Career Timeline

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Recent Work Experience

  1. Rolai, New York, NY

    Jun 2025 – Present

    1. AI Engineering & Applied Research Intern

      Sep 2025 – Present

      • Collaborating with product and research teams & contributing to platform feature development and academic outputs.
      • Leading a human-centered research study to evaluate the effectiveness of the academic advising chatbot and measure its impact in improving advising outcomes in real-world higher education contexts for >50 students.

    2. AI Engineering Intern

      Jun 2025 – Aug 2025

      • Deployed an academic advising chatbot on the Rolai platform, integrated live web-scraping to dynamically update its knowledge base with relevant web sources, reducing manual content maintenance by ~50%.
      • Co-authored 3 white papers on AI in education and worked with applied research to design a human-centered research study on impact of agentic workflows and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) in academic advising.

  2. College of IST, Penn State

    Undergraduate Researcher, Primary Investigator

    Project: AI Solutions for Advising

    Jun 2024 – Present
    • Built an academic advising chatbot with commercial LLMs & APIs; reduced student advising load by ~35%.
    • Studying deployment impact and student outcomes; writing up results for SIGCSE (2025).
    Read more here →

  3. IST 130 — Intro to AI & Art

    Lead Learning Assistant

    Jan 2024 – Present
    • Lead 14 LAs; manage ops, grading, and correspondence; designed handoff documentation.

  4. Perplexity

    Campus Strategist — Penn State

    Jan 2024 – Present
    • Drove campus growth; 774 total sign-ups with significant late-stage acceleration.

  5. Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence (MCREU), Penn State

    Undergraduate Researcher, Primary Investigator

    Project: Autonomous UAV Research (Icing)

    Jun 2024 – Aug 2024
    • Analyzed torque & RPM signals to estimate icing impact on UAV performance (±25%).
    • Prototyped real-time propeller monitoring and proposed mitigation algorithms.

  6. Human–Technology Interaction (HTI) Lab, Penn State

    Undergraduate Researcher

    Project: Autonomous Vehicle Studies (STISIM3)

    Sep 2023 – May 2024
    • Ran simulator studies across AV market-penetration levels (0–100%).
    • Built four custom road scenarios and internal documentation in STISIM3.

  7. NASA BIG Idea Challenge — SSPL

    Team Lead; Researcher

    Oct 2023 – Feb 2024
    • Led 15-member team developing inflatable lunar regolith construction concepts.

Awards & Milestones

  1. Title: Using RPM & Torque Loss to Predict UAV Icing Effects

    Undergrad Researcher

    Apr 2025
    • Got accepted to & presented UAV Icing/Drone Engineering paper at ASEE MidAtlantic'25 Conference.
    • Read more about publications and works in progress.
    Read more here →

  2. Title: Enhancing Student Engagement through AI-driven Chatbots

    Undergrad Researcher

    Feb 2025
    • Got accepted to & presented paper at ACM SIGCSE TS'25 Conference.
    • Read more about publications and works in progress.
    Read more here →

  3. MC REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates)

    Summer '24 Cohort

    Jun 2024
    • Got accepted into the MC REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) Program for the Summer'24 cohort.

  4. Emerging Undergraduate Researcher of the Year

    Penn State

    Spring 2024
    • Recognized for impact across AI-in-Education and UAV reliability research.

Early Projects

  1. Tide Foundation

    Contributor (Education, Ops)

    2022
    • Worked across logistics, marketing, operations, course design, and teaching for underprivileged students.

  2. Lirem

    Founder

    2020
    • Launched a neighborhood reading program; grew city-wide volunteer network until COVID halted ops.
    • Learned ownership, rapid decision-making, and validation.

  3. Electrobotics, Ahmedabad

    Intern, Robocon Team Lead

    Sep 2019 – Oct 2019
    • Shadowed drone engineering team; explored AWD platform and 4-axis arm prototyping.

  4. National Robotics Finalist

    Team Lead

    2019
    • Led AWD RC car with 4-axis arm build; qualified for national finals.

For more information on any of my research work, or to access any of my work, please feel free to reach out.