Will Bolton

Will Bolton

AI Researcher

Hi, my name is Will!

I work at the intersection of AI and science. I recently completed my Encode AI for Science Fellowship (Pillar VC and the University of Oxford), where I researched AI scientists and agentic systems for clinical drug development. Over the last year I have had three papers at ICML 2026 and co-built two products: et al., an AI-native reference manager for researchers and their agents, and A2A Net, infrastructure that lets agents from different people and organisations work together.

Before that, I completed my PhD in AI for Healthcare at Imperial College London, developing AI-driven clinical decision support for antibiotic prescribing. I have published eight first-authored papers in venues including Nature Communications, The Lancet Digital Health, and workshops at ICML, ICLR and AAAI. I have also interned at GSK.ai and hold a Master’s in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge.

I care deeply about how new technology turns into products with real-world impact. Having finished the fellowship, I am now exploring what comes next, across startups, research labs and new ventures.

In my spare time, I like all things sports including rugby, running, climbing and F1.

Feel free to get in contact!

Interests
  • Agents
  • AI Scientists
  • Entrepreneurship
Education
  • PhD in Artificial Intelligence, 2025

    Imperial College London

  • MPhil Bioscience Enterprise, 2019

    University of Cambridge

  • BSc in Biochemistry, 2018

    Imperial College London

Experience

 
 
 
 
 
Pillar VC / University of Oxford
Encode: AI for Science Fellow
September 2025 – August 2026
 
 
 
 
 
Imperial College London
Research Associate
February 2025 – June 2025
 
 
 
 
 
EWOR, Conception X and AI SuperConnector
Fellow & Venture Scientist
EWOR, Conception X and AI SuperConnector
2023
 
 
 
 
 
GSK.ai
AI/ML Engineering Intern, Responsible AI
September 2023 – December 2023
 
 
 
 
 
Imperial College London
AI for Health PhD Student
October 2020 – February 2025

Projects

A2A Net
Building infrastructure and tooling to let AI agents from different people and organisations work together in real time.
A2A Net
et al.
Building the interface for agent-driven science: a personalised discovery feed and self-improving knowledge base for researchers and their agents.
et al.
Dementia Gap Map
An app that surfaces research gaps in dementia by connecting fragmented literature, genetics and clinical trial evidence.
Dementia Gap Map
AGE-nt: intervention intelligence for aging
Berlin Bio × AI Hackathon finalist: an agentic system that retrieves, synthesises and grades scientific evidence on ageing interventions.
AGE-nt: intervention intelligence for aging
AI Assistant to Find and Retrieve Patient Cohorts
Helping AI developers find and access medical data 10x faster: an agentic search system that identifies patient cohorts across hospital systems from a natural-language query. Secured a partnership with an imaging informatics company.
AI Assistant to Find and Retrieve Patient Cohorts
Steward.ai
Converted my PhD research into a mobile app that any clinician can use anywhere: an AI-driven clinical decision support system for appropriate antibiotic use.
Steward.ai

Recent Talks and Conferences