About
i'm a third year penn state cs major working on ai interpretability and alignment research. i was previously an engineer at Beltic, where i worked on KYA (know your agent), developing agent verification standards and infrastructure for the agentic era. outside of research i build websites and games for fun. i'm really into design, color palettes, and the tiny interactions that make an interface feel alive. i also play a lot of chess. i was previously president of ml@psu and helped build vision systems for battle bots.
Publications
Writings
The Pollock Effect
May 13, 2026
A theory about why bad rooms makes good friends
Zero Configuration Infrastructure
February 16, 2026
The issue of agent generality isn’t intelligence. It’s plumbing.
The Era of Personal Software
January 29, 2026
Making my own software is becoming easier than finding the right app.
Year of Intelligence
December 31, 2025
This is a review of 2025, but also my predictions for 2026 and how everything will change. These are my opinions. I'll be wrong on some of them. But I think it's worth putting stakes in the ground.
Experience
nov 2024 - apr 2026
- Working on the problem of agentic identities - building a universal open verifiable standard for all agents
- Creator of @belticlabs/kya package, beltic-cli, and beltic specifications
- Building FACT™ (Federated Agent Certification Token) - the identity and trust layer for AI agents
aug 2024 - oct 2024
- Built an AI chatbot system that can search through thousands of insurance documents and client data using RAG technology
- Set up the complete pipeline from Firebase to Chroma vector database
- Enabled users to chat with the system to find specific client information and documents
- Developed full-stack solution integrating document processing, vector search, and conversational AI
Researcher
PSU NLP Lab
State College, PA
jan 2025 - dec 2025
- Developing LLM-based gene set function discovery system using RAG to predict biological functions from gene lists and recent literature
- Only undergraduate researcher on the team, working under Dr. Rui Zhang on automated database construction for bioinformatics applications
sep 2024 - dec 2025
- Founded and serve as President of ML@PSU, managing 120 active members
- Curated 500+ machine learning resources for club members
- Spearhead speaker series featuring PhD students, professors, and industry professionals
sep 2024 - dec 2024
- Lead a 12-member team, ranked #8 in North America among 25 universities in DJI Robomaster Championships
- Developing autonomous navigation system integrating LiDAR-based SLAM with ROS
- Built multi-object tracking systems using Kalman filters and traditional CV techniques
- Created real-time scoring system using OpenCV
sep 2024 - dec 2024
- Lead weekly machine learning workshops for 20 recurring students
- Cover topics including regression techniques and clustering analysis
- Create interactive presentations using Reveal.js and Quarto
E-Sports Attendant
Penn State Campus Recreation
State College, PA
dec 2023 - present
- Diagnose and resolve hardware/software issues across 50+ PCs and consoles
- Manage inventory of PC parts, consoles, games, and peripherals
- Assist in hiring and training new esports attendants
jul 2024 - aug 2024
- Contributed to CVD detection project using CT scans
- Developed optimized HOG3D algorithm reducing processing time by 75%
- Built 3D CNN classifier for enhanced CVD detection
- Worked with NumPy, SimpleITK, Plotly, and other ML tools
Highlighted Projects
tuck: modern dotfiles manager that tracks, syncs, and applies configs across machines via git
menus: real-time penn state dining hall menus with nutrition and allergen info
research rodeo: interactive graph-based explorer for academic papers, 2nd place at transpose × penn state
vinyl: an alternative web ui for spotify inspired by traditional vinyl records
landsat alphabet: deterministic api that spells text using stitched nasa landsat imagery
kiru: ai voice agent that calls businesses to negotiate bills on your behalf, treehacks 26 sponsor track winner
Archives
Contact
i'm always looking for collaborators interested in interpretability, alignment, and the future of safe ai, or just any interesting or whimsical ideas. reach out to me via email at pranavkarra at psu dot edu
I love movies and try to catch as many as I can in the theater. I spend most of my free time watching movies and track them all on Letterboxd, so you can always see what I've been watching. I also think you can tell a lot about a person based on their favorite movies.
Recently Watched
