Paula Wesselmann is a software engineer based in Toulouse with eight years of experience building production back-end systems and conversational AI features. With an MPhil from Cambridge in Machine Learning for Speech and Language Technology and hands-on contributions to the popular open-source Rasa framework, she has deep expertise in dialogue management, fallback policies, and channel integrations. At Meltwater she progressed from junior to senior engineering roles, consistently shipping improvements that bridge research-grade ML ideas and reliable production code. Her background includes research on curiosity-driven reinforcement learning for dialogue and practical project leadership from university consulting to industry internships, revealing a blend of academic rigor and applied engineering. Paula’s work signals a particular strength in making complex conversational models robust and testable in real-world systems.
8 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.), Industrial Engineering, 3.83/4.0, Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.), Industrial Engineering, 3.83/4.0 at Clemson University
Master of Philosophy - MPhil, Machine Learning Speech and Language Technology, Master of Philosophy - MPhil, Machine Learning Speech and Language Technology at University of Cambridge
💬 Open source machine learning framework to automate text- and voice-based conversations: NLU, dialogue management, connect to Slack, Facebook, and more - Create chatbots and voice assistants
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Contributions:93 commits, 27 PRs, 84 pushes in 2 months
Contributions summary:Paula primarily focused on enhancing and modifying the core Rasa Core framework, as evidenced by the commit messages and the code changes made to the tests and core files. The commits reflect modifications to policies, two-stage fallback implementations, and interactive learning features. Furthermore, there are substantial changes to the testing of policies, particularly the MemoizationPolicy, and added support for channels (Botframework, Slack).
Contributions:37 commits, 64 PRs, 91 pushes in 3 months
thesiscuriosity
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