Nilesh Sarkar

Research Experience

• Feb 2026 - Present
  

  Erdős AI Lab: Founding Researcher Research
  Advancing the frontier of AI - knowledge distillation, representation learning, world models, and mechanistic interpretability. Read more about Erdős AI Lab.
  AI Research Representation Learning Knowledge Distillation
• June 2025 - Apr 2026
  

  Moog Controls : Applied AI Research Internship Internship
  Agentic RAG pipelines, document intelligence, MCP server, gesture recognition, and supply chain AI for aerospace. Read more about Moog research.
  RAG Agentic AI MCP Computer Vision
• Jun 2024 - Present
  

  Undergrad Student Researcher Department
  Department-led research in DSU's AI & Robotics Engineering department, covering large language models, diffusion modelling, knowledge representation for language models, generative models, and energy-based models. An ongoing LLM project runs alongside coursework.
  LLMs Diffusion Models Knowledge Representation Energy-Based Models

Research Projects

• Jan 2025 - Present
  

  Language Modeling Experimentation Experiments
  Fine-tuning LLMs across parameter scales (0.5B-7B), testing QLoRA/quantization, and deploying on edge devices like the Jetson Nano. Exploring diffusion-based language models for Indic text generation.
  LLM Efficiency PyTorch CUDA Diffusion LMs Indic NLP
• Feb 2026 - Present
  SAE

  Interpretability Experiments & SAEs Experiments Erdős AI Lab
  Probing transformer internals with sparse autoencoders, attention-circuit analysis, and feature-attribution studies. The full SAE figure gallery for the COLM 2026 KD paper (toy validation + three Pythia-410M trials) lives on the linked page. See the SAE gallery.
  Mechanistic Interpretability SAEs PyTorch
• Published 2026
  

  Medical AI: PCOS Detection Published Journal PCOS
  Systematic benchmark of 18 deep-learning architectures (13 CNNs + 5 ViTs) for PCOS ultrasound detection, plus a novel three-stage deduplication pipeline that cleaned 70.4% of the public dataset. Hybrid CNN-Transformer models (EfficientFormer-L1, MobileViT-Small) hit 99.81% test accuracy. Read the full paper write-up.
  Medical AI Computer Vision ViT PyTorch
• Feb 2026 - Present
  αβ

  Protein Folding Experiments Experiments Erdős AI Lab
  Structure-prediction studies on small proteins - evaluating pLDDT-style confidence, folding-trajectory dynamics, and how transformer-based folding stacks compare against classical MD baselines. Read more about protein folding experiments.
  Computational Biology Structure Prediction PyTorch
• Nov 2025 - Present
  

  Autonomous Drone Systems (AIR) Research Group
  Real-time computer vision for object detection and autonomous navigation in complex environments.
  Robotics Computer Vision UAV
• Sep 2025 - Present
  

  Project Humanoid Robot Research Project
  Teleoperated robotic arm with low-latency control algorithms for precise manipulation in semi-structured environments.
  Teleoperation Robotics Control Systems
• Nov 2025 - Present
  

  Building Axiom Venture
  Precision parametric CAD engine with machine-readable proof of correctness attached to every exported file.
  Generative 3D CAD AI Parametric Design PyTorch

Skills at a Glance

Leadership, Community & Ventures

• Feb 2026 - Present
  

  Erdős AI Lab: Founding Researcher Venture
  A collective of young researchers at the intersection of rigorous mathematics and unbounded curiosity - knowledge distillation, world models, and frontier AI research. Read more about Erdős AI Lab.
  AI Research Representation Learning Knowledge Distillation
• Nov 2025 - Present
  

  E-Cell DSU: Tech Lead Leadership
  Leading tech initiatives for entrepreneurial ventures - overseeing infrastructure and bridging business ideas with technical solutions.
• 2024 - Jan 2026
  

  Roboverse and IET, DSU, Bangalore: Core Committee Member Community
  Conducted 10+ tech talks, workshops, and hackathons bridging theory with practice in AI and robotics.
• 2024 - Jan 2026
  

  IEEE RAS CIS SBC DSU: Student Executive Committee Leadership
  Organized 50+ technical workshops, expert talks, and hackathons on AI and robotics.

Education

• 2023 - 2027
  

  Dayananda Sagar University, Bangalore B.Tech
  Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Engineering (2023-2027). Designed the LLM Engineering curriculum & lab manuals featured on the university website.
  Computer Vision LLM/ML/AI Deep Learning Robotics Transformers