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Hello there, I'm

Aniirudh Ramesh

I am a final-year PhD student at the University of Tennessee, where I design real-time optimization algorithms for real-world problems. Passionate about technology commercialization, I spun-off our research and cofounded ASTERS - an AI x Security startup partnering with the DHS. Previously, I was a Digital Innovation Intern at Dow and a Summer Fellow at Dorm Room Fund. With my diverse background, proven track record, and core competencies, I'm confident I'm uniquely positioned to spearhead innovative solutions to some of the most pressing problems. I'd love to hear from you - please feel free to reach out.

Recent News

Aug 28 2024: Gave a 45 minute invited talk titled "Navigating a career in Research and Deep Tech Entrepreneurship" at my alma mater SASTRA University

Aug 15 2024: Gave a 30-minute final presentation about the work done during the internship to Dow's global R&D audience

Aug 04 2024: Did a mock pitch to an investor, and a Theil Fellow in the final week at Dorm Room Fund

July 26 2024: Received coverage from NBC's local channel 10 news for ASTERS

July 15-17: Gave a quick talk at Dow's ADISE sympsoium, and interacted with the CTO, CSO, VPs, and global directors

June 19 2024: Got selected into a cohort of 14 PhD founders in a nights-and-weekends summer program at Dorm Room Fund

April 17 - May 1 2024: Participating in NSF's Mid-South I-CORPS program representing ASTERS Inc

February 23-25 2024: Recognized for Outstanding Participation at the DHS Designing Actionable Solutions for a Secure Homeland (DASSH) 2024 Student Design Challenge

November 3 2023: Accepted an offer for the role of Digital Innovation Intern at Dow Chemical for Summer 2024

October 25 2023: We won a compettive grant from the Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence

February 13 2023: "The effectiveness of naive optimization of the egress path for an active-shooter scenario" is published in Heliyon.

Nov 7-8 2022: Presented our research and a live demo at the NSF Cyber-Physical Systems Principal Investigators Meeting 2022 in Washington DC

May 20 2023: Earned an MS and a Graduate Certificate in Data-Driven Decision-Making en route to PhD

December 12 2022: Defended my research proposal titled "Analysis and Optimization of Influence in Networked Systems" for the PhD Qualifying Exam.

About Me

How do we make optimal decisions in Complex Systems?

What if I told you that the 2008 financial crisis, the 2015 Ukraine power crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic all had one thing in common? They all had a single trigger. For the 2008 crisis, it was the sub-prime mortgage bubble burst; For the Ukraine power crisis, it was a cyberattack at a single power station; For COVID-19, it was patient zero. All of these triggers caused a massive domino effect leading to absolute chaos. To control this chaos, we need to make Data-Driven Decisions.

That's why it is so important to model and study how influence propagates in Complex Networks, and also to design algorithms that help us makes complex decisions. But there's one problem though - Graph algorithms are NP-Hard, which means you can either get computation speed, or accuracy, but not both. Consequently, you often see Graph algorithms being run in Supercomputers, making real-world and real-time deployment often impractical. To this end, my PhD research addresses three open research problems:

1. Can we design Graph Optimization Algorithms, while optimizing risk and guaranteeing performance?
2. What is the effect of the Graph Structure on the information flow in a complex network, and can we control this using influencers?
3. Can we run Graph Optimization in real-time using a distributed edge computing architecture by leveraging Graph Neural Networks?

At the cutting edge of Deep Tech: Embracing the Academia-Startup-VC ecosystem

My near-term career goal is to fully leverage the academia-startup-VC ecosystem to go all out on founding/building a deep tech startup. As part of this effort, I spun off our research and co-founded ASTERS, where I serve as the Head of AI, and work with the DHS on commercializing our tech and bring it to market. We recently received coverage from NBC's local news station on Channel 10 WBIR Knoxville. We are currently working on an MVP (Q4 target), and will officially start fundraising soon.

I'm also super interested in Deep Tech Venture Capital, and have been following this space very closely. I was part of 14 student PhD Founder cohort at Dorm Room Fund this past summer, where we participated in a nights-and-weekends program that helped us understand the ecosystem a lot better, and prepared us to spinoff our research into scalable deep tech startups through talks and mentorship from top VCs, YC-backed founders, and Thiel Fellows.  I'm applying to more PhD to VC programs. More Soon.

Paying it forward: Cultivating Research amongst young adults

I've been fortunate to mentor more than 15 students in my capacity as a PhD student, TA, and a pro-bono career counsellor. I predominantly mentor students on REU research, senior design projects, teach homework assignments for ME 231 Dynamics, and leverage my interdisciplinary background to offer advice on choosing a STEM career. I'm a pen pal at Letters to a Pre-Scientist where I'm slated to match with a high schooler and exchanging letters about what a STEM career could look like. Additionally, I'm also mentoring the Robotics club at American High School (Fremont, CA) on the FIRST Tech Challenge.

