Pulkit Verma (पुलकित वर्मा | புல்கித் வர்மா)

I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras. Before this, I was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Interactive Robotics Group at MIT CSAIL, working with Prof. Julie Shah. I completed my Ph.D. from the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at Arizona State University, working with Prof. Siddharth Srivastava. During my Ph.D., I was also affiliated with UC Berkeley’s Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence, and ASU’s Center for Human, Artificial Intelligence, and Robot Teaming. I have completed M.Tech. from Department of Computer Science & Engineering at IIT Guwahati, advised by Prof. Pradip K. Das.

At IIT Madras, I lead the Human-Aligned Intelligent Learning Systems (HAILS) Group within the AIDB Lab. My primary interests lie in AI safety, AI planning, action-model learning, interpretability, and analysis of abstractions. My research focuses on safe and reliable behavior of AI agents. I am currently investigating the minimal set of requirements in an AI system that would enable a user to assess and understand the limits of its safe operability. I am also a co-PI at the Center for Responsible AI (CeRAI) at IIT Madras.

In the past, I have worked in the areas of bio-inspired robotics, speech processing, and internet of things.