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Hello there! Welcome to my homepage. 

I am currently a Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate in Computing and Mathematical Sciences department in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at California Institute of Technology (CalTech), hosted by Prof. Adam Wierman and Prof. Eric Mazumdar. I have been honored as a recipient of the award PIMCO Postdoctoral Fellow in Data Science. Prior to joining for postdoc, I got the PhD degree at Texas A&M University recently in August 2023, where I had the privilege of being advised by Prof. Dileep Kalathil.  My research interests in machine learning are motivated via addressing challenges for autonomous solutions in the real-world problems. Specifically, I work on theoretical foundations of reinforcement learning algorithms tackling the simulation to real-world performance gaps through providing robust solutions. My future research focus will be to address such environment uncertainties in more general domains like that of multi-agent systems. My daily drives and expertise in addition to statistical reinforcement learning span several areas like optimization, high-dimensional probability, multi-armed bandits, stochastic theory.

Prior to joining for PhD, I worked for Qualcomm Bengaluru in Corporate Research and Development division. Prior to that, I completed my Masters in Communication and Networks from the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) under the guidance of Prof. Rajesh Sundaresan. It was during my master's program at IISc that I got introduced to the world of research. I am truly grateful to Rajesh for paving the way in this rich world called academic research. I completed my Bachelors from the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering at PES Institute of Technology (now PES University) in India.

I will be in the job market for faculty position/core industrial research position starting 2025. Please contact me if you think I am a good fit for your research group. Looking forward for future collaborative opportunities.

Pronouns: He/Him/They                                                             First name pronunciation: key-shun (Kishan)

Current year career news

[October 2023] New fundamental result on offline reinforcement learning available on arxiv.

[August 21, 2023] Started as a postdoctoral researcher at CalTech hosted by Prof. Adam Wierman and Prof. Eric Mazumdar! Grateful for this wonderful opportunity.

[August 12, 2023] I did the grad walk at TAMU. Officially, it is now Dr. Kishan Panaganti Badrinath! 🎓

[July 2023] Fundamental result on Robust Imitation Learning appearing in CDC 2023!

[June 13, 2023] I defended my PhD!

[January 2023] Work done on personalized recommendation system during Summer 2022 at Microsoft Research appearing in ICLR 2023!

[January 2023] Fundamental result on a Tabular Robust Reinforcement Learning appearing in AISTATS 2023!

Presence around the web