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FRANK DUAH2026

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Reinforcement learning that beats production algos.

Engineerbuildingintelligentsystemsthatship.

Full-stack and ML. Currently shipping reinforcement learning research and building AI agents.

01Index

02Selected work

01

2026Co-Author

Latency-Aware Execution Engine

Reinforcement learning trade execution

End-to-end ML system combining classical methods (Linear Regression, Random Forest, XGBoost) with QR-DQN reinforcement learning agents for optimal cryptocurrency trade execution. Beats TWAP by 10.2 basis points on Bitcoin walk-forward and cuts cost 96.7% versus naive execution, validated against 98 million real market trades across three assets. Implements the Almgren-Chriss market impact model and a risk-sensitive RL framework, with 17 ablation studies and 176 unit tests. Dual final project for CS5130 (Applied Programming) and CS6140 (Machine Learning) at Northeastern.

vs TWAP (BTC)
+10.2 bps
Cost reduction
96.7%
Validation
98M trades
Tests / Ablations
176 / 17
  • Python
  • PyTorch
  • QR-DQN
  • XGBoost

02

2025Co-Author

Music Emotion Recognition

Transfer learning with RoBERTa for valence and arousal

Transfer learning with a 125M parameter RoBERTa transformer to predict valence and arousal dimensions from song lyrics. Custom 4-layer neural network with dropout and early stopping. Reaches 0.781 valence correlation and 0.649 arousal correlation on the 2,568-song MERGE dataset, performing at the top end of published research benchmarks. Also generates 128-dimensional embeddings for downstream multimodal ensemble learning that combines lyrics with audio features.

Valence correlation
0.781
Arousal correlation
0.649
Backbone
RoBERTa 125M
Dataset
MERGE 2,568
  • Python
  • PyTorch
  • RoBERTa
  • Transfer Learning

03

2026Contributor

llm-exe

Open source contributor

Major contributor to the open source TypeScript framework for production LLM applications. 30+ merged pull requests spanning release pipeline hardening, workflow automation, and documentation infrastructure. Built the AI agents that now help self-maintain the repository: automated reviewers, docs-sync workflows, and release-prep bots that keep the framework healthy with minimal human intervention.

Merged PRs
30+
Specialty
Self-maintaining agents
Areas
Agents / CI / Docs
  • TypeScript
  • GitHub Actions
  • LLM Agents

04

2024Contributor

Brilla AI

Open source AI that competes live in Ghana's National Science and Maths Quiz

Contributing engineer on the open source AI that competes live alongside students in Ghana's National Science and Maths Quiz — combining speech-to-text, question-answering, and text-to-speech behind a real-time webapp. Built and shipped video player, layout, and frontend control updates for the team's broadcast interface.

Stars
34
Modalities
STT · QA · TTS
Surface
Live broadcast webapp
  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Python
  • Jupyter

05

2022Co-Author

Spark

Safer social platform for kids, with ML age verification

Final-year thesis at the University of Ghana. Built a mobile social platform deliberately stripped of likes, comments, and followers, with real-time messaging, audio and video calling, and media sharing in Flutter and Firebase. Worked alongside teammates on the ML age verification pipeline: MTCNN face detection, Inception v2 plus FaceNet face verification, easyOCR for ID parsing, and VGG16 transfer-learning classifiers at two age thresholds. Supervised by Dr. Nii Longdon Sowah.

Surface
Mobile (Flutter)
ML pipeline
MTCNN + FaceNet + VGG16
Backend
Firebase
Thesis year
2022
  • Flutter
  • Dart
  • Firebase
  • Python
  • TensorFlow
  • OpenCV

06

2026Author

AI-PR-Assistant

GitHub-integrated review bot

A bot that summarizes pull requests, highlights important changes, and suggests improvements. Wired directly into the GitHub workflow so reviews happen automatically alongside human ones.

Surface
GitHub
Integration
Native PR
  • TypeScript
  • GitHub Actions

03About

I build systems that move from idea to running production code. Most of my work sits at the intersection of full-stack engineering and applied machine learning: reinforcement learning agents for trade execution, transformer-based music emotion recognition, AI agents that help maintain the repositories they live in, and quiet contributions to the open source LLM tooling other developers depend on.

Pursuing my MS in Artificial Intelligence at Northeastern University on a fully-funded merit scholarship for which I was the sole graduate of the University of Ghana selected. Before that, a First-Class Bachelor's in Computer Engineering and the Dean's Award four years running (2019–2022). I treat "production-ready on first pass" as a rule rather than an aspiration.

Most of the work above shipped with teams: research partners on transformer modeling, a multi-disciplinary squad behind Ghana's National Science and Maths Quiz AI, a thesis trio for the social platform. I lead when I should and follow when I should.

  • 0+

    years writing code

  • 0+

    repos

  • 0+

    merged OSS PRs

  • location

04Process

How I work.

  1. 01ResearchPapers, issues, tickets, real users.
  2. 02PrototypeSmallest thing that proves it works.
  3. 03MeasureNumbers before opinions.
  4. 04ShipProduction-ready on the first pass.
  5. 05IterateEvery system gets better in v2.

05Education

01

2025 — present

Northeastern University

Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence

Sole graduate of the University of Ghana selected for a fully-funded merit scholarship covering tuition and living expenses.

02

2022

University of Ghana

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

First-Class. Dean's Award for Best Performing Students three consecutive years (2019, 2020, 2021).

06Writing

May 2, 2025 · 9 min · LLM · TypeScript · Open Source

Supercharging LLM Applications with llm-exe

A walk through the llm-exe SDK with three concrete patterns: validating statements against conversation context, extracting structured data from unstructured text, and detecting user intent. One toolkit, four providers, modular components.

Read on Medium

08Contact

Tell me what you are building.

Hiring, collaboration, or a question about the work above. I read everything.

© 2026 Frank Duah