Paul Pacaud

Hi, I’m Paul! I’m a PhD student passionate about blending Computer Vision, NLP, and Robotics. I graduated from CentraleSupélec, and spent some time at Stanford. My long-term aspiration aims to push the boundaries of AI’s ability to perceive, understand, and act in the physical world.

I’ve had the rare opportunity to work at the crossroads of applied science (startup @ Brio, quant trading @ Engie) and theoretical research (PhD studies @ Inria). Let me give you some key takeaways about my experiences:

At Brio, the startup I co-founded, I built and deployed AI-driven HR tools, ranging from interview prep for students to HR search engines for recruiters. Our interview prep platform was adopted by over twenty top universities in France and used by more than 4,000 users. At 24 yo, I was proud to have bootstrapped a startup making over €50k in ARR.

At Engie Trading, I helped to approximate very hard optimization problems on the Power Market, and I also deployed applied ML models on the Gas Market. It was a lot of fun to actually apply ML to real-world scenarios.

At Inria and École Normale Supérieure Paris, I’m super excited to be at the cutting edge of Robotics/3D/Language, focusing on enabling AI to generalize to novel scenarios. I am convinced that this is the path forward for intelligent machines.

Balancing applied science and theory has taught me the difference between creating a research prototype and deploying real-world solutions. In a nutshell, the key takeaway is: I love building useful things that tackle hard challenges.

I’m looking for research internships in 2025, so if you have any opportunities, I’d love to hear about them.