I also serve on the Student Leadership Council at the Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence (SENTRY), where I pitch and conduct student programs for the director (Prof. Silevitch). Previously, I was the Vice-President for Manthan, the Indian Student Association at the University of Tennessee, where my most notable accomplishment was helping incoming students finding housing using a centralized housing tracker software. If you're someone who needs help in their career, please feel free to reach out if I can help you in any way.

Curious Innovator: On a mission towards making a positive impact

The MBTI test classifies me an ENTJ-A (Extraverted – 74%, Intuitive – 72%, Thinking – 54%, Judging – 68%, Assertive – 75%). While I have my reservations against these types of tests, I think it is worth taking these with a pinch of salt. Friends who know me well would generally agree with this, and know me as a go-getter who won't take no for answer. I have a track record of displaying remarkable grit and hustle. For instance, I co-authored 4 research papers while I was in undergrad, and only one of three who got a direct PhD admit in the Class of 2020 (in spite of COVID!). In my PhD, I've gone above and beyond just research, and won a competitive DHS grant for our lab, and spun off our research and cofounded ASTERS. I also got a chance to get exposure in Industry R&D at Dow, and experience the startup-VC ecosystem at Dorm Room Fund. These achievements, I think, can be primary attributed to my insatiable curiosity, and relentless ambition to make a positive impact, along with the acumen to get stuff done.

Outside of work, I love being in the great outdoors. One of the great privileges of being a grad student in East Tennessee, is the proximity to the breathtaking Smokies. It's no surprise that it is by far the most visited national park in the country! I'm a people person, and genuinely like getting to know people, their interests and causes they support. I'm formally trained in Indian classical music, and grew up playing the violin. I pride myself in my music taste, which spans multiple genres, languages, and styles. I would consider myself down=to-earth and grounded, with the ability to identify the things that matter, versus the things that don't. Along with meditation, and self-reflection, one of the themes I've been exploring a lot lately is Meta-cognition - the ability to view one's actions from a third person's lens. If any this piques your interest, please feel free to reach out for a chat.

Skills

Proven track record of delivering notable accomplishments in various projects and initiatives, demonstrating exceptional skills, done with immaculate planning and relentless execution.

Problem Solving

My extensive research experience has trained me how to break down hard, open-ended problems, formulate them using first-principles thinking, and hack at it one sub-problem at time.

01

CS, AI, Software Development

Not just the "ideas guy"! Also got the know-how to use tools to execute them. Skilled in all digital tools including programming, Data Science, AI/Cloud

02

Systems Design

In my PhD research, I formally study Networked Dynamical Systems - how to design them, how to assess game theoretic tradeoffs, distributed vs centralized, edge computing, etc

03

Technology Commercialization

Spun off our research and cofounded ASTERS - Partnering with the DHS to bring this technology to market. Making our algorithms into scalable APIs.

04

Operations & Execution Mgmnt

Live and breathe the "Fail Fast" principle. I believe OpEx is the single biggest differentiating factor in research/startup and actively look to reduce bottlenecks.

05

Teamwork, Communication

I consider myself a prolific communicator, with a knack for brevity. I try to be resourceful, and believe teams are greater than sum of its parts.

06

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Experience

Summer 2024 - Dow Chemical
DIGITAL INNOVATION INTERN - CORE R&D ROBOTICS
  • MLOps
  • Software Development
  • Communication

Worked on a Machine Learning platform to accelerate a high throughput experimentation workflow, as part of the highly selective ADISE program (Advances Digital Internship for Scientists and Engineers)

Jan 2024 - Present -  ASTERS (www.asters.tech)
COFOUNDER AND HEAD OF AI
  • Operations & Project Management
  • GTM and Product Market Fit
  • Startup Leadership

Leading multi-front efforts on 1. Directing our AI vision (Laying roadmaps and shipping MVP) 2. Fundraising 3. Recruiting (screened over 3500+ applications, and mentor two interns) 4. Growth and Customer Discovery (Identified pain points) 5. GTM and Product Market Fit (Working on partnerships to leverage established distribution channels.)

Jan 2021 - Present -  Complex Systems Lab (University of Tennessee)
GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT
  • AI Research
  • Problem Solving
  • Technology Commercialization

Conducting research on Sequential Decision Problems under uncertainty in Networked Dynamical Systems. Leveraging Mathematical models and Computational tools for the Optimization/Control of Influence and Information Cascades in Cooperative Games, Social Networks, and Spatial Networks.

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Testimonials

Fellow Grad Students, and Colleagues who can vouch for me as a wholistic individual.

Meenambika G.

"TBA."

Aman M.

"TBA."

Nooshin R.

"TBA."

get in touch

Please feel free to reach out. Happy to help in any way I can.

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