Pranamika Balaji
Engineering Management Student
Cornell University
Email:
Address:
Ithaca, New York, 14850
Patent No: 201941033454
Education
Jan 2023 - Dec 2023
Jun 2015- May 2019
Cornell University
M.Eng Engineering Management
Course Work: Project and Product Management, Economics, and Finance, Designing New Ventures, Innovation, and Corporate Renew
GPA : 4.1 / 4.0
Anna University, Chennai, India
B.E Electronics and Communication
Course Work: Circuit Theory, Electronic devices, RF and Microwave, Embedded Systems, Computer Architecture, Computer Networks, OOPS, Principles of Management and Entrepreneurship Development
GPA: 3.76 / 4.0
Work Experience
Jan 2024 - Present
Nov 2023 - Jan 2023
Jan 2023 - Jun 2023
Jan 2023 - Dec 2023
Jan 2023 - May 2023
Jul 2022 - Dec 2022
Jul 2019 - Jul 2022
Jul 2017 - Jul 2019
Assistant Vice President, Citi
ï‚·Spearheaded AI initiatives, including the development of a Data Catalog integrated with a chatbot, reducing reporting time by 30%. Collaborated with Citi AI COE on OpenAI API integration and vector databases for an ICG-based Generative AI bot. Designed two organization-wide AI training paths utilized by 100+ technical and business leaders, conducted workshops on Machine Learning, LangChain, RAG, and Vectordatabases concepts, and worked on automating 32 mortgage processes to cut loan closure time by 50%—an ideation-winning effort. Currently leading the AI Info Channel across the organization.
ï‚· Provided strategic insights on team restructuring and future planning, developed a product roadmap, and managed the Splunk dashboard project to enable proactive issue identification and CAP prevention. Currently heading the DCRM initiative, overseeing analysis and coordination to enhance operational efficiency.
ï‚·Defined and executed roadmaps for Python utilities like DCRM and CAMP portals, implemented ML models to predict CPU and space utilization, reducing job failures by 50%, and automated reporting processes to save over 1,000 hours annually. Successfully introduced GitHub Copilot and advanced AI-driven ETL modernization strategies to enhance system capabilities.
ï‚· As a Scrum Master, transitioned team RAG status from amber to green, achieving 90% project delivery success and near 100% capacity utilization. Streamlined Agile adoption across mortgage teams, onboarded 4 additional projects generating 3,000+ hours of work and collaborated with vendors like TCS and IBM to evaluate LLM models and Generative AI use cases.
Course Assistant | Generative AI Cornell University
ï‚·Collaborated with Professor Dirk Swart at Cornell University to design and implement the AI curriculum along with practical exercises for students, with a focus on hands-on experience.
ï‚· Developed five distinct chatbots, including Simple Two-way chatbot, ML-based chatbot using ChatterBot, and OpenAI API-connected chatbots.
ï‚·Explored RAG concepts such as Lang chain and vector databases in the design of chatbots and meticulously documented the implementation process, providing in-depth documentation for each chatbot and set up guidelines for docker.
Co-Founder cum Startup CTO, Akoma
ï‚· Co-founded a start-up that focuses on the development of new fintech software that provides accounting solutions to small to mid-size businesses in Africa, enabling them to gain loans at favorable rates
ï‚· Formulated the company’s visions and goals along with the other co–founders and designed the technological infrastructure and the budget
ï‚· Conceptualized, and prototyped the accounting app and is currently in Phase 3 Development with a projected MVP release date of August 2023
Student Ambassador (Alumni Affairs), Cornell University
ï‚· Developing relationships with prospective alumni, parents, and donors by making at least 75 phone calls per session
ï‚· Procuring an average of $1000 in donations for the college per session (2 hrs) (Sales & Marketing based)
Teaching Assistant, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University
ï‚· Coaching and mentoring students through daily and weekly check-ins, informal assessments, and observations
ï‚· Reviewing and evaluating 50+ assignments per grading period (5 hrs) to assist the professor
Freelancer
ï‚· Product Designer, Scholarship Advisors – Ideated, designed, and created an Agile plan for a 62-screen B2C Ed-tech app consumed by around 3000 customers. Designed and developed a product roadmap for data mining and lead generation using Zoho CRM, Mentor, JPM solutions – Mentored Salesforce students coming from non–IT backgrounds
ï‚· Guest Speaker, Guinness World Record Creating Webinar Series, American College – Delivered seminars under the topics: “Leadership Theories and Styles” and ”Psychological Safety”
ï‚· Team Leader cum Product Manager, Airtel IQ Hackathon – Conceptualized, solutioned, planned and managed a team of 4 and implemented a WhatsApp chatbot that offers a secured seamless service for educational purposes. Out of 10,000 submissions, the developed service was chosen as one of the top 23 solution
Tech Program App Developer, Citicorp Service India Private Ltd., Chennai
ï‚· Managed a team of 4 Salesforce developers on Citi Post MVP projects providing web application support to more than 4000 Citi agents to service North American customers and ensured the team delivered more than 90% in every release
ï‚· Designed, Described, Groomed, and Managed Salesforce Solution Engineering for an Entity migration project for at least 7 Citi Retail partners over 3 phases and spearheaded the development of styling switchable screens for differently abled agents leading to an increased user base
