~ $ whoami

Manuel Josué Malla Campoverde

Machine Learning Engineer · Computer Vision · Machala, Ecuador

I build computer vision systems that leave the lab — segmentation models on edge devices for shrimp farming, satellite imagery for mangrove monitoring, LiDAR for forest inventories.

Best presentation · LatinX in CV, CVPR 2024Research intern · CNPEM, BrazilManuscript submitted · Forests (MDPI)

About

I am an Information Technology student at Universidad Técnica de Machala (2022–2027) and a machine learning engineer at LarvIA, where I design, train and deploy vision models on edge devices to optimize shrimp farming across Ecuador and Latin America.

On the research side, I was a Machine Learning & Data Science Research Intern at CNPEM — the Brazilian Nanotechnology National Laboratory — working on unsupervised learning for high-density electrochemical sensor data, and I maintain the reproducibility code for a manuscript on individual tree detection in airborne LiDAR submitted to Forests (MDPI). I presented at the LatinX in CV undergraduate consortium at CVPR 2024, where I received the best presentation award.

Experience

  1. Nov 2025 — Present Part-time

    Machine Learning Engineer · LarvIA

    Machala, Ecuador

    • Development, training and deployment of computer vision models on edge devices.
    • Optimization and improvement of legacy instance segmentation models.
  2. Jan — Feb 2026 Research internship

    ML & Data Science Research Intern · CNPEM — Brazilian Nanotechnology National Laboratory

    Campinas, Brazil

    • Analysis of high-density electrochemical sensor data.
    • Unsupervised clustering of electrochemical reaction signals.
    • Multi-label classification models for sensor-related patterns.
  3. May — Oct 2025 Internship

    Machine Learning Engineer · LarvIA

    Machala, Ecuador

    • ML pipelines for shrimp farming optimization in Ecuador and Latin America.
    • Instance segmentation models from images of shrimp feed.
    • Photogrammetry with OpenCV for metric measurements from smartphone images.
  4. Feb — May 2025 Contract

    Junior Full-Stack Developer · Freelance

    Machala, Ecuador

    • Business administrative dashboard with Next.js and Azure AD authentication.
    • Backend CRUD services with PostgreSQL, NestJS and TypeORM migrations.
    • WhatsApp booking chatbot using the OpenAI API.
  5. Oct 2024 — Feb 2025 Internship

    Software Developer Intern · UTMACH — IT Department

    Machala, Ecuador

    • Architecture of SISCA, an intelligent access control system for campus classrooms.
    • Mobile app design for professor and staff classroom access.
    • Optimized real-time facial authentication efficiency using machine learning.

Featured projects

Research · 3D deep learning

TreeSeg-ALS

Deep-learning tree detection in airborne LiDAR

Inventory-anchored evaluation of deep-learning individual tree detection in airborne laser scanning (ALS), with label-efficient cross-domain transfer in alpine forests. Reproducibility code for a manuscript submitted to Forests (MDPI).

PythonPyTorchPointNet++
IoT · Edge AI 2024–2025

SISCA

BLE access control with on-device face recognition

Intelligent Control Access and Security System for UTMACH classrooms. End to end: ESP32 (NimBLE) firmware, native Android & iOS apps with on-device face recognition (ML Kit + TFLite) and biometric auth, and a FastAPI REST backend.

KotlinSwiftUIC++FastAPITFLite
Remote sensing 2024

MangroveNet

Mangrove ecosystem mapping from satellite imagery

U²-Net model for mangrove segmentation using Landsat 7, 8 and Sentinel-2 imagery. CFMASK preprocessing to remove clouds and shadows; optimized for multispectral segmentation with RGB, NIR, SWIR-1 and SWIR-2 bands.

PythonU²-NetLandsatSentinel-2
Object detection 2026

YOLO + SAHI

Small-object detection in urban aerial imagery

Improving small-object detection with YOLO and Slicing Aided Hyper Inference, evaluated on VisDrone with real mAP metrics. Talk & demo for FLISOL 2026.

PythonYOLOSAHI

Research

Forests (MDPI) · manuscript submitted

TreeSeg-ALS — individual tree detection in airborne LiDAR

Inventory-anchored evaluation of deep-learning tree detection in ALS point clouds, with label-efficient cross-domain transfer in alpine forests. Public reproducibility code (PyTorch, PointNet++).

CNPEM · Campinas, Brazil · 2026

ML for high-density electrochemical sensors

Unsupervised clustering of electrochemical reaction signals and multi-label classification of sensor-related patterns, during a research internship at the Brazilian Nanotechnology National Laboratory.

Seattle, USA · best presentation award

Extended abstract — LatinX in CV @ CVPR 2024

Selected extended abstract, presented at the undergraduate consortium with a travel scholarship from the Computer Vision Foundation.

Education & honors

// education

  • 2022 — 2027
    B.Sc. Information Technology

    Universidad Técnica de Machala · Machala, Ecuador

  • 2025 — 2026
    Data Driven Decision Specialist

    ESPOL · Guayaquil, Ecuador

  • 2024
    Summer Program, Applied Mathematics

    FGV EMAp · Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

  • 2025
    KHIPU — Latin American Meeting in AI

    Participation scholarship · Santiago, Chile

// honors

  • 2026 Best presentation — projects hackathon, EPIC VI Programming School
  • 2024 Best presentation — undergraduate consortium, LatinX in CV @ CVPR
  • 2024 Selected extended abstract — LatinX in CV @ CVPR
  • 2024 Travel & registration scholarship — Computer Vision Foundation
  • 2024 1st place — UTMACH Challenge
  • 2024 1st place — Fall AI Project Competition (MLSA)
  • 2025 Travel & accommodation scholarship — FGV EMAp
  • 2025 Participation scholarship — KHIPU, Santiago
  • 2025 Program scholarship — Data Driven Decision Specialist, ESPOL
  • 2023 Selected research proposal — TaReCDa/ReWARDS

Skills

// ml / computer vision

PyTorchTensorFlow · TFLiteScikit-learnOpenCVYOLOJAXEdge deployment

// languages

PythonTypeScriptJavaC#SQLJuliaCKotlin

// backend / web

FastAPINestJSNext.jsDjangoSpring BootPostgreSQLMongoDBRedis

// mobile / iot

Jetpack ComposeSwiftUIReact NativeFlutterESP32 · BLE

// infra / data

DockerKubernetesAzureJenkinsPower BITableau

// human languages

Spanish · Native English · C1 Portuguese · B1

Community

  • 2025 — Present Student Representative, Higher Education Assembly — UTMACH
  • 2024 — Present Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador
  • 2025 Volunteer staff — PhawAI + TaReCDa 2025, Arequipa
  • 2025 Volunteer staff — Somos NLP challenge
  • 2025 Python teacher — Municipio de Huaquillas
  • 2026 Speaker — FLISOL 2026 (YOLO + SAHI)

$ ./get_in_touch.sh

Let's build something.

Open to research collaborations, ML engineering work, and speaking at community events — especially anything involving computer vision in the real world.