards computation. I came into the program undecided between theory and experiment and found I took to theory a lot more.

Q. What happened next?

I haven’t continued in quantum computation although I am still actively engaged in computer science research. I now work for JP Morgan’s AI Research team. While quantum and AI have very different content and context, the mathematical components of both fields are largely the same, namely, probability theory, linear algebra, (some) convex optimisation etc. So while there’s a lot to learn to go from one field to the other, the required background for each is similar enough that you have a very good head start. I currently work with another CDT alumnus who was in the cohort before me, in fact I am in regular contact with my cohort and we are lifelong friends - we even went on holiday together last year.

After completing his PhD at UCL, Dr Danial Dervovic joined the AI research team at JP Morgan Chase and Co. in London. He describes his role as 50% academic research, and 50% data science.

This article was featured in UCLQ’s 2019/20 annual report.