CV | Oliver Proudfoot

Education

The Ohio State University, PhD in Artificial Intelligence

8/2025-5/2030 (planned) • University Fellow • Advisor: Andrew Perrault

Research focused on the intersection of reinforcement learning (RL) and large language models (LLMs).

Brigham Young University, BS Applied & Computational Math (ML concentration)

4/22/2022 • GPA: 3.95 • Cum Laude • Full-tuition scholarship

Elected to take graduate-level machine learning and mathematical theory classes, then served as a TA for those courses.

Work

Data Scientist, Product Features • Pluralsight (B2B EdTech)

6/1/2022-6/24/2025

Led development of a video corpus intelligence system using Anthropic and OpenAI LLMs, helping enable multi-million dollar contracts.
Augmented search with hypothetical document embeddings, improving click-through by about 2%.
Pitched to executive leadership five times and ran multiple GenAI trainings for up to 70 employees.
Automated content creation with fully featured hands-on labs and assessments since GPT-3.
Designed a graph-based algorithm for extracting user behavior signals to model entity relationships.
Represented Pluralsight in Vista Equity Partners' 2023 GenAI hackathon; won $20,000 by building an agentic curriculum curator now generally available in product.
Systematically evaluated GPT and Claude families against internal evals for domain-specific performance and task feasibility.
Built two user-facing recommendation algorithms from ideation through production.
Fine-tuned LLMs for content creation and content evaluation.

Intern, ML for Correlated Intelligence • Sandia National Laboratories (Government R&D)

4/2020-12/2021

Researched computer vision applications and mathematical theory of the FHOG descriptor in polar coordinates for rotation-invariant target detection and localization.
Improved on prior detection baselines by about 3%.
Optimized FHOG to reduce spatial complexity by up to 99% and temporal complexity by up to 67%.

Teaching & Research Assistant • BYU Math & MAGICC Lab (Academic Research)

9/2019-4/2021 and 12/2021-4/2022

Investigated sharp convexity in data-space versus parameter-space and its impact on neural network robustness.
Developed course material and assessed performance for 38 graduate math students.
Trained a CNN on simulated boat data to predict 6DoF rotation and translation from UAV video feed.

Skills

Python LLMs Mathematical Analysis Fast-Paced Execution NumPy/Pandas OpenAI/Anthropic/Gemini NLP/Computer Vision Presenting PyTorch / Deep RL Agentic Coding Numerical Linear Algebra Technical Communication SQL/SQLAlchemy Context/Prompt Engineering Optimization Theory Organizational Leadership Scikit-learn SFT and RL Fine-Tuning Probability Theory Learning Data Visualization/Streamlit AWS/Airflow/GitLab CI/CD LaTeX Multilingual

Volunteer

SVU Faculty Conference (2x 90-minute keynotes)

8/2024

Trained SVU faculty and staff on the education and LLM paradigm shift.
Conducted an interactive workshop and one-on-one consulting for educators.

BYU Applied Math Colloquium (60-minute talk)

4/2024

Presented to the applied math department on data science and the role of math and LLMs in industry.

Full-Time Volunteer Church Representative (Spanish)

8/2017-8/2019

Directed training, team building, and administrative support for more than 20 volunteers at a time.
Organized and led five English language learning programs for Hispanic immigrants.

Food & Care Coalition Cook/Server

9/2020-4/2021

Worked predawn shifts to help prepare and serve food for unhoused community members.

President of Church Men's Organization

2019-2022

Led more than 70 students in church and community service efforts.
Administered organization business and coordinated work with the women's organization and congregation leaders.

Languages

Spanish: Reading/Writing/Speaking - Fluent
French: Reading/Writing/Speaking - Rusty

Hobbies

Racquetball Rock Climbing Canyoneering Open Source Cooking Hiking Camping Travel Teaching Service