What We're Working On

AI Agents & LLMs

Evaluation, benchmarking, and applications — negotiations, planning, reasoning, and real-world deployments.

AI for Education

Intelligent tutoring systems, automated grading, LLM-assisted teaching, and studying AI adoption in classrooms.

AI for Software Engineering

Code generation, test synthesis, type inference, loop invariant generation, and formal verification with LLMs.

Reinforcement Learning & LLM Training

Policy optimization, LoRA fine-tuning, evolutionary meta-solvers, and hybrid supervised-RL frameworks.

Mechanistic Interpretability

Understanding polysemanticity, circuits, and internal representations within transformer-based models.

Multi-Modal Foundation Models

Vision transformers, time-series foundation models, and tabular model interpretability.

AI for Science & Environment

Machine learning for hydrological modeling, wetland assessment, and climate-driven river analysis.

Distributed Systems & Edge Computing

Geo-distributed analytics, federated learning, WAN-aware query optimization, and edge intelligence.

Data Mining & Parallel Computing

Scalable clustering algorithms (DBSCAN, OPTICS, SLINK) on commodity clusters and multicore systems.

Areas we are actively exploring and looking for research partners in:

AI Safety & Jailbreaking

Adversarial robustness, prompt injection, and safety alignment of LLMs.

Multi-lingual & Cultural AI

LLM performance and bias across languages, scripts, and cultural contexts.

Games & Sports AI

Applying LLMs and RL to game-playing, strategy, and sports analytics.

Bias in LLMs

Measuring and mitigating cultural, linguistic, and length biases in language models.

