Akhil Premkumar

Physics × Generative AI

Education

Ph.D. in Physics
University of California San Diego
2022 · Advisor: Daniel Green
M.Sc in Physics
Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay
2017 · Advisor: Pradeep Sarin

Work Experience

Postdoctoral Associate
Department of Applied Physics, Yale University
2025–Present
Associate Fellow
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago
2022–2025 · Independent research on cosmology. Pivoted to ML.
Graduate Teaching Assistant
University of California San Diego
2017–2022 · Teaching assistant for undergraduate and graduate courses in Classical Mechanics, Electromagnetism, Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, Fluids, and Optics/Waves.
Systems Software Engineer
Hewlett-Packard
2011–2014 · Software for image-processing pipelines; core contributor to an internal high-speed, high-precision scanner system.

Honors & Awards

2025 · NeurIPS Spotlight — Sole-authored paper Neural Entropy selected for a spotlight presentation.
2023 · Chancellor’s Dissertation Medal — UC San Diego, School of Physical Sciences.
2017 · Institute Silver Medal (IIT Bombay) — Graduated summa cum laude.
2017 · R.P. Singh Memorial Award — Outstanding academic performance, Department of Physics, IIT Bombay.