About
I build intelligent systems that are fast, reliable, and harder to break than they look.
I'm a Computer Science undergrad at Delhi Technological University (DTU) focused on AI research - AI safety, mechanistic interpretability, large language models, reinforcement learning, and representation learning. My goal is to help build reliable, aligned, and interpretable AI systems: understanding how foundation models reason, how their internal representations emerge, and how RL can improve capability without sacrificing safety or robustness.
My recent work centers on LLM safety and alignment - red-teaming, safety evaluation, RL-based safety optimization, prompt-rewriting systems, and multimodal safety benchmarking. As a Deep Learning Research Intern at the ML Research Lab, DTU, I also build low-light visual understanding systems spanning self-supervised learning, domain adaptation, vision transformers, and efficient architectures.
The thread across all of it is the same instinct: find the edge case, break the assumption, then build something that holds. Alongside research, I'm a competitive programmer (Codeforces Specialist, LeetCode Knight, 900+ problems solved) and Vice President at EHAX, DTU's cybersecurity society - where breaking things in CTFs is just safety research from the other side.
Work Experience
Leadership & Communities
Technologies
Programming Languages
Web & Mobile Development
AI/ML & Data Science
GenAI & Techniques
Databases & Cloud
Tools & Platforms
Algorithmic Excellence
Proven problem-solving abilities through consistent performance across major programming platforms. 900+ problems solved with elite rankings.

LeetCode
@kartikvatsdtuRating
1982
Rank
Knight
Problems Solved
600+

Codeforces
@Kartik_vatsRating
1535
Rank
Specialist
Problems Solved
200+

CodeChef
@k3tikvatsRating
1636
Rank
3 Star
Problems Solved
50+
Check out my latest work
I've worked on a variety of projects, from simple websites to complex web applications. Here are a few of my favorites.
SafeGen Arena - RL Environment for Image-AI Safety
Built an OpenEnv-compliant RL gym that trains Qwen2.5-1.5B + LoRA as a prompt-rewriting safety layer for diffusion models, with a 3-way action space (allow / transform / reject). GRPO training improved reward from −0.05 → +0.33 over 1,300 steps with zero mode collapse. Designed a 4-term reward combining Llama Guard 3, a CLIP concept-arithmetic intent residual, a NudeNet/Q16 visual judge, and an over-refusal penalty. Top 100 of 5,000+ teams at the Meta × OpenEnv Hackathon 2026.
LLM Safety - Red Teaming & Mitigation
Engineered a DistilBERT safety classifier (87% F1 across 3 classes) with batch inference and confidence scoring, plus an end-to-end red-teaming pipeline (500+ adversarial prompts, 3 harm categories, 3 mitigation agents) that reduced unsafe generations by 42%. Built an observability suite - confusion matrices, per-class metrics, and JSON/visual exports - for real-time monitoring and drift detection in production LLM safety workflows.
SAR → EO Image Translation (CycleGAN)
Translating 2-band SAR imagery into 13-band multispectral EO images using CycleGAN while preserving semantic and spectral consistency across domains. Focused on stabilizing adversarial training and faithful spectral reconstruction for remote-sensing data.

Quantamind - Mental Wellness Companion
Collaborated on a mental wellness companion application using MERN stack, recognized as a top project by Google Developers Club Delhi. Designed responsive UI with React and TailwindCSS, integrated Firebase analytics and MongoDB for secure data management. Prepared stress analysis techniques using sentiment analysis and mouse tracking with 92.71% accuracy.

InquireAI - AI Search Assistant
Built a real-time, cross-platform AI search assistant with Flutter and FastAPI. Created a custom ranking algorithm using sentence transformers achieving 85% accuracy in source ranking, with WebSocket streaming for live responses and a RAG pipeline combining the Gemini API with Tavily Search for accurate information synthesis.

BidNet - Real-Time Bidding Model
Innovated a raw-to-dense feature pipeline, transforming raw bid data using contrastive embeddings & autoencoders, followed by an ANN-based feature compression for efficient representation. Devised a low-latency RTB model predicting bid price and bidding decisions within 5ms per request, optimized via Grid Search & Adaptive Learning Rate Scheduling. Achieved 82% classification accuracy, scaling to handle 100K+ bid requests per second in large-scale ad exchanges.

