Oscar Guarnizo

Hi👋, I'm an AI/ML Engineer working remotely for AlgoAge, Japan. I design LLM-powered agents, multi-agent systems, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines for production environments.

My research interests center on reinforcement learning and its applications to finance, gaming, large language model training, and robotics. I'm currently seeking PhD opportunities or Research Engineer and ML Engineer roles in these areas.

I completed a master's degree in AI/ML at the University of Birmingham (2023–2024), fully funded by the Google DeepMind International Scholarship. My research focused on state abstractions, representation learning, and bisimulation metrics in reinforcement learning. I worked under the supervision of Mirco Giacobbe and Leonardo Stella, with additional mentorship from Pablo Samuel Castro at Université de Montréal and Google DeepMind, and Rishabh Kabra at Oxford University and Google DeepMind.

After completing my bachelor's degree, I worked as a Machine Learning Engineer at DIGEVO.

My earlier research experience includes an internship at KAUST, where I worked on StyleGANs under the supervision of Peter Wonka. During my undergraduate studies, I also worked as a part-time Junior Researcher at the Scientific Computing Group, supervised by Israel Pineda, and at DeepARC Research, supervised by Eugenio Morocho.

I enjoy participating in conferences and summer schools to keep up with developments in AI and exchange ideas with other researchers. These include SALA 2026, Oxford ML 2024, EEML 2022, EEML 2021, IssoDL 2021, and Workshop MathRL 2021.

“I believe knowledge can shape our lives and choices in remarkable ways, and that its value grows when shared.”

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Skills

Reinforcement learning, LLMs & agents

JAX (Dopamine) · TorchRL · OpenAI Gym · LangGraph · MCP servers · RAG

Machine learning & data science

PyTorch · TensorFlow · Hugging Face · OpenCV · Pandas · Matplotlib · Weights & Biases (W&B) · NVIDIA DeepStream · NVIDIA TAO Toolkit

Programming & development tools

Python · C · TypeScript · Bash · Git / GitHub · Docker · Unix · LaTeX

Languages

Spanish (native) · English (C1) IELTS: 7/9 · TOEFL iBT: 104/120

Research

I have experience in reinforcement learning, computer vision, and deep learning.

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Bisimulation Prioritized Experience Replay: Enhancing Online Reinforcement Learning through Behavioral-Based Priorities
Oscar Guarnizo, Mirco Giacobbe, Leonardo Stella
Master Thesis, 2023-2024
project page thesis / poster article / demo slides / code

Bisimulation Prioritized Experience Replay (BPER) introduces a novel approach to enhance value-based reinforcement learning by incorporating a bisimulation metric to prioritize behaviorally relevant transitions. By balancing traditional TD-error with state behavior similarities, BPER improves data diversity and learning efficiency, as demonstrated in a 31-state Grid World and pixel-based environments.

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CovarianceNet: CNN Feature Extraction Using Covariance Tensor Decomposition
Ricardo Fonseca, Oscar Guarnizo, Diego Suntaxi, Alfonso Cadiz, Werner Creixell
IEEE Access, 2021
EEML, 2022 (Oral Presentation, Best Poster Award)
project page / paper / poster / video / blog / code

During a single step forward, we compute the covariance tensor and factorize it by Tucker decomposition to generate kernels for a CNN. The kernels were then plugged into the CNN (CovarianceNet) for classification.

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StyleGAN Embedding Algorithms: Image2StyleGAN (I2S) & ImprovedImage2StyleGAN (II2S)
Oscar Guarnizo, Peter Wonka
EEML, 2021
project page / poster article / blog / code

We reproduced StyleGAN embedding algorithms, adding further experimentation such as inpainting, super-resolution, colorization, morphing, style transfer, and expression transfer.

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Three Dimensional Adaptive Path Planning Simulation Based On Ant Colony Optimization
Oscar Guarnizo, Israel Pineda
LA-CCI, 2019   (Oral Presentation)
project page / paper / thesis / video / code / extended code

Path planning based on Ant Colony Optimization was studied to deal with stuck conditions and speed up convergence.

