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, interpretability, robotics, and lifelong learning with human in the loop. 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 Faculty 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.