Market Regime Detection System
Prepared an ML-based system to identify distinct market states from high-frequency financial data. Engineered 20+ custom features from order book data, consolidated 3 clustering algorithms achieving 87% silhouette score. System successfully identified 4 distinct market regimes with 92% classification accuracy, reducing strategy drawdowns by 15% through adaptive position sizing. Analyzed 500,000+ data points across multiple timeframes to enable real-time regime classification within 50ms.
Proven Excellence
Throughout my journey, I've achieved recognition in 12 major competitions and milestones. From hackathons to programming contests, academic excellence to cybersecurity competitions - each achievement represents dedication, skill, and continuous growth in technology.
- G
Goldman Sachs India Hackathon - Rank 1808
Programming Competition
Ranked 1808 in the CS track of the Goldman Sachs India Hackathon. - M
Meta × OpenEnv Hackathon - Top 100
AI/ML Hackathon
Placed in the Top 100 of 5,000+ teams at the Meta × OpenEnv Hackathon 2026 with SafeGen Arena - an OpenEnv-compliant RL gym that trains a prompt-rewriting safety layer for diffusion models via GRPO. - H
Hack IIT Kanpur CTF - 3rd Place
Cybersecurity / CTF
Secured 3rd place at Hack IIT Kanpur, an offline CTF, winning a ₹1 lakh prize. - E
EHAX - CTF Team Highlights (India Rank 7)
Cybersecurity / CTF
As Vice President of EHAX, DTU's Ethical Hacking & Cybersecurity Society, co-organized a global CTF with 3,000+ participants and helped the team reach India Rank 7 / World Rank 33 on CTFtime. Team placements across national and international CTFs: 1st at h4ck0n-CTF, 2nd at Cryptonite CTF, 4th at 07 CTF, 8th at Apoorv CTF, 11th at AceCTF, 15th at BITS CTF 2025, 20th at Pragyan CTF, and 41st at Backdoor CTF. - M
Meta Hacker Cup 2025
Competitive Programming · Issued by Meta
Secured a global rank of 1345 in Round 2 of Meta Hacker Cup 2025 (1321 in Round 1), placing among the top 2000 participants worldwide and earning an official Meta T-shirt. - A
Amazon ML Challenge 2025 - Under 500
AI/ML Competition
Ranked under 500 among 20,000 teams in the Amazon ML Challenge 2025. - N
NCIIPC-AICTE Pentathon 2025 - Grand Finalist
Cybersecurity Competition
Grand Finalist - ranked 12th out of 10,000 teams in the NCIIPC-AICTE Pentathon 2025, a national cybersecurity competition. Built a comprehensive threat detection and automated incident response solution. - C
Competitive Programming - Specialist & Knight
Competitive Programming
Codeforces Specialist (1535), LeetCode Knight (1982), and CodeChef 3★ (1636). Ranked 1677 in Codeforces Round 1034, 972 in LeetCode Weekly Contest 462, and 535 / 515 in CodeChef Starters 171 & 172 (among 25,000+). 900+ problems solved across platforms. - V
VisionXAI Hackathon - 2nd Position
AI/ML Hackathon
Secured 2nd position at the VisionXAI Hackathon, held during Invictus, DTU's annual techfest. - I
IICON-CTF'25 - Individual Winner
Cybersecurity / CTF
Individual winner (1st place) of IICON-CTF'25. - I
IEEE Xtreme 18.0 - 4th in University
Programming Competition
Ranked 4th in university and 723rd worldwide in IEEE Xtreme 18.0, a global competitive programming contest among 9,500+ teams. - S
Smart India Hackathon - Semifinalist
Hackathon
Cleared the internal college rounds of the Smart India Hackathon (SIH), advancing as a semifinalist.
Get in Touch
Want to chat? Just shoot me a dm with a direct question on discord and I'll respond whenever I can. I will ignore all soliciting.