Viren Khandal

Who Am I?

👋 Hello, I’m Vik! I’m currently a Research Engineer in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) department at UC Berkeley, where I am advised by Sanjit Seshia and Bjoern Hartmann.

Currently, I am working at the intersection of machine learning (CV) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) to investigate safe human-autonomy interaction and Out-of-Distribution Detection in autonomous driving contexts. In May 2022, I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Applied Math (Double Major) at the University of California, Berkeley.

With over 3 years of relevant work experience in software development and machine learning through my full-time work and internships (Berkeley Research, Open Networking Foundation, Hirebee.ai, Employers4Change, etc), I have experience working on various computer vision, natural language processing, and machine learning projects, as well as developing multi-platform applications.

I also love to teach! During my time at Berkeley, I was an executive officer of the Computer Science Mentors group, through which I helped develop and teach ‘Designing Information Systems’ and strived to make Computer Science education more equitable.

I'm starting a YouTube channel soon to educate more people about computer science and tech around us!

Outside of computer science, I enjoy playing chess, solving Rubik’s cubes, and watching soccer!

Research Engineer at UC Berkeley June 2022 - Present

Leading project to optimize human performance in human-autonomy handoffs in autonomous driving
Developing Virtual Reality (VR) tools to conduct human-in-the-loop experiments with high ecological validity
Formalizing models for safe and interpretable human-autonomy interaction in autonomous vehicles on the VeHICal and LOGiCS project

Visiting Researcher at Stanford University Sept 2022 - Present

Investigating the effects of Out-of-Distribution events on human-autonomy interaction in autonomous driving (https://stanfordasl.github.io/)
Leading project to develop a framework to enable safe control handoffs in autonomous driving from vehicle to human in the case of Out-of-Distribution (OOD) events
Research Foci: Human-Autonomy Interaction, Autonomous Driving, Machine Learning, and Uncertainty Learning

Full Stack Software Engineer at Postbox Inc. June 2022 - Nov 2022

Leading effort to upscale platform for optimized performance on new macOS and Windows updates
Improve automation and maintenance of CI/CD pipeline
Personalized desktop email client, news client, and feed reader for macOS and Windows

Machine Learning Freelancer at Genei.io June 2022 - Aug 2022

Optimized web application and extension for faster researching by automatically summarizing background reading and produce blogs, articles, and reports faster
Lead Document Layout Analysis project to parse the underlying structure of a PDF to categorize sections into classes and extract reading order of the text
Implemented Transformer models (LayoutLMv3 and LayoutReader) to perform scalable document layout analysis

Researcher at UC Berkeley College of Engineering June 2021 - June 2022

Working with Dr. Yash Vardhan Pant and Professor Sanjit Seshia in the NSF CPS-Frontiers VeHICal (https://vehical.org/) research group on formalizing models for safe autonomous-to-human perception handoffs in autonomous vehicles
Leading project to improve responsibility of autonomous vehicles through verification of perception decision making
Developing unique scoring metric grounded in control theory to gauge credibility of reinforcement learning/object detection models (YOLOv3, SSD, RetinaNet)

Course Coordinator at Computer Science Mentors Jan 2020 - Present

A student organization geared toward providing group tutoring for Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS) courses at UC Berkeley to 2000+ undergraduate students
Manage 15+ tutoring sections by recruiting mentors and planning weekly topics revolving around linear algebra, circuit analysis, and machine learning
Lead a group of 20+ mentors by hosting teaching workshops and promoting a passion for teaching

Machine Learning Intern at Hirebee.ai Jan 2021 - June 2021

Streamlining the HR process by developing NLP-based algorithms for job similarity and candidate progression
Leveraging Named-Entity-Recognition to extract categorized skills from resumes and job postings
Designed and deployed a multilayered CNN to distinguish word embeddings with 99% precision

Researcher at CoolClimate Network Jan 2020 - June 2021

Conducting research for EcoDataLab to identify carbon footprints in California census tracts
Mined and analyzed data from the US Census Bureau to create comprehensive and analytical maps
Using machine learning techniques in Python and R to streamline data visualization process

Backend Developer at WhatElse.io Sept 2019 - Feb 2020

Designed and developed Python-based web app
Utilized Flask and Jinja to create an interactive dashboard
Pitched start-up to 100+ VC firms and investors at official Berkeley SkyDeck Demo Day

Software Engineer Intern at ON.Lab June 2018 - Dec 2019

Development work to enhance UI for key Internet Service Providers
Execute and monitor UI with JavaScript, jQuery, and AJAX and create unit/node tests to validate Interface Modules
Prepare training documentation related to GUI usage and testing

Web Developer at AWS June 2016 - Oct 2019

Deployed code and various functions of Amazon Web Services
Published Alexa Skills and various other Projects
Worked with current AWS employees to complete work projects

Hello!

I'm Viren

Who Am I?

Machine Learning

Software Development

Data Mining and Analysis

Application Design

My Skills

Machine Learning

Python

Full-Stack Development

Data Mining/Analysis

Cloud-based Computing

Front-End and UI/UX

Education

Work Experience