Rutgers Honors College · Computer Science & Data Science
I build software and machine learning systems. At Rutgers CAIT I'm building data tools for TransitTwin, a simulation platform for NJ TRANSIT capital projects.
Career tracks
- Software Engineering
- ML / AI
About
A little background
I'm a sophomore in the Rutgers Honors College, double majoring in Computer Science and Data Science. I'm most interested in software engineering and ML/AI.
Through the Aresty program at Rutgers CAIT, I work with Prof. Xiang Liu on TransitTwin, a simulation platform for proposed NJ TRANSIT capital projects. I'm also building CityLab with a team in the CS3 accelerator run by Columbia, supervised at Rutgers by Prof. Jorge Ortiz, and taking part in Columbia I-Corps.
Outside of research, I cofounded Health Decoded and run its technology, and I'm the student community manager at the Coding and Social Lounge, where I tutor and run events.
Experience
What I'm working on
Research & Work
Aresty Research Assistant
Rutgers CAIT (Center for Advanced Infrastructure & Transportation)
Sept 2026–April 2027
- Working on AI for Safe and Intelligent Transportation Systems under Prof. Xiang Liu.
- Contributing to TransitTwin, a simulation platform for proposed NJ TRANSIT capital projects.
- Turn the team's rail analyses into repeatable Python (pandas) tools and bring the outputs into TransitTwin through GitLab.
CS3 Accelerator
Columbia University + Rutgers University
Present
- Building CityLab with a team in the accelerator run by Columbia through the NSF Engineering Research Center for Smart Streetscapes (CS3).
- Supervised at Rutgers by Prof. Jorge Ortiz.
- Also participating in Columbia I-Corps.
CityOS
Rutgers WINLAB (Wireless Information Network Lab)
May 2026–Aug 2026
- Worked on a privacy-preserving smart-city pipeline.
- Built a CARLA simulation workflow with an LLM-driven interaction loop.
- Developed FAISS/RAG pipelines and synthetic trace generation.
Student Community Manager
CSL (Coding and Social Lounge)
Aug 2026–Present
- Peer tutoring for CS 111 through 211.
- Run events like Jeopardy nights.
- Handle social media and community engagement.
Projects
Paris Compass
github.com/RyanPurakal/pariscompass- Climate analytics app built with Spring Boot, React, and Gemini.
- Finished full-stack application, expanded from the original HackRU hackathon version.
AI Clubs & Events Agent
Rutgers University Life
- Discord bot that recommends Rutgers clubs and events to students.
- FAISS-based search, cron scheduling, and slash commands.
Leadership & Community
Cofounder & Technology Director
Health DecodedDay-of Committee Member
HackRU
Treasurer
RUMAD (Rutgers Mobile App Development)
Outreach Chair
USACS (Undergraduate Student Alliance of Computer Scientists)
Contact
Open to
opportunities.
I'm building toward roles in software engineering and ML/AI. If you're working in one of those areas, or on transportation systems, I'd like to hear about it.