ï‚· Identified, developed, and implemented performance improvement strategies and plans to promote continuous improvement, which includes reengineering API callouts, to reduce the page load time, which saved around $5800 per year for the company by reducing callouts per session by 84%, and developing a CRM Tableau-based performance monitoring application to monitor CPU power consumption, DML execution, Callout timing
ï‚· Synthesized the patent trends of Citi and its fintech competitors by analyzing over 100 patents, determined the area of focus, and devised strategies to improve Citi's Research and Development
Research Assistant, SSN College of Engineering, Chennai
ï‚· Researched Antenna and published 6 research thesis in various reputed International Journals and conferences
ï‚· Spearheaded filtering antenna research budgeted at 100000 INR and filed a patent on Reconfigurable Filtering Antenna (Indian Patent No: 201941033454)
ï‚· Led four distinct research teams in the study of UWB antennas, Filtennas, and Multi-Array Antennas, which are currently being used in studies of cellular radio systems, radar systems, airplanes, unmanned airborne vehicles (UAV) radar, and smart weapon protection
ï‚· Published the top cited article of 2020 -2021 in the International Journal of RF and Microwave Computer-Aided Engineering. Work - “Reconfigurable bow tie-based filtering antenna for cognitive radio applications”
Internships
May 2018 - Jun 2018
Jun 2017- Dec 2017
Web Developer, Nokia Solutions and Networks Pvt. Ltd, Oragadam Developed and maintained dashboards for measuring the output efficiency of RF and Microwave components produced on the floors of the Nokia factory, which was previously done manually, and had hands-on experience on HP Proliant Server
Firmware Developer, Ghost Vision Pvt. Ltd, IIT - Madras, Chennai
Researched, designed, and implemented circuitry powered by NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor and ported Android versions to supplement the hardware part of Augmented Reality Headgear
Skills
Tools & Technologies: Salesforce, Zoho CRM, ALM, Bit Bucket, STS, JIRA, VS Code, MS Office, Figma, Project Libre
Programming Languages: JAVA, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Python (Pandas), R, C++, Embedded C
Core Software: ORCAD, SIMULINK, MATLAB, CTS MS, Arduino IDE, Xilinx, Eagle, Riverbed Modeler, SpringBoot
Others: Agile, Scrum Framework, Wireframe Design, SDLC, Product Road Map, UI/UX Design
Languages: Tamil (Native), English (Fluent), Hindi (Intermediate), Sanskrit (Intermediate) & German (Elementary)
AWARDS
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Recipient of Merit Scholarship and Gold Medal for Academic Excellence (2016), SSN College of Engineering
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Recipient of 5 Citi gratitude awards under the Innovation, Leadership, and Ownership categories for leading innovations in projects and mentoring and tutoring incoming campus grads
ORGANIZATIONS
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Chair, IEEE Communications Society (2017 - 2018) - Revamped the society and organized around 15 – 20 student-driven workshops and events
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Secretary of the Association of Electronics and Communication Engineers (2018 – 2019) - Actively involved in scheduling, budgeting, and organizing inter and intra-college events budgeted at around 1 – 1.5 million INR
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Co–Chair, Innovation Club, Citi Chennai – Led explorative unit and organized tech hackathons and various employee engagement events at the site, each event attended by around 500 participants across the globe
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Member of IEEE (2017 -2019) Society, Tech Club (2016 -2019), Entrepreneurship Development Club (2016)
Publications
1. Reconfigurable bow tie-based filtering antenna for cognitive radio applications
International Journal of RF and Microwave Computer-Aided Engineering, March 4, 2020
2."Design of Combined UWB and MIMO UWB Antenna for Mobile Terminals," 2018 Fourth International Conference on Advances in Electrical, Electronics, Information, Communication and Bioinformatics (AEEICB), Chennai, India, 2018, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/AEEICB.2018.8480973.
3. "Dual-Band Complementary Slot Fed Antenna for RFID Applications," 2019 Fifth International Conference on Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (ICONSTEM), Chennai, India, 2019, pp. 493-496, doi: 10.1109/ICONSTEM.2019.8918791.
4. "Design of a Single Layer Dual Band Reflectarray Antenna," 2018 Fourth International Conference on Advances in Electrical, Electronics, Information, Communication and Bio-Informatics (AEEICB), Chennai, India, 2018, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/AEEICB.2018.8480967.
5. "Design of Combined UWB and MIMO UWB Antenna for Mobile Terminals," 2018 Fourth International Conference on Advances in Electrical, Electronics, Information, Communication and Bio-Informatics (AEEICB), Chennai, India, 2018, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/AEEICB.2018.8480973.
6. Improved Grey Wolf Optimizer for optimal tuning for PID controller in the Quarter Car Suspension System, Journal of Advanced Research in Dynamical and Control Systems, 2018.
