Walter Mayor-Toro

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

1/13
Today, I’m thrilled to share a major milestone—
A dream sparked in a small town of farms and chalkboards 🌾📚
My first paper as an independent researcher was accepted to one of the world’s top AI & ML conferences.
Here’s how I got here. 👇

https://t.co/5EZTSBUuWS

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

@juan43ramirez @non0knowledge Felicitaciones

[Pablo Samuel Castro @pcastr]

🚨The Formalism-Implementation Gap in RL research🚨

Lots of progress in RL research over last 10 years, but too much performance-driven => overfitting to benchmarks (like the ALE).

1⃣ Let's advance science of RL
2⃣ Let's be explicit about how benchmarks map to formalism

1/X

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

@lavoiems @johanobandoc @AaronCourville @pcastr Thanks @lavoiems for all your knowledge and hard work

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

Proud to have contributed, as an independent researcher, to the great work achieved by our research team.
Many thanks to @johanobandoc , @lavoiems , Scott Fujimoto, @AaronCourville and @pcastr for making it happen.
See Pablo’s thread for more details.

[Pablo Samuel Castro @pcastr]

🔊Simplicial Embeddings (SEMs) Improve Sample Efficiency in Actor-Critic Agents🔊

In our recent preprint we demonstrate that the use of well-structured representations (SEMs) can dramatically improve sample efficiency in RL agents.

1/X

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

Huge thanks to all the amazing researchers who made this possible, and especially to @johanobandoc for his guidance and for welcoming me, as an independent researcher, into this and many other projects.
It’s been a truly enriching and fascinating journey

[Johan Obando-Ceron 👍🏽 @johanobandoc]

1/3 🥳Excited to share our new paper ‘Simplicial Embeddings Improve Sample Efficiency in Actor–Critic Agents’!

Project your features onto a product of simplices → sparse, stable reps, stronger grads, faster learning.

🧵For more details, check out Pablo’s thread 👇

[Johan Obando-Ceron 👍🏽 @johanobandoc]

🚨Super excited to share that our paper “Stable Gradients for Stable Learning at Scale in DRL” was accepted at #NeurIPS as a Spotlight! ✨🌟

Paper: https://t.co/2dUipUzVGd

Huge thanks to my amazing coauthors. I’ve learned so much from each of you. 🫶

Onward! 🚀 #NeurIPS2025

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

@__Vaibhavi @johanobandoc @Mila_Quebec @pcastr Thanks

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

@Theo_Vincent_ @johanobandoc @Mila_Quebec @pcastr Thanks

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

Thanks @pcastr for all the support, and thanks @_LXAI for the opportunity! It was amazing to present. Big thanks as well to the whole paper team. @johanobandoc and @AaronCourville

[Pablo Samuel Castro @pcastr]

.@WalterMayor_T presenting our paper at the LatinX in AI workshop

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

13/13
 If you also come from a place where people say “it can’t be done”
 Here’s my message:
💥 Yes, it can.
 🌾 There’s science in our villages.
 🏙️ There’s talent in our neighborhoods.
 🚀 And there’s a future for those who dream big.

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

1/13
Today, I’m thrilled to share a major milestone—
A dream sparked in a small town of farms and chalkboards 🌾📚
My first paper as an independent researcher was accepted to one of the world’s top AI & ML conferences.
Here’s how I got here. 👇

https://t.co/5EZTSBUuWS

[Walter Mayor-Toro @WalterMayor_T]

12/13 I hope this paper marks the beginning of an amazing and passionate journey as a researcher, one where I can learn, create, and collaborate with many talented researchers.