I am a MSc student researching photonics at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa – it is there where I completed my BSc in Astrophysics and have continued my pursuit of physics, now finding myself working within the Structured Light Laboratory. My research in photonics finds its roots in optical computing, with a focus on diffractive neural networks and machine learning. I deal with high-dimensional optimisation algorithms and combine variational computing principles to design optical systems that can perform complex tasks such as process tomography and the computation of logic gates and other arbitrary function mappings.