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Successive Adaptive Linear Neural Modeling for Equidistant Real Roots Finding
Joseph Gonzalez, Fernando Zhapa, Oscar Guarnizo, Francisco Ortega-Zamorano
ETCM, 2018   (Oral Presentation)
project page / paper / video / code

Successive Adaptive Linear Neural Modeling is a two-step approach based on a Self Organized Map (SOM) and an Adaptative Linear Neuron (Adaline).

Demos

Additionally, I developed some software projects related to large language models, reinforcement learning, computer vision, and video games.

Green neural network and data-processing pipeline for the NVIDIA Nemotron reasoning project
Teaching Nemotron to Reason: Synthetic Trajectories, Curriculum Learning & Reinforcement Learning
Oscar Guarnizo
Research exploration · NVIDIA Nemotron Model Reasoning Challenge, 2026
project page / code

Can a symbolic solver teach a language model a useful way to search? Explore backward-generated reasoning trajectories, progressive supervised training, and a proposal for rewards that verify intermediate steps. An interactive account of the ideas, obstacles, and unsuccessful experiments.

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Pretrained RL-Hangman: Enhancing Word Games Strategy with BERT and Deep Q-Networks.
Oscar Guarnizo,
Self-Learning , February 2025
code

This project integrated a pretrained BERT-based model into a Deep Q-Network (DQN) to enhance decision-making in the Hangman word game. The model combines contextual learning from BERT with reinforcement learning, optimizing letter selection via a dynamic reward function based on character frequency and game progression. Explored LoRA fine-tuning, smaller BERT variants, and custom Gym environments improving accuracy from 70% to 75% and achieving a 65% success rate across 113,000 games.

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Hangman Model: Finetuning a BERT Model for Token Classification using Character-Level Masked Language Modeling (MLM)
Oscar Guarnizo,
Self-Learning , May 2024
code

This project aims to fine-tune a BERT-based model, called HangmanNet, for character-level masked language modeling to play the Hangman game. The model predicts hidden characters by leveraging bidirectional context from both sides of a word. Additional techniques, such as incorporating prior character frequency and custom data collators, were explored to improve accuracy, particularly for shorter words.

ALPR before
Automatic License Plate Recognition (Nvidia TAO + Deepstream Application + Python Bindings)
Oscar Guarnizo, Leduin Cuenca
Mobia Latam, 2022
project page / code

We developed a multistream Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system by assembling an Nvidia deepstream pipeline, training 3+ models with the Nvidia TAO toolkit, and periodically sending data streams to a Kafka Apache for further use cases.

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Segmentating and Counting Grapes Bunches using MaskRCNN + Tracker DeepSort
Oscar Guarnizo, Diego Suntaxi, Fabricio Crespo
Digevo, 2021
project page / video / code

We developed a system to segment and count grapes bunches using Mask RCNN and DeepSort Tracker. After that, we extrapolate the counting information to satellite images to generate heat maps that show the number of grapes per parcel in a yield.

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Retro Video Game Programming Challenge - GMTK Game Jam 2020
Esteban Lasso, Oscar Guarnizo, Joseph Gonzalez, Jose Seraquive
GMTK Game Jam , 2020
project page / video game

We developed a retro video game in 48 hours using Unity3D to measure our expertise and continue improving. Game Jam Topic: Out of Control

Education and Training

Selected online courses and intensive training in machine learning, software development, and learning strategies.

Deep Learning Specialization

DeepLearning.AI · Coursera

Neural network foundations, optimization and regularization, structuring ML projects, and convolutional neural networks.

Neuromatch Academy: Deep Learning

Neuromatch Academy · Intensive training

Interactive deep learning tutorials and a collaborative research project, covering neural networks, optimization, computer vision, and generative models.

Machine Learning

Stanford Online · Coursera · Andrew Ng

Foundations of supervised and unsupervised learning, neural networks, and practical methods for evaluating and improving machine learning models.

Data Structures + Algorithms

Udemy · Andrei Neagoie, Zero To Mastery

Implementing data structures and algorithms, analyzing time and space complexity, and practicing structured problem solving for coding interviews.

Learning How to Learn

Coursera · Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski

Practical learning strategies, including focused and diffuse thinking, chunking, memory techniques, and managing procrastination.