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Full-Stack AI Engineer and Data Scientist with 3+ years of building AI-enabled software. Delivered end-to-end systems across data pipelines, LLM integration, APIs, and cloud deployment.
General Information
| Full Name | Phanindra Kalaga |
| phanindra.connect@gmail.com | |
| Phone | +1-771-233-3129 |
| Website | funindra.me |
| Languages | English, Telugu, Hindi |
Professional Summary
| Summary | Full-Stack AI Engineer and Data Scientist with 3+ years of building AI-enabled software. Delivered end-to-end systems across data pipelines, LLM integration, APIs, and cloud deployment. Shipped open-source tools and shared lessons learned through public speaking at AI and open-source events. Consistently ramped quickly and took ownership early in senior-leaning teams. |
Education
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Jan 2024 Dec 2025 Master of Science in Data Science
George Washington University, Washington, D.C. - GPA 3.90
- Relevant Coursework: Machine Learning, NLP, Data Mining, Computer Vision, Cloud Computing
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Aug 2019 May 2023 Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, India
Experience
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April 2024 Present Lead Graduate Research Specialist, LAiSER
George Washington University, Washington, D.C. - LLM Pipeline Scaling: Built and scaled LLM extraction pipelines across 1M+ records using vLLM; improved inference throughput 7x, cutting end-to-end processing time from 2 months to 8 days for empirical research workflows.
- LLM API Integration: Integrated Gemini API into LAiSER for multi-model evaluation workflows; designed abstraction layers to support rapid experimentation across different LLM providers.
- Retrieval Performance: Implemented FAISS-based semantic search and optimized retrieval, delivering a consistent 30% speed improvement for retrieval-augmented research workflows.
- Open-source Engineering: Primary maintainer of LAiSER GitHub organization (multiple repos) with a team of 7; drove architecture decisions, reusable libraries, and rapid iteration to support reproducible research. 2x winner of GW OSPO annual open-source student awards.
- Release Quality & DevSecOps: Led releases for 4+ major versions using GitHub Actions; added CodeQL and Dependabot for automated scanning and alerts; standardized Conventional Commits and Semantic Versioning for transparent collaboration.
- Research Communication: Worked with non-technical partners to explain design choices and trade-offs; supported over $1M in grant-backed research delivery with partners including the Walmart Foundation and the Gates Foundation, applying NIST AI RMF for risk management.
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Aug 2024 Dec 2024 Software Engineer Intern, Data Science for Sustainable Development
George Washington University, Washington, D.C. - Web Platform Integration: Led a team of 5 to design and deploy a web-based analytics platform (Next.js, Flask) on AWS EC2 and S3, integrating data pipelines and APIs for collaborative research workflows.
- Workflow Automation: Built agentic workflows to generate insights and operational summaries, improving partner collaboration efficiency by 30%.
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July 2021 Jan 2023 Full-Stack Engineer
NashAgri, An Agritech B2C Organization, Maharashtra, India - Product Systems: Built a cross-platform CRM from scratch to manage vendor transactions and inventory; added ML analytics to improve operational visibility and decision-making.
- Data & Geo Analytics: Managed geospatial data for 45,000+ farmers across 25,000+ regions (MongoDB, GeoJSON) to improve supply chain visibility and generate strategic insights.
- Backend Features: Delivered 5+ core features (invoice generation, RBAC, real-time auctions) supporting a 40% increase in vendor transactions in the first quarter.
Certifications
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Jan 2026 Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect
Projects
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2025 Reinforcement Learning for Pseudo-Labeling (Capstone Project)
- Model agnostic, custom RL environment for data annotation to outperform state-of-the-art semi-supervised techniques and enable reproducible evaluation.
- Tools: OpenAI Gymnasium, High Performance Compute (HPC), Tensorboard, PyTorch (torchvision)
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2026 Danger Detection with ML (GWU Open-Source Student Award, 2026)
- Built a real-time computer vision prototype to detect hazards at schools and public spaces; implemented instant alerts with captured visual evidence. Achieved 25 FPS mean throughput on edge CPU for low-latency IoT. Open-source on GitHub.
- Tools: Python, OpenCV, YOLOv3 (Darknet), NumPy, argparse, SMTP (email notifications)
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2024 Benchmarking Database Architectures for Network Analytics
- Reproducible Python benchmark of MySQL, MongoDB, and Neo4j on a synthetic road network dataset to deliver recommendations on which database performs best for each query type.
- Tools: Python, MySQL, MongoDB, Neo4j (graph algorithms), SQL recursive CTEs, MongoDB aggregation/lookup, psutil (performance monitoring), Faker
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2024 Global CO₂ Emissions Analysis Dashboard
- Built a dashboard analyzing 223 years of CO₂ data across countries, sectors, and income groups to identify relation between historical emissions and renewable adoption priorities.
- Tools: Tableau, Python, pandas, Plotly, Matplotlib
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2023 My Own Medic (Selected for United Nations Open-Source Week 2025)
- Designed an open-source architecture for a medical assistant using EHR records and LLMs to reduce documentation errors and improve clinical workflows. Open-source on GitHub.
- Tools: MySQL, PHP, Hugging Face API, HIPAA compliance
Publications
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Oct 2025 LAiSER (Journal of Open Source Software, under review)
- Technical paper submitted Oct. 2025; describes the LAiSER open-source system and emphasizes reproducible research software practices.
- Submission link
Developer Relations
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2024 Present President, Google Developer Groups On-Campus at GWU
- Led 200+ student organization for AI/ML awareness via events and workshops; cohosted DevFestDC (900 attendees); cohosted DevFest Annapolis (300 attendees)
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2024 Present Chairperson of Relations, Data Science Association
- Cultivated relationships with C-suite executives and senior engineers for hosting events to provide career insights to 170 data science students
Presentations and Awards
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January 2026 - GWU Open-Source Student Awards: Received award for open-source contributions (Danger Detection with ML)
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December 2025 - Build with AI - Startup Day: Organized a summit for 200 attendees featuring C-suite executives and senior engineers; delivered a session on the impact of open-source software on AI and business strategy
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November 2025 - DevFest Annapolis: Hosted a tech-talk and technical workshop on Model Context Protocol (MCP), Multi Agent Systems (MAS) and agent communication mechanisms for 100+ students and faculty
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October 2025 - DC Startup and Tech Week: Hosted a technical workshop for 60+ startup founders on building with AI, containers, and serverless deployments on Google Cloud
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July 2025 - Badge Summit at CU Boulder: Hosted a table talk with 50 leaders in higher-education research on skills and credentials
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May 2025 - GWU Open Source Conference: Delivered a keynote session on open-source software best practices
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January 2025 - GWU Open-Source Student Awards: Received 3rd prize for best open-source software
Technical Skills
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Languages
- Python, SQL, JavaScript, R
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ML & LLMs
- NLP, LLMs, vLLM, PyTorch, scikit-learn, Hugging Face
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Data, Cloud & MLOps
- Pandas, NumPy, Spark, Airflow, Docker, AWS (EC2, S3, IAM, CloudWatch), GCP, Git, GitHub Actions, CI/CD, MLflow
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Databases & Product
- PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Neo4j, FastAPI, Flask, Next.js, React, Plotly, Matplotlib, Tableau