Dereck Piche
Curriculum Vitae
Academic Background
Research Master's, Mila & University of Montreal
October 2024 - Today
Under Aaron Courville.
Honors Bachelor’s in Computer Science, University of
Montreal
2021 - December 2023
My specialized bachelor’s degree provides me with a lot
of freedom in the choice of courses. As a result of my
interests, it is, compared to the typical computer
science bachelor, significantly more inclined towards
applied mathematics and machine learning.
Projects and Achievements
Utero
December 2023 - Today
Utero is a work-in-progress library for adaptive
algorithms written in Julia. It builds on no outside
dependencies and contains its own auto-differentiation
engine.
https://github.com/ScierKnave/Utero
Tensor Network Compositions
2023
Research on the use of tensor network methods for
machine learning with Professor Guillaume Rabusseau,
which is a core academic member of MILA.
https://github.com/ScierKnave/honor_project/blob/master/doc/rapport_projet_honor.pdf
MNIST Sum Competition
2022
Finished in the first position among bachelor’s students
in a Kaggle competition for classifying sums of pairs of
handwritten digits using data augmentation and an
ensemble of convolutional neural networks.
Minimalist Chess Engine
2021
Programmed a minimalist chess engine using the MinMax
algorithm (with α-β pruning).
https://github.com/ScierKnave/chess_bot
Professional Experience
DIRO University Tutor
January 2024 - Today
Employed by the department of computer science and
operations research of the University of Montreal to
help bachelor students in all their classes.
Deep Learning Engineer, GPR Geophysics, Longueuil
May 2023 - August 2023
Internship where I worked on a large-scale deep learning
geophysics project. I also did computer graphics to
contribute to the creation of synthetic data.
Instructor, Combat Sports, Montreal
2022 - March 2023
Greatly improved my social skills.
Provisioner Assistant and Others, Fidélise, Gatineau
September 2017 - March 2021
Working at Fidélise improved my teamwork capability and
organizational skills, as I had to collaborate with my
colleagues and perform various tasks in a short amount
of time as a delivery person, dishwasher, and assistant
provisioner.
Skills
- Applied Mathematics: Proficient in linear and multilinear algebra, multivariable calculus, and probability theory.
- Programming Languages: Advanced in Julia (including Flux), proficient in Python (including TensorFlow, PyTorch, Numpy, SciKit-Learn, and others), C, and Haskell (I have programmed a Lisp language compiler using this language for one of my classes).
- Machine Learning: Good understanding of many modern deep learning architectures (ResNets, CNN’s, Transformers) and the auto-differentiation programming infrastructure used to train them.
Soft Skills
- Strong aptitude for complex problem-solving.
- Efficient assimilation of new concepts from textbooks, notes, slides and documentation.
- Quick adaptation to new challenges.
- Effective in team environments.
- Proficient in conveying complex ideas.
Languages
- Fluent in English and French.