Ionela Georgiana Mocanu, PhD
Artificial Intelligence and Application Institute, Edinburgh UK
Experience
Software Engineer, Senapt LTD, UK (Sept 2023 - Present)
CO-Founder/Machine Learning Engineer, Curieo (Jul 2023 - Sept 2023)
AI Research Associate, JP Morgan Chase & Co., London, UK (Mar 2021 - Sept 2021)
Designed and implemented an AI Meeting Scheduler application, that automatically suggests suitable meeting slots for agents.
Conducted end-to-end research integral to all aspects of the research task: formulated the research problem, gathered the necessary datasets, created hypothesis and designed the algorithm.
Conducted the experiments and built the prototype (Python).
Effectively communicated the significance of the research to the business partners through presentations and talks and collaborated with the team on a follow-up academic paper.
Teaching Assistant, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, UK (Sept 2018 - Sept 2022)
Created content for slides on Algorithms and Data Structures and delivered tutorials to groups of students.
Monitored and regularly answered students' questions on online platforms (around 380 students enrolled)
Tutor & Marker for Professional Issues on AI Ethics, covering: social and ethical issues, legal issues, software contracts and liability, intellectual property, copyright, patents and the relationships between scientific, technical & engineering issues and real-world issues in computing.
Prepared discussion points and led tutorials on highly significant use cases of ethical issues in the Artificial Intelligence field.
Tutor & Marker for Discrete Mathematics and Probability, Reasoning and Agents, Algorithms and Data Structures.
Successfully tutored various groups of students both in-person and online, and provided coursework and exam feedback to more than 100 students.
Project Supervisor, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, UK (Sept 2019 - Sept 2021)
Proposed a research project and co-supervised a Masters student with the progression and completeness of their thesis.
The supervision resulted in a follow-up paper in collaboration on: Experimental analysis of Capsule Networks which compares different capsule network architectures with the convolutional neural networks.
Co-supervised a Bachelor's student with the progression and completeness of their thesis which resulted in a mark of above 80% and a follow-up academic paper in collaboration.
Research & Development Intern, University of Southampton, UK (Jun 2017 - Sep 2017)
Individual project: Attack and defence against machine learning algorithms in Smart Traffic Control.
Successfully implemented and tested FPL (''follow the perturbed leader'') outlier algorithm against different defence strategies.
Analysed and improved both defence and attack side strategies to simulate a real-time attack on an actual system.
Team project: Adversarial attacks and defence competition.
Developed new programming skills (Python, PyTorch) while experiencing the research environment and working with research staff to participate in the NeurIPS GAN competition. Received a nomination for the Employee of the Year 2017 Award.
Web Development Intern, Cascoda LTD, Southampton, UK (Mar 2017 - May 2017)
Created website for the company using Plesk host control panel and WordPress platform.
Customized website to meet customers' requirements (JavaScript, HTML and PHP).
Used agile methodology to adapt to design changes and be flexible to new customer suggestions.
Education
Ph.D. Pervasive Parallelism, University of Edinburgh, UK (Sept 2019 - Sept 2023)
Thesis: On the learnability of knowledge in multi-agent systems (Modal logic in AI).
M.Sc.R. Master of Science by Research in AI, University of Edinburgh, UK (Sept 2018 - Sept 2019)
MS Thesis: Implicit learning in linear arithmetic.
B.Sc.(Hons) Computer Science (First Class), University of Southampton, UK (Sep 2015 - Jun 2018)
Dissertation: Modelling quantum algorithms using QuantoMatic.
Algorithmics (95%), Advanced programming Java & C++ (85%), Computational biology (80%).
Successfully built various applications such as Auction App using Socket Communication and Multithreading.
Volunteering
Certified Mental Health First Aider, Informatics School University of Edinburgh UK (Aug 2021 - Aug 2023)
Offered guidance and support to students around the school with personal mental health issues.
EUWiSTEM Mentorship Scheme, Informatics School University of Edinburgh UK (Sept 2021 - Sept 2022)
Mentored two female undergraduate students with various student life aspects, including time management techniques, coding tutorials, essay proof reading, mental health support.
STEM Ambassador, Informatics School Tutoring Scheme, University of Edinburgh, UK (2021 - 2022)
Student Representative, Student-Staff Liaison Committee, University of Edinburgh, UK (Sept 2019 - Jan 2022)
Committee member representing the students voice of the PPAR CDT students.
Student Representative, Pervasive Parallelism CDT, University of Edinburgh, UK (Sept 2018 - Jan 2022)
Rep of CDT Pervasive Parallelism cohorts. Actively participated in the rep meetings.
Raised and discussed peers issues and proposed mitigating solutions.
Organised group events for the cohort to maintain the integrity of the group and encourage socialising.
President, Salsa Society, University of Edinburgh, UK (Sept 2019 - Dec 2021)
Coordinated a team of 18 committee members and 10 teachers to run dance-related classes and performance teams. Led regular committee meetings and facilitated communication with external collaborators and partners.
During the COVID-19, the society received the Fostering Student Communities Award by Edinburgh Student Award.
Collaborated with societies across Scotland and became a leading student society to provide online activities for its members.
Received the Edinburgh Volunteer Award 2021 and Leadership in Student Opportunities Edinburgh Award 2022.
Freshers Guide, Jumpstart event, University of Southampton, UK (Sept 2017)
Coordinated groups of first year students for the tour of the town. Organised various group activities and socials.
Society Member, Cyber Security Society, University of Southampton, UK (Sept 2016 - Jun 2017)
Got involved in regular challenges which imply working in pairs and using SQL and bash programming skills to complete tasks. Got insight of fundamental hacking behaviours as well as securing strategies.
School Outreach, Robogals Society, University of Southampton, UK (Sept 2015 - Sept 2016)
Developed teaching skills by participating in workshops with local schools.
Worked with children and taught them programming and robotics through Lego Mindstorms to increase female involvement in engineering and sciences fields.
Increased awareness of gender equality through advertisements and showcases of the robots built within the society.
Hobbies
Performer/Dance Instructor UK, Spain 2016 - 2022
Dance Performer at various events:
Pure Dance Show (England) Mar 2017, Mar 2018.
Edinburgh Dance Show (Scotland) Mar 2019, Mar 2020, Mar 2022.
World Rueda Championship (Spain) Sept 2018.
Scottish Salsa Congress (Edinburgh) Jan 2019, Apr 2022.
Last Updated: 04.03.2025