About
My name is Rachith Aiyappa
I am a fourth-year Ph.D. student majoring in Informatics (Complex Networks and Systems track) with a minor in Computer Science at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington. Not so long ago, this seemed like a distant dream.
My current research broadly encompasses belief networks, social information diffusion, and natural language processing. Some of my ongoing projects include (see also papers),
- Extracting belief networks from social media data
- Large Language Models and Stance Detection | arxiv
- Large Language Models and Social Surveys
- Belief Embeddings
In the recent past, I've worked on
- Modelling human belief networks and social contagion with the super cool Drs. Alessandro Flammini and YY Ahn | arxiv, forthcoming in Science Advances
- Identifying and characterizing superspreaders of information on Twitter with the Networks and Agents Network (NaN) and OsoMe teams led by Dr. Filippo Menczer | arxiv
- Trusting the evaluation of Large Language Models | TrustNLP
- Graph Compression (read embeddings) with Dr. Filippo Radicchi and applying this to the science of science.
- Some bit of machine learning to identify influential nodes in networks.
Between August and December 2020, I was a Teaching Fellow in the Physics Department at Ashoka University, India where I helped run a foundational course called Principles of Science which I deeply believe in. Teaching is indeed therapeutic!
In July 2019, I graduated with a dual degree, a B.E (Hons.) in Mechanical Engineering and an M.Sc.(Hons.) in Physics from Birla Institute of Technology and Science - Pilani, India.
During the 5 years it took me to earn this dual degree, I have enjoyed rains on Marine Drive (Mumbai, India) while interning at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (Pune, India), jumped off a cliff into the Mediterranean whilst a Charpak Summer Research Scholar at Collective Animal Behaviour lab (University of Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France), cherished mum's company during my Bachelor Thesis at the Theoretical Ecology and Evolution lab at Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore, India) and experienced a massive culture shock (I'm looking at you, mashed potatoes) during my Master Thesis at Institute of Theoretical Biology at Humboldt University (Berlin, Germany).
Just to reiterate, yes I have a degree in Physics and Mechanical Engineering :P
I like physics but I love tennis. Been playing the sport since I was as tall as the racquet! Simpler times!
Actually, I like and do lots of other things. More on that to follow...
Long story short, happy times these! :)