Nikhil Chandrashekar

CS & Finance @ UCF | AI/ML Research | TA for Data Structures & Algorithms | Treasurer of AI@UCF

Jacksonville, Florida, United States

About

I’m a Computer Science and Finance student at the University of Central Florida focused on building systems that drive smarter, high-impact decisions. I’m currently involved in AI-focused research, working on evaluating and improving how modern models reason and perform. Alongside that, I’m building projects centered around predictive systems and decision modeling especially where data, uncertainty, and real world outcomes intersect. My main interest lies at the intersection of technology and finance. I’m drawn to problems where intelligent systems can influence financial decisions, optimize strategies, and create measurable advantage. I’m actively developing strong foundations in algorithms, system thinking, and quantitative problem solving while positioning myself for opportunities in AI, software engineering, and fintech-focused roles. I’m open to new opportunities where I can contribute to building systems that operate at the intersection of intelligence and capital.

Experience

  • Treasurer at AI@UCF
    Jun 2026 - Present · 2 mos

  • University of Central Florida (6 mos)
    • Undergraduate Learning Assistant
      May 2026 - Present · 3 mos

      - Lead weekly lab sessions and office hours for a Data Structures and Algorithms course taught in C - Reinforce core concepts including dynamic memory, pointers, trees, graphs, sorting, and runtime analysis

    • Undergraduate Research Assistant
      Feb 2026 - Present · 6 mos

      - Contribute to research involving Large Language Models (LLMs) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) with focus on model evaluation and language understanding. - Annotate and evaluate LLM outputs on belief extraction tasks across multi-level narrative datasets, applying semantic equivalence matching rules to measure model reasoning accuracy - Develop dataset preparation and annotation pipelines in Python to systematically correct ground-truth labels across thousands of story-belief pairs - Analyze model output distributions and failure modes using Hugging Face Transformers across architectures including Qwen, Gemma, and SmolLM to inform fine-tuning decisions

  • Team Member at Tropical Smoothie Cafe
    Feb 2024 - Aug 2024 · 7 mos

  • Summer Internship at Gulani Vision Institute
    Jul 2023 - Jul 2023 · 1 mo

    Under the supervision of Dr. Gulani, effectively demonstrated learnt on-site knowledge through writing a E-Book on the various medical conditions observed. Other skills preformed such as: -Shadowing patient consultations -Interacting with patients to gain insight into their vision conditions -Active listening -Reviewed patient case files for research

  • Summer Intern at Gulani Family Care
    Jul 2023 - Jul 2023 · 1 mo

    Preformed a variety of forms of work to get an inside view of a doctors office. Skills such as: -Active communication with patients -Scanning for patients vitals( Blood pressure, temperature, height, weight) -Interacting with the offices’ application for patient information inputting. -Partaking in front desk duties