Papers  

Rakshita Goel, S. Pranav Kumar, Anmol Agrawal, Divyan Poddar, Pratik Narang, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Gaurish Trivedi, Alakh Sharma, Kartikey Singh Bhandari, Yash Sinha, Pratik Narang, Dhruv Kumar, and Jagat Sesh Challa
arXiv preprint · 2026
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Devanshu Sahoo, Manish Prasad, Vasudev Majhi, Arjun Neekhra, Yash Sinha, Murari Mandal, Vinay Chamola, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2026
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Aakash Trivedi, Aniket Upadhyay, Pratik Narang, Dhruv Kumar, and Praveen Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2026
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Aditya Thole, Anmol Agrawal, Arnav Ramamoorthy, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2026
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Kartikey Singh Bhandari, Manav Ganesh, Yashwant Viswanathan, Archit Agrawal, Dhruv Kumar, and Pratik Narang
arXiv preprint · 2026
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Kartikey Singh Bhandari, Tanish Jain, Archit Agrawal, Dhruv Kumar, Praveen Kumar, and Pratik Narang
arXiv preprint · 2026
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Devesh Saraogi, Rohit Singhee, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2026
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Aviral Gupta, Armaan Sethi, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2026
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Stuti Sinha, Himanshu Kumar, Aryan Raju Mandapati, Rakshit Sakhuja, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2026
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Vikranth Udandarao, Noel Abraham Tiju, Muthuraj Vairamuthu, Harsh Mistry, and Dhruv Kumar
The Web Conference (WWW) 2026
Raj Gupta, Harshita Goyal, Dhruv Kumar, Apurv Mehra, Sanchit Sharma, Kashish Mittal, and Jagat Sesh Challa
ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies (JCSS) · 2026
Alakh Sharma, Gaurish Trivedi, Kartikey Singh Bhandari, Yash Sinha, Dhruv Kumar, Pratik Narang, and Jagat Sesh Challa
Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR) 2026
Utkarsh Tiwari, Aryan Seth, Adi Mukherjee, Kaavya Mer, Kavish, and Dhruv Kumar
NAACL Student Research Workshop (SRW) 2025
Madhav Krishan Garg, Tejash Prasad, Tanmay Singhal, Chhavi Kirtani, Murari Mandal, and Dhruv Kumar
Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025
Debdeep Sanyal, Agniva Maiti, Umakanta Maharana, Dhruv Kumar, Ankur Mali, C. Lee Giles, and Murari Mandal
Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2025)
Aditya Pathak, Rachit Gandhi, Vaibhav Uttam, Arnav Ramamoorthy, Pratyush Ghosh, Aaryan Raj Jindal, Shreyash Verma, Aditya Mittal, Aashna Ased, Chirag Khatri, et al., Jagat Sesh Challa, and Dhruv Kumar
ACM International Computing Education Research Conference (ICER) 2025
Adithya Chittem, Aishna Shrivastava, Sai Tarun Pendela, Jagat Sesh Challa, and Dhruv Kumar
International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence (ICAART) 2025
Varun Bharti, Shashwat Jha, Dhruv Kumar, and Pankaj Jalote
IEEE/ACM International Conference on AI-powered Software (AIWare) 2025
★ Best Paper
Utkarsh Arora, Anupam Garg, Aryan Gupta, Samyak Jain, Ronit Mehta, Rupin Oberoi, Prachi, Aryaman Raina, Manav Saini, Sachin Sharma, et al., and Dhruv Kumar
Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE) 2025
Harshal Akolekar, Piyush Jhamnani, Vikash Kumar, Vinay Tailor, Aditya Pote, Ankit Meena, Kamal Kumar, Jagat Sesh Challa, and Dhruv Kumar
Scientific Reports 15 · 2025
Harshita Goyal, Garima Garg, Prisha Mordia, Veena Ramachandran, Dhruv Kumar, and Jagat Sesh Challa
Scientific Reports · 2025
Vikas Hassija, Balamurugan Palanisamy, Arpita Chatterjee, Arpita Mandal, Debanshi Chakraborty, Amit Pandey, G. Sai Sesha Chalapathi, and Dhruv Kumar
IEEE Access 13 · 2025
Chinmay Pushkar, Sanchit Kabra, Dhruv Kumar, and Jagat Sesh Challa
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Vaibhav Devraj, Dhruv Kumar, Jagat Sesh Challa, Parth Agarwal, Navya Kommuri, Trizal Garg, Prisha Singhal, and Dhruv Shah
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Unnati Saraswat, Tarun Rao, Namah Gupta, Shweta Swami, Shikhar Sharma, Prateek Narang, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Arnav Gupta, Gurekas Singh Sahney, Hardik Rathi, Abhishek Chandwani, Ishaan Gupta, Pratik Narang, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Akshaj Prashanth Rao, Advait Singh, Saumya Kumaar Saksena, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Aryan Chaudhary, Sanchit Goyal, Pratik Narang, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Daksh Jain, Aarya Jain, Ashutosh Desai, Avyakt Verma, Ishan Bhanuka, Pratik Narang, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Chayan Jain, Rishant Sharma, Archit Garg, Ishan Bhanuka, Pratik Narang, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Shubham Mishra, Samyek Jain, Gorang Mehrishi, Shiv Tiwari, Harsh Sharma, Pratik Narang, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Darshil Chauhan, Adityasinh Solanki, Vansh Patel, Kanav Kapoor, Ritvik Jain, Aditya Bansal, Dhruv Kumar, and Prateek Narang
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Charan Prakash Rathore, Saumi Ray, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Arnav Ramamoorthy, Shrey Dhorajiya, Ojas Pungalia, Rashi Upadhyay, Abhishek Mishra, Abhiram H., Tejasvi Alladi, Sujan Yenuganti, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Devanshu Sahoo, Manish Prasad, Vasudev Majhi, Jahnvi Singh, Vinay Chamola, Yash Sinha, Murari Mandal, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Devanshu Sahoo, Vasudev Majhi, Arjun Neekhra, Yash Sinha, Murari Mandal, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Madhav Krishna, Dhruv Gupta, Kotra Keshav, Hritav Singh, Akash Bonagiri, Pratik Narang, and Dhruv Kumar
