Samuel J. Bell
Machine learning reproducibility, robustness and fairness.

I’m Sam 👋, a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at FAIR, Meta’s fundamental AI research group. I currently split my time between Paris, France and Cambridge, UK.
In 2023 I completed my PhD in machine learning as part of the ML@CL group at the University of Cambridge, supervised by Prof. Neil Lawrence.
My research focuses on understanding how (and often, whether) contemporary machine learning models actually work. Broadly, I’m interested in reproducibility and metascientific research, tooling and theory for improving the efficiency of machine learning research, and understanding algorithmic biases and questions of fairness.
Previously, I have studied at The Alan Turing Institute, obtained a master’s in natural language processing at the Cambridge Computer Laboratory, and did my bachelor’s in computer science at the University of Manchester.
In between, I’ve simulated financial crises in market risk at Goldman Sachs; built new retail banks at Thought Machine, and developed next generation credit scores at Credit Kudos.
I’m also the Founder and Chair of The Preptrack Foundation, a registered charity building technology for HIV prevention. Our first app, Preptrack, helps people who use PrEP, the medication that eliminates the risk of HIV infection.
If you’re interested in what I do, research collaborations or opportunities, please do drop me a line. My email is samueljamesbell [at] gmail [dot] com. I’d love to hear from you.