Sr. Software Engineer | Computer Vision & Machine Learning Enthusiast

📍 UK · Spain
📧 You can contact me at inesruizblach@gmail.com

Sr. Software Engineer with a First-Class Honours in Computer Science from Newcastle University.

• 🌍 Based in London, UK 🇬🇧 but originally from Mallorca, Spain 🇪🇸
• 🖥️ See my Personal Website at Inés Ruiz
• 🔬 Researcher on the INFORM project, developing AI-based food recognition systems for healthcare and sustainability, which was presented at SPIE Optics + Photonics 2024 and published in the SPIE Digital Library: Food recognition and segmentation using embedded hardware.
• 🧠 Passionate about building intelligent systems that blend software engineering, AI, and computer vision for real-world impact.

INFORM Project – Major Project & Dissertation (Feb – Jun 2024)

• Developed an AI-based food recognition and segmentation system capable of accurately labeling food items and running on IoT-based devices (Raspberry Pi).
• Implemented and fine-tuned YOLOv8, EdgeSAM, and MobileSAM models, trained on both public (FoodSeg103) and proprietary datasets.
• Achieved competitive segmentation metrics: mIoU, mAcc, aAcc.
• Research contributed to the paper Food recognition and segmentation using embedded hardware, presented at SPIE Optics + Photonics 2024 (San Diego, California, US) and published in the SPIE Digital Library.
  • Authors: Rainey J, Blach IR, MacLachlan D, Wannan J, Bhowmik D
  • Conference: Applications of Digital Image Processing XLVII, SPIE, 2024
  • License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Tech Stack: Python, TensorFlow, PyTorch, OpenCV, YOLO, Raspberry Pi.

Morphix – Portrait Style Transformation with Stable Diffusion + ControlNet

• AI app that lets users upload a portrait photo and transform it into different artistic styles: Comic, Anime, Oil Painting, Pixel Art, Watercolour.
• Uses Stable Diffusion + ControlNet (Canny) to preserve structure while changing artistic style.
• Runs interactively in-browser via Gradio; Live demo on Hugging Face Spaces.
• Tech Stack: Python 3.9+, PyTorch with CUDA, Hugging Face Diffusers, Gradio, OpenCV.

PersonaGen – AI-Generated Portraits with Stable Diffusion

• Generates synthetic human portraits from text prompts, customizable by age, gender, expression, and artistic style.
• Offers artistic filters: watercolour, comic, cyberpunk, oil painting.
• Runs interactively in-browser via Gradio; Live demo on Hugging Face Spaces.
• Tech Stack: Python 3.9+, PyTorch, Hugging Face Diffusers, Gradio.

LiteBank API – Modern Lightweight Banking API 🏦

• LiteBank is a lightweight banking API built with FastAPI and SQLAlchemy, designed to handle user accounts, transactions, and secure financial operations with JWT authentication.
• Deployed automatically via GitHub Actions → Render CI/CD pipeline.
• Live Deployment:
  • 🌐 Interactive API Docs
  • 🩺 Health Check
• Features:
  • Create and manage user profiles
  • Deposit and withdraw funds
  • Transfer money between accounts
  • View transaction history
  • JWT-based authentication
  • Dockerized for easy deployment
• Tech Stack: Python · FastAPI · SQLAlchemy · JWT · Docker · GitHub Actions · Render

RateFlow – Automated Currency Data Pipeline 💱

• RateFlow is a lightweight, end-to-end data pipeline that automatically fetches live currency exchange rates from open APIs and visualises historical trends in an interactive dashboard.
• Features:
  • Automated ETL: Extracts, transforms, and loads daily exchange rate data.
  • Uses Frankfurter API for real-time currency data.
  • Local storage with SQLite for persistence and analysis.
  • Interactive Streamlit dashboard for exploring currency trends over time.
• Tech Stack: Python 3 · Pandas · SQLAlchemy · SQLite · Streamlit · Requests · Altair

SinGlu – Gluten-Free Recipe Generator 🍲

• Inspired by the challenges of following a gluten-free diet, this AI-powered app generates recipes based on available ingredients and provides smart substitutions for common gluten-containing items.
• Offers product recommendations to help users source gluten-free ingredients.
• Uses the Hugging Face chat completion API (zephyr-7b-beta) for recipe generation and runs interactively in-browser via Streamlit; Live demo.
• Tech Stack: Python 3.10+, Streamlit, Hugging Face Inference API, Requests, JSON configuration for product links, GitHub + Streamlit Cloud for deployment

Programming Languages & Frameworks:
Python · SQL · VBA · JavaScript (React) · Flask · FastAPI · Tkinter · Streamlit · Gradio · SQLAlchemy · Pytest

Data Science & AI:
Machine Learning · Deep Learning · Computer Vision · Image Processing · Generative AI · TensorFlow · PyTorch · Hugging Face · OpenCV · YOLO · CNN · Stable Diffusion · ControlNet · Scikit-Learn · ETL

Data Analysis & Visualization:
NumPy · Pandas · Matplotlib · Seaborn · Altair

DevOps & Tools:
Git · GitHub · GitHub Actions · Docker · Jira · Jupyter Notebook · Google Colab · Visual Studio Code · PyCharm · Excel (Macros) · Render · Requests · JSON · CI/CD Pipelines

Methodologies & Soft Skills:
Agile Methodology · Scrum · Software Testing & Documentation · Project Management · Analytical Thinking · Problem-Solving · Effective Communication · Team Collaboration

BSc (Hons) Computer Science with Industrial Placement – Newcastle University (2020–2024)
First Class Honours | Best overall performance by a Stage 3 student

• 🇬🇧 English – Full professional proficiency
• 🇪🇸 Spanish – Native
• 🏴 Catalan – Full professional proficiency