William R. Clements

Machine Learning | Photonics | Quantum Optics

I am passionate about expanding the frontiers of technology in computing and photonics. I have co-authored over 20 publications in machine learning, photonics, and quantum optics, and have a PhD in physics from the University of Oxford.

I am currently building a photonic quantum computer at ORCA Computing.

Employment Head of Machine Learning (2021-current) ORCA Computing Machine Learning Entrepreneur (2020-2021) CTO at Rize Ag and ML Freelancer Senior Machine Learning Researcher (2018-2020) indust.ai
Education PhD in quantum optics (2018) University of Oxford Diplôme d'ingénieur (2014) Ecole Polytechnique

MEDIUM ARTICLES

Indust.ai's computer vision pipeline for deepfake detection: Medium post explaining how my team made it to the global top 5% in the Deepfake Detection Challenge, organized by Facebook, Microsoft, AWS, and others. (April 2020)

Indust.ai's journey into Deepfake detection: Medium post explaining the context for my team's participation in the Deepfake Detection Challenge. (April 2020)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND CONFERENCE PAPERS

Machine Learning

"Learning Group Structure and Disentangled Representations of Dynamical Environments", Quessard, R., Barrett, T. D., Clements, W. R., NeurIPS 2020 (all authors contributed equally)

"Exploratory Combinatorial Optimization with Reinforcement Learning", Barrett, T. D., Clements, W. R., Foerster, J. N., Lvovsky, A. I., AAAI 2020

"Estimating risk and uncertainty in deep reinforcement learning", Clements, W. R., Van Delft, Robaglia, B. M., B., Slaoui, R. B., & Toth, S., UDL workshop at ICLM 2020

"Robust Visual Domain Randomization for Reinforcement Learning", Slaoui, R. B., Clements, W. R., Foerster, J. N. & Toth, S., BeTR-RL workshop at ICLR 2020

Photonics for Classical and Quantum Computing

"Optimal design for universal multiport interferometers", Clements, W. R., Humphreys, P. C., Metcalf, B. J., Kolthammer, W. S., & Walmsley, I. A., Optica, 3(12), 1460-1465. (2016)

"Gaussian optical Ising machines", Clements, W. R., Renema, J. J., Wen, Y. H., Chrzanowski, H. M., Kolthammer, W. S., & Walmsley, I. A., Physical Review A, 96(4), 043850. (2017)

"Approximating vibronic spectroscopy with imperfect quantum optics", Clements, W. R., Renema, J. J., Eckstein, A., Valido, A. A., Lita, A., Gerrits, T., ... & Walmsley, I. A., Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 51(24), 245503. (2018)

"Modular linear optical circuits", Mennea, P. L., Clements, W. R., Smith, D. H., Gates, J. C., Metcalf, B. J., Bannerman, R. H., ... & Smith, P. G., Optica, 5(9), 1087-1090. (2018)

"Using an imperfect photonic network to implement random unitaries", Burgwal, R., Clements, W. R., Smith, D. H., Gates, J. C., Kolthammer, W. S., Renema, J. J., & Walmsley, I. A., Optics Express, 25(23), 28236-28245. (2017)

Photonics

"Single nanoparticle detection using split-mode microcavity Raman lasers", Li, B. B., Clements, W. R., Yu, X. C., Shi, K., Gong, Q., & Xiao, Y. F., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(41), 14657-14662. (2014)

"Raman-lasing dynamics in split-mode microresonators", Clements, W. R., Li, B. B., Shen, B. Q., & Xiao, Y. F., Physical Review A, 91(1), 013804. (2015)

PATENT

"Interferometer and method of designing an interferometer", Clements, W., Humphreys, P., Metcalf, B., Kolthammer, S., & Walmsley, I., US Patent App. 16/080,037 (2019)

INVITED TALKS

"Quantum Computing and Reinforcement Learning", Invited Talk at the Machine Learning Summer School, Moscow, 30 September 2019. I was also on a discussion panel on "AI for telecom".

"Estimating Risk and Uncertainty in Deep Reinforcement Learning", Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, 06 June 2019

"Estimation du risque et de l'incertitude en apprentissage par renforcement profond", Université de Lille 1, 28 March 2019

"Mathématiques de l'intelligence artificielle", Université Paris Sud, 13 February 2019. A video of my talk can be found on the event's website.

Languages

I'm also an enthusiastic language learner!

English
Native speaker
French
Native speaker
Italian
B2 - Upper Intermediate
Mandarin
B2 - Upper Intermediate
Spanish
B1 - Lower Intermediate

Contact

You can contact me by email at mail [at] william-clements.com