My name is Raj Bapat, I am a student and researcher at UCSD passionate about AI, Systems and Databases!

class RajBapat
{
private:
    short int age = 20;
public:
    long long int yearsOfCompetitiveProgrammingInCPP = 8;
    std::string collegeName = "UCSD";
    double collegeGPA = 4.0;

    std::vector<std::string> experiences =
        { "SWE Intern at TikTok", "NSF Undergraduate Researcher at UC Davis", "Research Intern at Stanford University" }
    std::vector<std::string> traits =
        { "AI/ML", "Data", "Information Retrieval", "Systems", "SIMD" };
    std::vector<std::string> hobbies =
        { "Community Organizer", "Competitive Programming", "US Squash"};
};

I got hooked on programming when I was 12 years old, in just a few weeks, C++ felt like my second language. I got to the top 20 in my grade nationally in USA Computing Olympiad and even surprised myself having placed 6th in the nation in Virginia Tech High School Programming Contest! I have been in competitive programming contests for the last 8 years, this year as team captain and coach for my college's ICPC team.

My passion for algorithms skyrocked after my happenchance conversation with the Professor Donald Knuth (at a Diwali party!) and has now morphed into delving (and going beyond) the depths of more CS/Math/EE fields from AI/ML & Data Mining to SIMD/AVX intrinsics-based acceleration for Molecular Computing.

• 📋 Currently, I am working as:
  • a SWE Intern at TikTok Inc. building Machine Learning systems for content moderation.
• 📋 Previously, I was working as:
  • an NSF Undergraduate Researcher in the Molecular Computing Lab at UC Davis
  • a researcher in AI/ML, Approx. Nearest Neightbour Search in SQL Databases
  • a Research Intern in OVAL Virtual Assistant Lab at Stanford University
  • an SWE Intern in Nutanix

📋 Here is some code that you will find useful for your projects:

• C++ implementation library for 16 advanced algorithms for Competitive Programming
• Real-time sentiment classification using Google Cloud in my research on AI Augmented Mind
• Hardware-accelerated SIMD/AVX implementation of Smith Waterman DNA matching algorithm and test cases
• A PostgreSQL vector search RDBMS benchmark for performance and recall analysis of SQL queries with Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search
• Hardware-accelerated SIMD/AVX integrated into Nucliec Acid Designer open source tool

I love to go deep in a new field where we can contribute to furthering our understanding of a field or a method that helps accelerate the pursuit of future research. I am sharing two such areas, one in the intersection of bioinformatics and hardware accelerators, and the other in the area of Databases & Information Retrieval.

• Using SIMD to accelerate DNA Design, Raj Bapat, David Doty.
• A Benchmark and an Evaluation for SQL Queries with k-Nearest Neighbor Search, Raj Bapat

I am also passionate about building communities through programming competitions and programming clubs, having created two annual regional competitions that I founded in two communities (SF Bay Area and Davis). I am proud to have both competitions continuing to thrive, engaging 1000s of students already, the high school competition had its 4th year and the university competition had its 2nd year.

• Co-founded the first Davis community competitive programming contest in 2023 sponsored by UC Davis CS Department faculty under the guidance of Slobodan Mitrovi ́c, Assistant Professor in CS. Now in its 2d year
• Co-founded the first SF Bay Area community programming contest in 2021. I created this as a joint contest between two bay area high schools (Paly & Gunn) to engage students during the pandemic. Now in its 4th year