Viraj Mehta Email & Phone Number

I recently completed a Ph.D. at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University advised by Jeff Schneider. As a researcher, I am broadly interested in reinforcement learning, generative models, and dynamical systems. In particular I work on solving control problems in science with machine learning in regimes where the data-generating process is expensive. Much of my work is motivated by the problem of plasma control for nuclear fusion; the various difficulties we face there frequently inspire more general machine learning problems we can solve as computer scientists. More recently, I've applied similar techniques to improve the efficiency of the alignment of language models.Prior to my time at CMU, I spent time at KKR helping jumpstart their efforts with alternative data and analytics and at Hum Capital (formerly Capital Technologies) doing initial work on automating parts of capital allocation in private finance.I completed a B.S. in Mathematics and an M.S. in Computer Science at Stanford University, where I conducted research on 3D vision and robot learning.I’m from Austin, Texas, live in NYC, and bounce around between there, the Bay Area, and Tahoe. Outside of work, I spend my time flying airplanes, lifting weights, reading, and skiing.

Listed skills include Leadership, Public Speaking, Teamwork, Java, and 6 others.