ml engineering · data science · lehigh university

Koushik
Vennalakanti

I build ML systems that notice when the world changes — drift-aware credit models, leakage-proof pipelines, and experiments that reach a verdict instead of a p-value.

Open to summer 2026 internships · full-time from Jan 2027

ms_data_science
3.94 / 4.0
graduates
Dec 2026
services_deployed
9
mc_trajectories
100,000

Selected work

every number below traces to committed code or the résumé

Five public repositories and two private ones. Where a project runs on simulated data, the card says so — simulation is how you grade an estimator against a known ground truth, and hiding it would defeat the point.

Showing all 7 projects

How I build

Four habits that show up in every repository above, each one visible in the source.

No look-ahead, ever

Time-ordered test splits. Macro data joined under a one-month publication lag, so a February loan only sees January's release. Backtest features computed from expanding statistics shifted one row, so week t never sees week t. Leakage is the quietest way an ML system lies, and it gets designed out at the data layer rather than caught in review.

fred_macro_pipeline.py · feature_calculator.py

Beat the null before believing the model

Every strategy is scored against a 100,000-trajectory Monte Carlo null and four naive baselines. Every A/B estimator is validated on telemetry with a planted, known effect. A result that cannot outperform its own luck is not a result.

monte_carlo.py · data/generate.py

Config in, components out

New models, features and metrics plug in as subclasses resolved by dotted import path from JSON, type-checked against their abstract base before any data loads. The orchestrator has not changed since the second component was added.

dynamic_loading.py · config_validator.py

Simulated data says so, on every row

The analytics pipeline stamps a source flag on each extended record so downstream charts always know real from resampled. The experimentation suite's generator exists precisely so estimators can be graded against ground truth. Simulation is a validation tool, not something to pass off as production scale.

data_extension.py

Experience

as_of 2026-09
Sep 2025 — Present
Bethlehem, PA

Research Assistant, Machine Learning Engineering

Lehigh University

  • Architected a config-driven ML pipeline with 16 modular components across 2,100+ lines, using abstract base classes and runtime resolution via importlib so new extractors, models and metrics plug in through JSON config without touching orchestration code.
  • Built a time-series-aware training harness retraining classifiers on rolling windows across 30+ years of daily data, searching 1,500+ hyperparameter combinations per fold, with causal feature construction and strict temporal splits to eliminate leakage.
  • Developed an evaluation framework computing 30+ metrics with 100,000-iteration Monte Carlo simulation, four baseline models, and KS, chi-square and Wald-Wolfowitz significance testing.

The code behind this role is public. Line count, baseline classes, Monte Carlo iterations and all three statistical tests check out against the source.

Jul 2023 — Feb 2024
India

Data Science Intern

CASHe — fintech / digital lending

  • Built a hybrid company-search system pairing TF-IDF n-gram fuzzy matching for known entities with GPT-based semantic resolution for unseen names, improving search accuracy by 35%.
  • Enriched 500K+ customer location records via the Google Maps API and applied geo-clustering to surface spatial demand patterns across 12 metro regions.
  • Engineered cluster membership as a predictive feature in the loan propensity model, strengthening regional risk differentiation and improving downstream AUC.
Jun 2025 — Dec 2026
Bethlehem, PA

M.S. Data Science

Lehigh University · GPA 3.94 / 4.0

Aug 2020 — Jul 2024
India

B.E. Mechanical Engineering, Minor in Data Science

Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani · GPA 3.5 / 4.0

Toolkit

things I would defend in an interview
languages
Python · SQL · R · C++
ml_modeling
PyTorch · scikit-learn · XGBoost · LightGBM · SHAP · pandas · NumPy · SciPy · HuggingFace
llms_genai
GPT-4o-mini · Mistral-7B · Diffusion Transformers · RAG · LangChain · LangGraph · ChromaDB · FAISS · LoRA · LLM evaluation
infrastructure
FastAPI · Docker · Kafka · Redis · PostgreSQL · MLflow · Prometheus · Grafana · Streamlit · AWS (S3, EC2) · Git · CI/CD
statistics
Causal measurement · CUPED · bootstrap intervals · Monte Carlo · hypothesis testing · drift detection · Bayesian inference