SSRN preprint · 2025
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Sasank Tumpati, Devansh Agarwal, and Dhruv Kumar
SSRN preprint · 2025
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Debdeep Sanyal, Manya Pandey, Dhruv Kumar, Saurabh Deshpande, and Murari Mandal
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Debdeep Sanyal, Aakash Sen Sharma, Dhruv Kumar, Saurabh Deshpande, and Murari Mandal
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Sankalp Tattwadarshi Swain, Anshika Krishnatray, Dhruv Kumar, and Jagat Sesh Challa
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Debdeep Sanyal, Aaryan Nagpal, Dhruv Kumar, Murari Mandal, and Saurabh Deshpande
NeurIPS 2025 Workshop on Time Series Foundation Models (BERT4S)
Gaurish Trivedi, Alakh Sharma, Kartikey Singh Bhandari, Dhruv Kumar, Pratik Narang, and Jagat Sesh Challa
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Varun Bharti, Shashwat Jha, Dhruv Kumar, and Pankaj Jalote
arXiv preprint · 2025
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Ritvik Budhiraja, Ishika Joshi, Jagat Sesh Challa, Harshal D. Akolekar, and Dhruv Kumar
Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE) 2024
Shubhang Shekhar Dvivedi, Vyshnav Vijay, Sai Leela Rahul Pujari, Shoumik Lodh, and Dhruv Kumar
ACM International Conference on AI-Powered Software (AIware) 2024
Harshal Dev, Raj Gupta, and Dhruv Kumar
Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) 2024
Shikhar Sharma, Manas Mhasakar, Apurv Mehra, Utkarsh Venaik, Ujjwal Singhal, Dhruv Kumar, and Kashish Mittal
ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (COMPASS) 2024
Ishika Joshi, Ritvik Budhiraja, Harshal Dev, Jahnvi Kadia, Mohammad Osama Ataullah, Sayan Mitra, Harshal D. Akolekar, and Dhruv Kumar
ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) 2024
Shreya Bhatia, Tarushi Gandhi, Dhruv Kumar, and Pankaj Jalote
International Workshop on Large Language Models for Code (LLM4Code @ ICSE) 2024
Aryaman Raina, Prateek Mishra, Harshit Goyal, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2024
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Vibhor Agarwal, Nakul Thureja, Madhav Krishan Garg, Sahiti Dharmavaram, Meghna, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2024
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Anishka, Diksha Sethi, Nipun Gupta, Shikhar Sharma, Srishti Jain, Ujjwal Singhal, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2024
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Henansh Tanwar, Kunal Shrivastva, Rahul Singh, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2024
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Shreya Bhatia, Tarushi Gandhi, Dhruv Kumar, and Pankaj Jalote
arXiv preprint · 2024
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Dhruv Kumar, Sohaib Ahmad, Abhishek Chandra, and Ramesh K. Sitaraman
IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Internet Computing (CCGrid) 2023
★ Best Paper
Dhruv Kumar, Sohaib Ahmad, Abhishek Chandra, and Ramesh K. Sitaraman
CCGrid Workshop (CCGridW) 2023
Ishika Joshi, Ritvik Budhiraja, Pranav Deepak Tanna, Lovenya Jain, Mihika Deshpande, Arjun Srivastava, Srinivas Rallapalli, Harshal D. Akolekar, Jagat Sesh Challa, and Dhruv Kumar
arXiv preprint · 2023
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Atharva Mehta, Nipun Gupta, Aarav Balachandran, Dhruv Kumar, Pankaj Jalote, et al.
arXiv preprint · 2023
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Ashutosh Sharma, Dhruv Kumar, Srinivas Rallapalli, and Ajit Pratap Singh
Environmental Science & Pollution Research 30 · 2023
Joel Wolfrath, Nikhil Sreekumar, Dhruv Kumar, Yuanli Wang, and Abhishek Chandra
IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS) 2022
Dhruv Kumar, Joel Wolfrath, Abhishek Chandra, and Ramesh K. Sitaraman
International Workshop on Edge Systems, Analytics and Networking (EdgeSys @ EuroSys) 2022
Ananya Jain, Srinivas Rallapalli, and Dhruv Kumar
Environmental Science & Pollution Research 29 · 2022
Rallapalli Srinivas, Matt Drewitz, Joe Magner, Ajit Pratap Singh, Dhruv Kumar, and Yashwant Bhaskar Katpatal
Advances in Computational Modeling and Simulation, Springer · 2022
Dhruv Kumar, Sohaib Ahmad, Abhishek Chandra, and Ramesh K. Sitaraman
ACM/IEEE Symposium on Edge Computing (SEC) 2021
Yuanli Wang, Joel Wolfrath, Nikhil Sreekumar, Dhruv Kumar, and Abhishek Chandra
International Workshop on Edge Systems, Analytics and Networking (EdgeSys @ EuroSys) 2021
Poonam Goyal, Jagat Sesh Challa, Dhruv Kumar, Anuvind Bhat, Sundar Balasubramaniam, and Navneet Goyal
International Journal of Data Science and Analytics 10 · 2020
Yuanli Wang, Dhruv Kumar, and Abhishek Chandra
IEEE/ACM Symposium on Edge Computing (SEC) 2020
Dhruv Kumar, Jian Li, Abhishek Chandra, and Ramesh K. Sitaraman
Proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems (SIGMETRICS) 3(2) · 2019
Dhruv Kumar, Aravind Alagiri Ramkumar, Rohit Sindhu, and Abhishek Chandra
2nd USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Edge Computing (HotEdge) 2019
Dhruv Kumar, Poonam Goyal, and Navneet Goyal
International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies 10(1) · 2018
Exact, Fast and Scalable Parallel DBSCAN for Commodity Platforms
Sonal Kumari, Poonam Goyal, Ankit Sood, Dhruv Kumar, Sundar Balasubramaniam, and Navneet Goyal
International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN) 2017
Poonam Goyal, Sonal Kumari, Sumit Sharma, Dhruv Kumar, Vivek Kishore, Sundar Balasubramaniam, and Navneet Goyal
IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) 2016
Poonam Goyal, Sonal Kumari, Dhruv Kumar, Sundar Balasubramaniam, Navneet Goyal, Saiyedul Islam, and Jagat Sesh Challa
International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN) 2015
Poonam Goyal, Sonal Kumari, Dhruv Kumar, Sundar Balasubramaniam, and Navneet Goyal
7th ACM Annual COMPUTE Conference 2014

