Gaurav Srivastava ctrl-gaurav

Portfolio: ctrl-gaurav.github.io
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaurav-srivastava-gk/
Email: Feel free to reach out to me via gks@vt.edu .

Hi there, I'm Gaurav Srivastava

I'm a Master's student in Computer Science at Virginia Tech (Graduating May 2026), and fortunately advised by Dr. Xuan Wang. I am also affiliated with the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics.

Prior to joining Virginia Tech, I got my Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Manipal University Jaipur in July 2023. During my Bachelor's program, I was fortunate to be supervised by Dr. Nitesh Pradhan and worked with Dr. Vijaypal Singh Dhaka and Dr. Mahesh Jangid. I was also the President's Gold Medalist for Excellence in Research. After that I worked at Dell Technologies for 1 year as a Machine Learning Engineer. Before that, I spent 6 months at Swiggy's Applied Research (Computer Vision) team.

Research  Interests

I work on improving small language models in reasoning—pushing lightweight LMs to think deeper, act smarter, and collaborate like expert teams. My research spans natural‑language processing, complex reasoning, and model efficiency, all aimed at creating efficient, low‑cost AI systems. My current focus areas include:

🧠 Complex Reasoning in Large & Small Language Models (LLMs & SLMs): I study emergent reasoning, chain‑of‑thought, and which facets of reasoning are kept or lost after compression—revealing when  and  why small models succeed or fail.
🚀 Multi‑Agent Debate & Self‑Evolution: I design systems where multiple LMs critique, refine, and distill each other’s outputs. Iteratively fine‑tuning the resulting “debate traces” lets a single model self‑evolve without human‑labeled data.
🧠 Overthinking in Basic Reasoning: I also study when language models overthink problems that humans solve instinctively. I developed LLMThinkBench, a framework that measures when—and why—LLMs overthink straightforward math and logical reasoning tasks.