Hi, I'm Vikram!

I'm a Computer Science student at the University of Pennsylvania minoring in Mathematics.

I am currently a Software Engineering Intern at Five Rings where I've joined 15 other students in a 9 week intensive program. In the past, I worked at Susquehanna International Group as a Software Engineering Intern on the options market making "Super Quoting" team. I created an iterative stream processor that analyzed billions of quotes we sent each day to stock exchanges, providing live metrics about and finding sources of issues in the quotes, helping the team to rectify issues in quoting algorithms and be alerted to market anomalies. In addition, I've previously worked as a Software Engineer Intern at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in their Force Projection Sector, as well as at Ethar Inc—an AR startup.

At Penn, I spend much of my time with Penn Electric Racing (PER), where I work as an embedded software and electrical hardware engineer, designing the printed circuit boards and writing the embedded software for our team's battery accumulator. I am also a TA for a functional programming and object oriented programming class (CIS120), and the VP of Technology on the Penn Engineering Council. In my free time, I've always loved applying computer science and electronics to create projects that intersect with my hobbies, from programming and building a satellite based aircraft radar, to making a website that generates jazz improvisations over songs.

Besides engineering, my hobbies include performing jazz music (I play the Double Bass and Bass Guitar), playing tennis, Formula 1 racing, and aviation. In addition, I'm interested in foreign languages such as Tamil and Spanish, as well as reading about history.

Highlights

A few of my milestones over the past few years

SWE Internship @ Five Rings

Currently in progress!

SWE Internship @ SIG

I created an iterative stream processor in C# that processed billions of quotes going to stock exchanges each day and published a UDP multicast feed of live metrics and sources of issues found in quotes.

SWE Internship @ JHU Applied Physics Lab

I created an anomaly detection & behavior prediction software with C++, supported front end data visualization in Typescript, and algorithm testing with MATLAB.

Computer Science @ UPenn, Tau Beta Pi Honor Society, Eta Kappa Nu Honor Society,

I was selected to the Tau Beta Pi and IEEE HKN Engineering Honor Societies as part of the top 12.5% of my class at the University of Pennsylvania. I scored a 36/36 on my ACT and enrolled at UPenn where I hold a 4.0/4.0 GPA.

Penn Electric Racing

I led the embedded software development and electrical design of a cell balancing and monitoring printed circuit board (PCB) for a 112-cell battery accumulator.

Teaching Assistant @ UPenn

I hold weekly office hours, teach weekly recitations, graded assignments, and answered piazza questions for UPenn's functional/object-oriented programming class (OCaml, Java).

Portfolio

Please see GitHub links for code, and detailed writeups on projects

2023

April, 2023

Topics: C++14, Chord Protocol, Networking, Pthreads Concurrency Library, Distributed Hash Tables
  • GitHub
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  • Video Demo
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    P2P File Searching System (Chord DHT Protocol)

    • This application allows users to join a network of hosts that share documents between each other. Enabled by the Chord Distributed Hash Table Protocol, users are provided with a document search engine which efficiently searches the network to fulfill requests.
    • The project was inspired by P2P file sharing systems like Napster and Gnutella. The application uses the Pthreads library to implement multithreading, and has custom serialization, buffering, transmit, and receive methods to deliver data within the Chord network.

    2022

    December, 2022

    Topics: Operating Systems, C, Linux Programming, Multithreading, ucontext library, File Systems

    PennOS: A Unix-Like Operating System

    • PennOS is a Unix-like operating system written in C that runs on top of Linux. It includes PennShell, a shell with many provided built-ins for for redirection, piping, process creation and management, and file system access.
    • PennOS additionally includes a kernel that provides a partial implementation of the POSIX API, using the ucontext library to provide multithreading capabilities to users. In addition, a FAT filesystem is available, with a user-level API for creating files/executables, managing permissions, renaming/moving files, etc.

    May, 2022

    Topics: Full Stack Dev, AWS Lambda, AWS EC2, Node.js, Express.js, MongoDB
  • GitHub
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  • Youtube
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  • Website

    • Jazz Improvisation Bot

    • The website allows the user to create a set of chords changes and save the composition to their account. Then, with access to parameters like probability of chord substitutions and rests, a user can run the improvisation bot on their composition and see what melodies it generates
    • AWS Lambda was used for the improvisation generation algorithm, and the website is hosted on an AWS EC2 instance. Access the website here.  And see youtube video demonstration here.

    March-April, 2022

    Topics: Embedded Systems, C programming, AVR Microcontrollers, Computer Vision (Python/OpenCV)
  • GitHub
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  • Youtube

    • Projectile Locating and Aiming Turret (SPLAT)

    • Inspired by real missile defense systems, we employed a computer vision based approach to projectile tracking, using a laser mounted on a servo-motor controlled turret to "engage" projectiles.
    • Includes an LCD radar display, and remote command website to monitor turret metrics and control operation.

    September, 2021-June, 2022

    Topics: Embedded Systems, C++, STM32 Microcontroller, Altium PCB Design, Communication Protocols (isoSPI)
  • Website
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    Accumulator Management System - Substack Monitoring PCB

    • Led the design of a cell balancing and monitoring printed circuit board (PCB) for a 112-cell battery accumulator.
    • Programmed STM32 microcontrollers to communicate with a chain of 8 monitoring boards, perform real-time data collection, and implement data validation and error checking.


    2021

    November-December, 2021

    Topics: Data Science, Machine Learning, Python
  • GitHub
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  • Medium

    • Modeling FIFA Players' Transfer Value

    • Inspired by recent suspicions of fraud in the valuation of players in international soccer trades, we explored FIFA datasets over 5 years.
    • Performed EDA on trends related to the wages and skills of players across leagues, before subsequently creating different models (Random Forest, Regressions, etc) to predict a player's transfer value based on a set of chosen attributes.

    September, 2021

    Topics: Full Stack Dev, Python Flask, HTML5/CSS3/JS, SQLite
  • GitHub
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  • Youtube

    • Penn Course Swap

    • PennApps '21 Hackathon Submission. List the courses you want to enroll in but are unable to, and the ones you are in but are willing to drop.
    • The software uses chronological priority to find potential matches for you to swap courses with to get your classes!


    2020

    December, 2020-January, 2021

    Topics: AI, Concurrency, Networking, Java, Java Swing GUI
  • GitHub
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    Connect-4-AI and Multithreaded Server

    • Created a minimax based Connect-4 AI and used Java Swing to create a MVC based GUI for users to play against the AI.
    • Designed a custom multithreaded TCP accounts server that communicates with the client-facing game application.

    July-August 2020

    Topics: Java, C++/ArduinoIDE, Atmega328p Microcontroller, Electronic Circuits
  • GitHub
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    Satellite-Based Flight Radar

    • Given the 2020 FAA mandate of ADS-B transponders in most U.S. aircraft, I designed a flight radar system that uses ADS-B satellite data to display live information about aircraft near me
    • Consists of data retrieval software (Java), as well hardware display with stepper-actuated gauges, I2C LCD display, and buttons controlled by two Atmega328p microcontrollers (C++/ArduinoIDE).