Let’s get Personal: Meet Daniel

Meet Daniel, a research scientist at Persona. In his free time, you can find him lifting weights, dancing, or losing Elo on Chess.com. He shares what drew him to Persona, his recent wins, and the values he lives by in this Q&A.

What does your typical day look like at Persona?

My typical day revolves around reading papers, running experiments, and meeting with collaborators. I usually go to the gym in the morning, then head straight to the office to check experiments and work through next steps. After lunch, I spend the rest of the day collaborating with the team, with more intensive experiment runs and writing closer to conference deadlines.

What drew you to Persona, and what made you say yes to joining the team?

I think one of the big factors that drew me to the company was the team and problem space. Labs, Persona’s research team, is super unique with many unsolved problems that I found interesting, and I got the sense that it wouldn’t be the type of work that I would have to force myself to do.

The main thing that convinced me to say yes was the empathy that everyone displayed throughout the recruitment process, which I do think is usually a good reflection of company culture. People would constantly go out of their way to ensure the process was smooth in ways that I hadn’t really seen before, and I felt it was probably a good indication of how Persona treats its employees.

Tell us something unexpected about yourself, such as a hidden talent, unique hobby, or surprising fact.

I love dancing! I’ve been dancing for a few years now, and was captain of a dance team in college.

What’s a recent win or moment at Persona that made you proud?

Probably our CVPR acceptance! The Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) is the premier annual event for AI, machine learning, and computer vision, so it was a huge honor to get our paper accepted.

We wrote about how to ensure that visual embeddings don’t inadvertently leak identity information while still preserving their utility for non-biometric tasks, and titled it “From Measurement to Mitigation: Quantifying and Reducing Identity Leakage in Image Representation Encoders with Linear Subspace Removal.”

I do think the topic was pretty unique and interesting, and I was really happy that people in the academic community considered it significant.

If you could describe your work style in three words, what would they be?

Curiosity, velocity, and depth. I love learning, and I feel like aiming to get as deep an understanding as possible as fast as possible allows me to quickly find ways to find answers to the questions I have regarding my project directions.

Who has influenced or inspired you most during your time at Persona, and why?

Probably Yifei Zhang, an engineer and my mentor, or Daniel Lee, my product manager (PM). Both are incredibly empathetic and caring people with an incomparable ability to go deep into any problem.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone joining Persona today?

The main piece of advice I’d give is to go out of your way to publicize results, even if they’re incomplete. People are always willing to help out and are generally pretty interested in what others are working on.

What’s something about Persona’s culture or mission that really resonates with you?

I think the commitment towards service to others really resonates with me. People are extremely generous with their time and uplifting, and it helps create an environment where people are rewarded for asking good questions.

If you could have coffee (virtual or IRL) with anyone, past or present, who would it be and why?

Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino. I’ve always heavily respected his ability to successfully create under so many different mediums at a professional level: comedy, acting, music, directing, writing, etc.

What’s your current favorite way to unwind after work?

My go-to is either running or lifting!

Share a book, podcast, or show you’ve been into lately. What do you love about it?

I’ve been really into the Dwarkesh Podcast. He does these deeply researched interviews with big names in tech and AI, and I’ve been super impressed by his ability to ask really great technical questions and push back on their points.

What’s a place (restaurant, coffee shop, park, city) that feels special to you, and what would you recommend there?

Berkeley (my alma mater) holds a pretty special place in my heart. It’s such a beautiful city, and the campus is drop-dead gorgeous. I really recommend hiking up the fire trails during sunset for an awesome view of SF!

If you were building a personal bucket list today, what’s the first thing you’d add?

I’d probably want to travel more. I’ve really enjoyed traveling historically and feel like it’d be nice to see other countries more often.

What’s a value or principle you try to live by?

“The fool is the precursor to the savior,” a quote by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology. It’s basically saying that in order to master anything, you should be comfortable with being bad at it first.

Want to join Daniel and the rest of the team at Persona? Check out our open roles and become part of a team that’s building the future of identity verification while fostering curiosity and continuous learning.