I am a PhD student in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, where I am a member of the Mathematically Structured Programming Group, under the supervision of Jules Hedges and Neil Ghani. Prior to that, I did a MSc in Applied Mathematics, during which I worked with Rocío González Díaz and the CIMA group on category theoretical approaches to topological data analysis, and a BSc in Physics and Material Engineering, both at the University of Sevilla, Spain.
Academia
My PhD is on category theory applied to machine learning, optimization and control theory problems. I am interested in cybernetic systems, graphical calculi, and foundations of reinforcement learning, without forgetting about concrete examples, like the linear quadratic regulator. In addition to the blogs in this site, you can find some of my academic output next:
- Talk ‘Decorated Para for linear quadratic regulators’ at BCTCS, 2025
- Talk ‘Charty estimation, lensy control’ at CATNIP (2024)
- ‘Reinforcement Learning in Categorical Cybernetics’ at Applied Category Theory 2024 (jww. J. Hedges)
- Seminar talk ‘Categorical cybernetics for Markov decision processes’ at MSP, 2023
- Seminar talk ‘From discounted value to discounted state’ at MSP, 2023
- Distinguished talk ‘Value Iteration is Optic Composition’ at Applied Category Theory 2022 (jww. J. Hedges)
- Seminar talk ‘Categories for persistent homology’ at MSP, 2021
- Talk ‘Inference from low-dimensional images’ at WASC'20
- Talk ‘Persistent Zigzag’ at CIMAGROUP 2020 and Jornadas Topológicas para Jóvenes (RET)
- Talk ‘Project Horus: Electronic prototypes’ at CEFIMUS (I Student Congress of Physics and Materials Engineering in the Uni. of Seville), 2019
- ‘Low-Power Low-Cost Cyber-Physical System for Bird Monitoring’ (joint author) at IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2018
During my doctoral studies I have had the opportunity to be a teaching assistant for various undergraduate and masters courses, including Logic and Algorithms, Computer Systems and Organization, Computer Systems and Architecture, Game Theory and Multiagent Systems and Big Data Technologies.
Industry
In industry, I’ve been working since February 2025 as a research assistant at ENSIGN developing and managing software for digital twins of energy networks, and previously as a predoctoral researcher at CSIC-Instituto de Microelectrónica from 2019 to 2021, developing computer vision models for embedded systems based on AI and Compressed Sensing.
Contact
You can get in touch with me via email at: riurodsak AT gmail DOT com or via my university email at: riu.rodriguez-sakamoto AT strath DOT ac DOT uk. You can also find me at the Scottish Programming Languages Seminar (SPLS) Zulip and the Category Theory Zulip.