William Fawcett

About

I am a Lead Research Engineer at Trillium Technologies, where I work on applied AI solutions for the space sector. My work bridges machine learning and space sciences, developing practical AI systems for industrial space and Earth observation applications, as well as performing related research. I am also Director of Studies in Physical Natural Sciences at Homerton College, University of Cambridge, which is a part-time role.

I spent a significant part of my career in experimental particle physics. As a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory and as a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, I worked on the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, searching for evidence of supersymmetry and other new particles beyond the Standard Model. The primary goal of which was to deepen our understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe. I led several high-profile analyses, including the first application of tensor-attention neural networks to an ATLAS search, and a landmark combination of 22 searches that was featured in the CERN Courier.

Throughout my career I have been drawn to applying machine learning to challenging scientific problems. This grew beyond particle physics and since 2018, I have been involved with the NASA Frontier Development Lab (FDL), an applied AI research accelerator that tackles problems in space science, which ultimately led to my current role. I initially joined as a researcher, and over several summers took on increasing responsibility, ultimately serving as a faculty member helping to guide the next generation of interdisciplinary researchers.

I hold a first class integrated Master's degree in Physics from the University of Manchester, where I also served as a Junior Under Officer in the British Army's Universities Officer Training Corps. While at Oxford, I was elecected President of Pembroke College's Middle Common Room for graduate students. At Cambridge, I served as a charitable trustee for Homerton College and joined the College's governing Council.