Funded Projects

Revolutionizing Indian Higher Education Institutes with Generative AI

Ongoing
Funding: BITS Pilani Budget: ₹20,00,000 Nov 2024 – Oct 2026 PI: Dr. Dhruv Kumar

Developing GenAI-powered tools and pedagogical frameworks to transform teaching and learning across engineering courses at BITS Pilani, including automated assessment, intelligent tutoring, and instructor support systems.

Generative AI in Education Grant

Completed
Funding: WISE–IIE Higher Education Consortium Budget: ₹30,00,000 Aug 2024 – May 2025 Co-PI: Dr. Dhruv Kumar

Investigated the impact and adoption of generative AI tools in Indian higher education across multiple disciplines, producing findings in engineering education, pedagogical agent design, and K-12 rural outreach.

AI for River–Climate Modeling

Completed
Funding: The Nature Conservancy (NGO) Budget: ₹25,00,000 Aug 2024 – Jun 2025 Co-PI: Dr. Dhruv Kumar

Applied machine learning and AI methods to quantify the influence of land use, land cover, and climate change on river basin hydrology, targeting degraded riparian corridors for conservation-focused rehabilitation.

Google Cloud Education Grant

Completed
Funding: Google Cloud Budget: ₹12,50,000 Jan 2024 – Dec 2024 PI: Dr. Dhruv Kumar

Cloud compute grant supporting AI and LLM research experiments, large-scale model evaluation, and infrastructure for student research projects at BITS Pilani.

Collaborating Universities

CMU Carnegie Mellon University
UMN University of Minnesota
UMass Amherst UMass Amherst
IIIT Delhi IIIT Delhi
NC State NC State University
UIUC Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
U Michigan University of Michigan
KIIT KIIT Bhubaneswar
IIT Madras IIT Madras

Patents

Coming Soon
Patent filings are in progress. Check back for updates.