Ranjan Sarkar

Ranjan Sarkar

PhD Scholar, Artificial Intelligence

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

I am a PhD Research Scholar in the Department of Artificial Intelligence at IIT Kharagpur, advised by Prof. Prabhat Kumar Mishra. I work at the PSALM Lab (Predictive Stochastic Adaptive Learning Machines). My research focuses on the intersection of Reinforcement Learning, Estimation, and Optimization, with applications in LLMs, Computer Vision, and Robotics.

Recent News

Dec 2025

Delivered Self-Study Seminar on "An Estimation-Control duality and its extension to unknown distributions" . View Slides

Jan 2025

Started working as a Research Scholar in PSALM Lab.

Research Interests

Reinforcement Learning

Exploring decision-making in complex environments, focusing on algorithm design, theoretical guarantees, and efficient exploration strategies.

Natural Language Processing

Investigating the optimization and application of Large Language Models, aiming to enhance their efficiency, reasoning, and alignment.

Computer Vision

Working on efficient object detection and semantic segmentation models for autonomous systems navigation.

Education

PhD in Artificial Intelligence

IIT Kharagpur • 2025 - Present

M.Sc in Mathematics

IIT Kharagpur • 2021 - 2023

B.Sc in Mathematics

University of Calcutta • 2018 - 2021

Experience

Senior Business Analyst

EXL Service, Gurgaon IN • 2023 - 2024

Master's Student

Dept. of Mathematics, IIT Kharagpur • 2022 - 2023

Supervisor: Prof. Swanand Khare.

Worked on Application of Tensor Decomposition in Image Compression using Alternating Least Square (ALS) Algorithm

Teaching Assistantship (TA)

Autumn 2025

AI60211 • Algorithmic and Mathematical Foundations for AI

Course Instructor: Prof. Adway Mitra

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Spring 2026

AI61006 • AI for Cyber Physical Systems

Course Instructor: Prof. Prabhat Kumar Mishra

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Seminar / Talks

Self-Study Seminar

An Estimation-Control Duality and its extension to unknown distribution

Dec 2025 Department of Artificial Intelligence, IIT Kharagpur

AI60211

Algorithmic and Mathematical Foundations for AI

Autumn 2025 • IIT Kharagpur

Course Description

This course introduces the fundamental mathematical concepts of linear algebra, probability, statistics, optimization and sorting, searching, graph algorithms. It's designed for first-year MTech students. As a teaching assistant, my responsibilities included conducting tutorial sessions, holding doubt-clearing sessions for the Maths part. The Algorithm part was assisted by other TAs.

Assignments

Assignment 0: Introductory Session

July 17, 2025

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Assignment 1: Group, Ring, Field

July 26, 2025

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Assignment 2: Vector Space

Aug 4, 2025

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Assignment 3: Linear Algebra

Aug 14, 2025

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Assignment 4: Probability Theory

Sept 1, 2025

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Assignment 5: Optimization

Sept 15, 2025

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Course Details

Instructor: Prof. Adway Mitra

TA: Ranjan Sarkar, Sushmita Majee

Syllabus

  • Linear Algebra
  • Probability Theory
  • Optimization
  • Graph Algorithms
  • BFS, DFS

Talks

Self-Study Seminar

An Estimation-Control Duality and its extension to unknown distributions

Dec 2025 Department of Artificial Intelligence, IIT Kharagpur