- Izabela Shubair
When Pratham Gupta arrived at the University of Toronto this summer, he wasn’t just travelling thousands of kilometres from India — he was taking the next step toward his future. Across campus, fellow students from India, Rajul Mahawar, Shrinivas Anavekar, Ananya Chittlangia and Geetansh Bansal were doing the same.
Each student joined a U of T research lab to spend the summer tackling complex challenges in artificial intelligence and computing as part of the inaugural Globalink-funded cohort in the Undergraduate Summer Research Program (UGSRP).
The students from various universities in India are participating through the Fields-Mitacs Summer Research Program. A new collaboration between Mitacs, the Fields Institute and U of T’s Department of Computer Science, the initiative aims to strengthen research ties between Canada and India’s leading universities while creating new opportunities for undergraduate research and international collaboration.
“Through collaborations like this, promising students gain hands-on experience working alongside leading faculty while discovering pathways for future graduate study,” says Eyal de Lara, professor and chair, Department of Computer Science, U of T.
Shared goals
Although they come from different institutions across India, the students in the inaugural cohort arrived with similar goals: to deepen their research capabilities, learn from faculty and discover what a future in graduate research might look like.
For Gupta, whose interests span mathematics, robotics and computer science, the program offered an opportunity to pursue a project that combined theory with practical research.
“It’s not just math on paper; it involves a lot of simulation programming, and I hope to take back with me a lot of learning and connections from the project,” says Gupta, a Bachelor of Technology in Mathematics and Computer student at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru. “I also want to apply for PhD or Master’s positions, and U of T is one of my top choices. So, this was the perfect way to bring all that together.”
Gupta’s fellow IISc Bachelor of Technology peer, Mahawar, was drawn by the opportunity to collaborate with researchers whose machine learning interests aligned with hers. Anavekar, meanwhile, saw the internship as a chance to learn from experts with decades of experience while pursuing research in a new country.
“I had less practical experience, so I saw this as a way to learn from people with over 20 years in the field while experiencing life abroad,” says Anavekar, a Bachelor of Technology student at SRM Institute of Science and Technology in Kattankulathur, near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. “It makes me really happy to be part of the first batch to participate in such enlightening work, and exchange ideas with our peers here.”
Bansal, who is pursuing a Bachelor of Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, says his background was primarily industry-focused. He hoped the program would provide valuable research experience and help shape his future graduate studies.
Exploring the future of computing
Together, the students are contributing to projects spanning several areas of computer science, including artificial intelligence, computer vision, computational imaging, privacy-preserving technologies and systems that support modern computing.
Mahawar is working with Associate Professor Nisarg Shah on a project titled Democratic Opinion Summarization via Large Language Models. The research explores how large language models can better summarize thousands of public opinions while fairly representing different viewpoints. The work could help organizations quickly understand large-scale public feedback.
“Instead of reading 10,000 comments, governments could have summaries that accurately represent what people are saying,” she explains. “It’s a very useful tool for agencies conducting surveys.”
While Mahawar’s work focuses on helping AI better understand people, Gupta is helping computers better understand the physical world.
He is part of Assistant Professor David Lindell’s project A General Framework for Unbiased Inverse Rendering from Computational Sensors. This research combines computational imaging techniques with physics-based simulations to create accurate 3D representations from sensor data. Potential applications include robotics, autonomous systems and virtual reality.
Two students are tackling different aspects of AI infrastructure in Associate Professor Maryam Mehri Dehnavi’s lab. Through the project High-Performance GPU Kernel Design for AI workloads, Anavekar is exploring ways to make AI workloads run more efficiently on next-generation graphics processing units (GPUs).
Bansal, working on the project Designing Specialized Compressed Models for Efficient Training and Inference, is investigating how to build smaller, more efficient language models that require less computing power without sacrificing performance. He says he hopes his research will contribute to making powerful AI technologies more practical and accessible.
“AI is moving so fast, so this was an exciting project to be a part of,” Bansal says. “I’ve gained new research ideas by working in an area I hadn’t explored before.”
Lastly, Chittlangia, also of SRM Institute of Science and Technology, is working with Assistant Professor Nandita Vijaykumar on the project Improving performance of Zero-Knowledge proof applications based on zkVMs. It aims to improve the performance of privacy-preserving cryptographic technologies with applications such as authentication, blockchain and verifiable computation.
For the next cohort
As the program prepares to expand in the next cycle, members of the inaugural cohort are already encouraging future applicants from India to take advantage of the opportunity.
Gupta recommends that prospective applicants spend time researching the available projects and faculty members before applying.
“If there’s a project you’re interested in, read more about it and look into the professor’s work,” he says. “Writing a strong statement of purpose is also really important.”
For Anavekar, UGSRP extends well beyond the research lab. He encourages future participants to immerse themselves in the broader tech community by attending events, meeting like-minded people and learning from founders, developers and researchers. Ultimately, Mahawar says, the program offers students a chance to expand their skills, explore new opportunities and build lasting memories.
“It keeps your résumé diverse, and it will be a rewarding experience that you’ll cherish for life,” she says.
