Brett Bissey

University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816 ยท

I am an AI researcher and software engineer striving to create something that will lend itself to positive change.

Experience

Research Assistant

Digital Signal Processing Lab, UCF

Worked with a team on Reinforcement Learning research regarding a novel reward shaping function and it's implementation within various RL algorithms.

Implemented a multi-agent tree search architecture in Python, building upon the AlphaGoZERO MCTS Pytorch implementation.

Designed grid-world environments with cooperative and adversarial games, as well as unit tests for environment functionality.

Automated large-batch training and log-gathering for experiments running on the remote computing cluster.

Co-Authored journal submissions contributing to the architecture, experimental, and supplementary sections.

February 2020 - Present

Education

University of Central Florida

B.S. in Computer Science with Stat minor

Operating Systems, Natural Language Processing, Discrete Mathematics 2, Processes of Object Oriented Design, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science 1/2, Systems Software, Regression Analysis in R, Applied Bayesian Statistics, Categorical Data, Nonparametric Statistics

GPA: 3.75

January 2019 - May 2021 (projected)

Seminole State College

General A.A. with focus in Computer Science

Intro to Web Dev, Java programming, Physics with Calculus

GPA: 4.00

August 2016 - Spring 2017

University of California - Berkeley

Coursework over two semesters
Data Structures and Algorithms, Functional Programming, Discrete Math 1

GPA: 3.43

August 2015 - May 2016

Skills

Programming Languages & Tools
Work Strengths
  • Good communicator, able to work remotely efficiently.
  • Quick Learner & Adaptor. Love to solve problems the most sensible way.
  • Works well with project teams and can fit into many roles.
  • Familiar with the rich depth of libraries in Java & Python, specifically those associated with machine learning and data science.
  • Completed large-scale projects, which are described below

Projects

  • Personal Projects (some code available on ):
    • This Website! (Django / Python / HTML5 / CSS / JS)
    • Machine Learning Basics (Python / TensorFlow / Keras)
    • LeetCode and HackerRank challenges also available on
    • Leading a team in the AI@UCF data science division. We are currently in the process of curating a large dataset of art, in hopes of modifying a pretrained neural net to train it to classify art movement (e.g. Impressionism, Surrealism, Romanticism)
  • Notable UC Berkeley Projects (code available upon request):
    • Scheme Interpreter (Python)
    • Fully Functional Basic Text Editor from scratch (without using JavaFX libraries) (Java)
    • Google Maps CopyCat application with A* shortest paths algorithm and autocorrect search-bar. (Java)
    • MedCluster: A CalHacks project that uses a K-Cluster Algorithm to optimize ambulance placement. Described further in Awards
  • Musical Projects (available on all streaming services):

    Guitarist, singer, and songwriter of HEAD BANNED.

    I produce music and organize shows throughout Central Florida. Featured below is the most recent of the six albums I have written and produced.

Awards & Community

President's Honor Roll (2019, 2020)

UCF

Maintained a greater than 3.5 GPA my whole time at UCF.

Lecturer & Coordinator (2019, 2020)

AI@UCF

Assisted club leaders with workshops, delivered lectures such as the one shown below

Best Folk Artist (2018)

Best of Orlando, Orlando Weekly

Voted by Orlando Weekly staff and the public to be a finalist for Best Folk Act in Orlando.

CalHacks Top 5 Finalist (2015)

Backend Engineer

MedCluster is an algorithmic emergency response time optimizer. We inputted coordinates from Seattle's 911 call data into a K means clustering algorithm that found the ambulance/hospital placement that would allow for minimal emergency response time. I continue to be interested in the K means algorithm given it is a backbone of machine learning.