About Me 🤓

Who is David?

My name is pronounced as DAH-veed or DAH-vid.

I was born in Venezuela and grew up in St. Kitts and Nevis, W.I. (i.e., West Indies).

I completed my primary and secondary school education in St. Kitts: I attended the St. Theresa’s Convent High School (locally called the “Convent School”), a private school affiliated with the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. Since graduating, it has been renamed to the Immaculate Conception Catholic School (or ICCS). I took a wide array of CSEC subjects (equivalent to the British GSCE O-levels).

After high school, I attended our local community college, the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College (CFBC), where I obtained my Associate’s Degree in General Studies by completing a mix of courses (equivalent to British GCSE A-levels): Pure Mathematics, Computer Science, Communication Studies, Caribbean Studies, and Spanish.

After CFBC, I attended the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) in St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands), where I obtained my bachelor degree in Computer Science and graduated in 2014. From there, I attended the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, Florida, USA, to obtain my doctorate in Computer Science & Engineering and graduated in 2020.

What/Why is David?

I am a roboticist and computer scientist.

I have always been an avid learner: as a child, I was fascinated by the fields of biology, geography, and technology – specifically airplanes, handheld electronics, and coding. Somehow, I ended up drawn to computing and programming despite my indecisiveness.

What drew me to this field was the excitement I got from learning about logic and program design for problem-solving. At UVI, I learned that computer science is a diverse and broad field. I thoroughly enjoyed algorithms and machine learning at UVI, and I was curious about robotics and artificial intelligence. I credit my advisors Dr. Marc Boumedine and Dr. Wayne Archibald for motivating me to pursue my doctorate.

I dove into the world of robotics and AI at USF, fields of which I had little to no clue about! I joined the Robot Perception and Action Lab (RPAL) under the supervision of Dr. Yu Sun. I graduated USF in May 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. A few months after graduating, I made the decision to move to Munich, Germany to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Munichh until 2021.

Where is David?

Since 2021, I’ve been at Brown University, where I work as a postdoctoral researcher and a member of the Intelligent Robot Lab directed by Prof. George Konidaris.

As a postdoc, I aim to develop the skills and experiences needed to lead my own research group one day (while racking up extra paper – not the monetary kind, of course).

How is David?

I dunno, you tell me! Feel free to reach out.