Researcher Spotlight: Akash Kundu

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This is the first of our Researcher Spotlights: which will shine a light on the global community behind Apart Research. We have so many incredible and talented researchers at Apart Research, and this series will help you to get to know them a little better. First up we have Akash Kundu, Apart Research's Lab Fellow.
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So, tell us a bit about yourself, Akash!

"Hi, I am Akash Kundu, a pre-final year CS undergrad from Kolkata, India. I have had the opportunity to work at Apart Research as a research fellow working on refining my research sprint ideas to research papers. When I'm not working you'll find me singing, beatboxing, and playing the guitar."
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How did you first hear about Apart Research?

"I first heard about Apart in 2023 through my friend Jord, who’s also an Apart Fellow. He asked me if I’d like to join him for the model evaluations hackathon, organized with Apollo Research. Jason [Apart's Co-Director] helped guide us as a mentor during the hackathon, providing support to keep us on track."

"We ended up finishing as second runners-up and were invited to join the Apart Lab as fellows to refine our idea into a conference research paper. Since then, I’ve participated in several sprints and have been working with Apart ever since."
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How many Apart Research Sprints have you completed so far?

"To be honest, I’ve lost count! Since November 2023, I’ve registered for almost 80% of the sprints that took place. I really enjoy spending the weekends hacking away and building cool projects. My most recent work was during the Concordia Hackathon where our "cooperative" agent finished first on the final leaderboard."

"I’ve had a great time participating in these sprints, meeting new teammates who’ve become meaningful connections. The office hours gave us guidance when we got stuck and helping us steer our ideas in the right direction. I highly recommend participating in these sprints; they’re a great way to learn, meet new people, and get feedback from experts on your ideas."
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Now you've been writing academic papers with Apart?​

"Yes! Thanks to Apart, I’ve been involved in writing a few research papers. The cross-lingual project from November evolved into a study where we examined why low-resource languages tend to jailbreak LLMs, and we worked on predicting the causality of these jailbreaks. Another ongoing project is based on the Dark Patterns work."
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Is your future plan to stay in AI Safety technical work?

"I’m still figuring things out! I plan to get involved with impactful Alignment research and aim to significantly contribute to aligning AI systems. I’m not entirely sure what the right path forward is yet—I might go for a PhD or continue researching independently on important problems."

"I’m confident that Apart would support me whenever needed. Right now, I’m trying to get into research programs like MATS and LASR Labs. I’m pretty flexible about my future plans and open to finding the right path as I go along."