Ian Krishanu Hajra

Hi there! đź‘‹

My name is Ian Hajra and I am a 21-year-old senior at Brown University studying Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, seeking a full-time Software Engineering role. I am experienced in systems programming, computer security and cryptography, and machine learning. I am driven to build impactful, high-performance software.

I love to

Experience

Research Assistant

Brown University - Randall Balestriero Laboratory
Jun 2025 - Present

Studying theoretical and practical advances in Self-Supervised Learning, providing guidance to the broader community. Developing novel empirical approaches to study LLM performance over unstructured datasets.

Software Engineer Intern

Black Hills Information Security
Jun 2025 - Sep 2025

Developed an internal online password guessing tool used by testers. This tool uses a character-based transformer and a custom model trained on known leaked passwords to outperform existing tools in live penetration testing scenarios. Improved an internal threat detection system, utilizing Nessus, Ansible, and Terraform to automatically detect vulnerabilities found on client systems. Improved consistency and reliability of findings.

Teaching Assistant

Brown University Department of Computer Science
Aug 2024 - May 2025

CSCI 1515 (Applied Cryptography): Updated projects on 2FA Voting Systems, Private Information Retrieval, Yao's Garbled Circuits, and Signal Protocol; guided students through cryptographic theory and implementation.

CSCI 0330 (Introduction to Computer Systems): Enhanced course materials including concurrency labs and malloc/free/realloc implementations; provided office hours support for systems programming concepts.

Held regular office hours to provide guidance, clarify concepts, and foster a supportive learning environment.

Product Development Team Member

InfoReady Corporation
Jun 2024 - May 2025

Conducted manual regression testing and new feature testing. Launched project to redesign the company-wide architecture of regression testing, improving efficiency, accuracy, and scalability. Improved companywide automation of tasks, boosting productivity and effectiveness of workers.

Musician

Self-Employed, Southeast Michigan
Mar 2019 - Aug 2025

Hired to perform at local and community events as a jazz pianist and organist, often as bandleader.

Projects

Over the last few years, I have completed a number of school projects. These include the implementation of an Operating System in C, a custom IP-TCP stack in Rust, and many more. I have also been working to publish my current research efforts. See below for work that I have recently submitted!

Publications

Relational Representation Learning
L Maes, IK Hajra, A Batra, HV Assel, D Scieur, R Balestriero, NeurIPS 2025, UniReps Workshop

  • Provided a unified framework casting representation learning as graph estimation, demonstrating that self-supervised, semi-supervised, and supervised learning emerge as special cases of this formalism.
  • Provided theoretical insights into convergence behavior and performance gaps in modern pretraining methods.

Education

Brown University

Sc. B. Applied Mathematics - Computer Science Honors Candidate (CS GPA: 4.0/4.0)
Sep 2022 - Present (Expected Graduation May 2026)

Graduate Courses:

  • CSCI 2670: Operating Systems

Undergraduate Courses:

  • CSCI 1970: Honors Thesis
  • CSCI 1805: Computers, Freedom, and Privacy
  • CSCI 1680: Computer Networks
  • CSCI 1640: AI and Security
  • CSCI 1570: Design and Analysis of Algorithms
  • CSCI 1520: Algorithmic Aspects of Machine Learning
  • CSCI 1515: Applied Cryptography
  • CSCI 0330: Introduction to Computer Systems
  • CSCI 0200: Program Design with Data Structures and Algorithms
  • CSCI 0150: Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming and Computer Science
  • MATH 1530: Abstract Algebra
  • MATH 0350: Multivariable Calculus with Theory
  • MATH 0520: Linear Algebra
  • APMA 1200: Operations Research: Probabilistic Modeling
  • APMA 1170: Computational Linear Algebra
  • APMA 0360: Applied Partial Differential Equations
  • APMA 0350: Applied Ordinary Differential Equations
  • APMA 1650: Statistical Inference I
  • ENGN 0030: Introduction to Engineering

Pioneer High School

Concurrently Enrolled High School, Graduated with Honors (GPA: 3.99/4.0)
Sep 2018 - May 2022

AP Courses:

  • AP Calculus BC
  • AP Computer Science A
  • AP Macroeconomics
  • AP Microeconomics
  • AP Government
  • AP United States History

Community High School

Concurrently Enrolled High School
Sep 2018 - May 2022