Hi folks! I am Nihar Sanda. I recently completed my Master’s in Computer Science at Northeastern University’s Khoury College (GPA 4/4), where my thesis — Cross-Domain Knowledge Retrieval Using LLM-Enhanced Graphs — explored how knowledge graphs and large language models can be combined for multi-hop scientific reasoning. I currently work as a Machine Learning Engineer at Northeastern’s Institute for Experiential AI, building GraphRAG systems for biomedical knowledge aggregation. Before Northeastern, I earned my B.Tech in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Dharwad.

A data-science-focused version of my resume is available here.

Technologies

  • Languages: Python, R, Java, Golang, CUDA, C++, C, JavaScript, TypeScript
  • ML / NLP: PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, Scikit-learn, NLTK, spaCy, Transformers, BERT, GPT, LLMs, Guardrails
  • LLM Stack: Fine-tuning, Prompt Engineering, RAG, Vector Databases, PEFT, AI Agents, MCP Servers, LangChain, LlamaIndex
  • Computer Vision: OpenCV, YOLO, SSD, R-CNNs, GANs, Vision Transformers, Triplet Loss, Kalman Filters
  • Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, CI/CD, RESTful APIs, Flask, Django, R Shiny
  • Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Neo4j, DynamoDB, Redis, SQLite

Facts!!!

  • Northeastern Laurel and Scroll 100 Recipient.
  • Graduate Research Award, Northeastern Khoury College of Computer Sciences (2026).
  • Director’s Gold Medal for the Best Outgoing Student at IIIT Dharwad.
  • Best Research Poster in Novelty and Impact at the Khoury Research Day 2025.
  • 2-time Google Summer of Code (2022, 2023) Recipient.
  • First-place victory at the Papers2Products hackathon, Northeastern University.
  • Reviewer at ICCE and T4E conferences in the Education Technology domain.
  • Led a team to the Grand Finals at Smart India Hackathon 2022.
  • Top 6 globally at International Accelerator Program, Austin, Texas.
  • Open Source Contributor to Rucio (CERN), PEcAn Project, CircuitVerse.

Extra-Curricular Activites

  • Founder and President of Velocity (Web and App Development Club), IIIT Dharwad
  • Events Management Head of E-Cell, IIIT Dharwad
  • Webmaster of IEEE Computer Society, Banglore Section.
  • Core Committee Member of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) Society, IIIT Dharwad
  • Core Member of IEEE Student Branch, IIIT Dharwad and IEEE Computer Society, IIIT Dharwad.
  • Postman Student Leader and Expert.

Free-Time

To refresh myself from work I play Lawn Tennis or Jog out vibing to J Cole. My passion for photography has always intrigues me to capture beautiful sunsets, humans and sceneries.

I am a sports enthusiast, lets talk about F1(MV 33), Tennis, Cricket and Football. I favor the German built more than the JDM’s