Raul Valle · University of Florida

Machine learning for physical and neural systems.

I build machine-learning systems for hard physical and biological data: surrogate models for computational fluid dynamics in the SmartDATA Lab, event detection and source separation for neural imaging, and the research software that keeps experiments honest. I am a Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida.

Portrait of Raul Valle
Research

Featured projects

The highest-signal project pages that explain what I am building and why it matters.

SmartDATA Lab · scientific ML · surrogate modeling

Learning surrogate models for computational fluid dynamics

Ph.D. research in the SmartDATA Lab: learned surrogates that stand in for expensive CFD solvers, judged on stability, physical consistency, and generalization.

Neural operatorsMesh graph networksPhysics-informed trainingLatent dynamics
CNEL · sequence modeling · persistent memory

Kernel Adaptive Memory: testing persistent kernel memory for sequence models

Six phases of preregistered experiments asking whether a kernel-routed persistent memory helps sequence models: no general advantage yet, but the hypothesis has narrowed from dense radial attention to sparse, top-K-routed separable memory.

Sparse top-K memorySeparable optimizationPreregistered experimentsPaired-seed statisticsOnline NLMS adaptation
CNEL · dynamical systems · classification

Latent-signal classification with hierarchical dynamical systems

Pipeline that maps noisy multichannel time-series observations to compact latent trajectories with a Hierarchical Linear Dynamical System (HLDS), then evaluates those trajectories for classification, separability, and stability.

Hierarchical Linear Dynamical System (HLDS)Latent-signal classificationTemporal representation learning
Frame from a zebrafish neural imaging video.
CNEL · neural imaging · signal separation

Zebrafish neural imaging: event detection & source separation

Research platform for zebrafish neural-imaging video: statistical event detection for voltage recordings and a calcium-imaging experiment program that separates activity from background, artifacts, and noise.

Voltage & calcium imagingEvent detectionSource separationStatistical detection
Elsewhere

Personal projects

Software I build outside the lab: apps with their own public homes and tools for my own work.

Co-founded app

Ora

A local-first training and progress app for lifters: fast set logging, a coach that drafts one change with its confidence, and a biomechanics research spine beside the app.

Independent app

Gradus

A reasoning-mastery platform for rigorous STEM courses: attempt a problem, get a deterministic diagnosis of the exact idea you missed, repair the gap, and prove it in a new context.

Photography tooling

Media Cull Suite

Local-first photo and video culling that ranks a shoot, learns my taste, and feeds a capture recipe back to the camera.

Writing

Latest entry and profiles

Oct 15, 2026 · Research log

A research loop across two clusters

Written targets, a promotion rule from small screens to large grids, bit-for-bit gates and canaries let a fast experiment loop stay honest; most of what the gates caught was plumbing, and one catch was a conclusion we had drawn too early.

research methodologyhpcscientific machine learningreproducibility