Sai Krishna

Uniphore | Ex-Microsoft | Research Assistant LLMs/LLMOps | AI/ML/GenAI @Novelis | CS Grad @UIUC | Ex- VerSe(Josh, Dailyhunt)

Urbana, Illinois, United States

About

Machine Learning Engineer with ~4 years of experience in NLP, Generative AI, and Computer Vision. UIUC graduate (4.0 GPA), working with Profs. Gokhan Tur, Dilek Hakkani-Tur & Suma Bhat on LLM healthcare agents, function-calling systems, and large-scale multi-GPU training with Accelerate + FSDP. At Microsoft, enhanced multi-turn conversational AI with GPT-4 & SLMs, optimized intent detection with CoT prompting, and improved Azure AI Search retrieval-boosting F1 and reducing latency. Prior work at Novelis applying GANs and GenAI to SEM image segmentation & alloy optimization; and at VerSe Innovation scaling CV + retrieval systems for 200M+ users using Vision Transformers, Neo4j, and video captioning. Strong MLOps and research background; experienced in building robust RAG, RLHF, and multi-modal AI systems. Tech Stack: Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, LangChain, FSDP, Docker, AWS, GCP, RAG, LLMOps. Actively seeking collaborations in responsible AI and real-world ML. Reach out: [email protected]

Experience

  • AI Scientist at Uniphore
    Jul 2025 - Present · 1 yr

  • Generative AI Intern at Microsoft
    Jan 2025 - Jun 2025 · 6 mos

    Developed advanced multi-turn, multi-intent conversational AI Agents beyond Azure CLU using GPT-4 and fine-tuned Phi-3.5 Mini models for intent detection and entity recognition. Built synthetic data pipelines , improved F1 score by 18% while reducing latency. reducing SGD error rates below 3% and enhancing RAG-based enterprise response systems.

  • Research Assistant at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
    Sep 2023 - Dec 2024 · 1 yr 4 mos

    Restructured dialogue state data and fine-tuned LLMs for function-calling agents in task-oriented dialogues for conversational AI, under the mentorship of Professors Gokhan Tur and Dilek Hakkani-Tur. Enhanced patient note grading capabilities using Chain-of-Thought and React techniques guided by Professor Suma Bhat. Leveraged Reinforcement Learning within REALM frameworks for question-answering tasks, optimized LLM training speed with DeepSpeed, Accelerate, and FSDP, and conducted extensive experiments on PEFT-based fine-tuning for NLU tasks. Developed RAG solutions for medical note grading and explored training efficiencies using Direct Preference Optimization.

  • A.I Machine Learning intern at Novelis
    May 2024 - Oct 2024 · 6 mos

    Led image segmentation on microstructural alloy SEM images using UNet and applied Generative AI in materials science to train GAN models with segmented images. Fine-tuned Llama3 for structuring alloy production data, enhancing data usability and analysis, and collaborated with cross-functional teams to streamline data collection from non-technical personnel.

  • Lead Graduate ML Research Engineer at Carle Illinois College of Medicine
    Sep 2023 - Jan 2024 · 5 mos

    ➣ Presented this work at the 7th AI and Health Summit, Chicago. Developed CNNs to differentiate cognitively normal from those with dementia using fMRI scans, achieving 96% accuracy. ➣ Enhanced MRI data accuracy through advanced pre-processing techniques like registration and segmentation, and streamlined data storage and model training on AWS using pyspark and CI/CD pipelines