I am fascinated by the capacity of collectives to achieve outcomes beyond the reach of isolated individuals. My research investigates the interplay between individual agency and collective dynamics, focusing on how incentives shape this relationship. I draw upon models from cognitive science and computational economics, analysing them through a complex systems framework that incorporates information theory, dynamical systems theory, game theory, and Bayesian inference.
Passionate about empowering individuals equitably and sustainably, I believe that democratizing information and technology, along with fostering local communities, will have the greatest impact toward this goal.
I have studies in robotics and mechatronics engineering, statistics and data science, complex systems, AI. I have experience in deep reinforcement learning and computer vision research. I’m a certified AWS Solutions Architect Associate with several years of industry experience in cloud infrastructure and 10 years of Python expertise in automation, data engineering, and machine learning.
News
| Jul 2026 | Participating in the 2026 Human-aligned AI Summer School (HAAISS) | Prague, CZ |
| Jun 2026 | I will be based in London for the PIBBSS Fellowship until the end of August | London, UK |
| Jan 2026 | Attended a symposium on the Great Filter Hypothesis, and collaborated on a “Algorithmic bottlenecks in evolution” preprint with some participants | Heron Island, AU |
| May 2025 | Presented Active Inference x Game Theory work at AAMAS’25 | Detroit, US |
Selected Publications
Sweeney P, Ruiz-Serra J, Harré MS. Decision, Inference, and Information: Formal Equivalences Under Active Inference. Entropy, 2025. DOI:10.3390/e28010001
Ruiz-Serra J, Sweeney P, and Harré MS. Factorised Active Inference for Strategic Multi-Agent Interactions. AAMAS ’25, Detroit, US, May 2025. DOI:10.5555/3709347.3743815
Ruiz-Serra J, White J, Petrie S, Kameneva T, and McCarthy C. Learning scene representations for human-assistive displays using self-attention networks. ACM Trans. Multimedia Comput. Commun. Appl., 2024. DOI:10.1145/3650111
Ruiz-Serra J and Harré MS. Inverse Reinforcement Learning as the Algorithmic Basis for Theory of Mind: Current Methods and Open Problems. Algorithms, 2023 (Awarded “Editor’s Choice”). DOI:10.3390/a16020068
Ruiz-Serra J, White J, Petrie S, Kameneva T, and McCarthy C. Towards self-attention based visual navigation in the real world. ACRA ’22, Brisbane, AU, Dec 2022. arXiv:2209.07043
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Education
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Oct 2022 Present |
PhD, Complex Systems and Artificial Intelligence The University of Sydney |
Sydney, AU |
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Mar 2021 Nov 2022 |
MicroMasters, Statistics and Data Science MITx on edX |
Online |
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Feb 2016 Dec 2020 |
BEng (Hons) (4.00 GPA), Robotics and Mechatronics Swinburne University of Technology |
Melbourne, AU |
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Jun 2013 May 2014 |
DipDes, Graphic Design CATC Design School |
Melborune, AU |
Experience
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Jun 2026 Sep 2026 |
Research Fellow, AI Safety, Complex Systems PIBBSS, Principles of Intelligence (Cooperative AI Foundation track) |
London, UK |
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Mar 2025 Sep 2025 |
AI Engineer, Artificial Intelligence, LLMs, RAG, Azure Vistra |
Sydney, AU |
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Feb 2023 Nov 2024 |
Teaching Assistant, Machine Learning, Information Theory The University of Sydney |
Sydney, AU |
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Sep 2020 Jan 2024 |
Research Assistant, Deep Reinforcement Learning, Computer Vision Swinburne University of Technology |
Remote / Melbourne, AU |
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Jan 2018 Sep 2020 |
Analyst, Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure (AWS) National Australia Bank |
Remote / Melbourne, AU |
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Nov 2016 Sep 2017 |
State Staffing Manager, Spark Engineering Camp Youth Without Borders |
Melbourne, AU |
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