About

Benedict Florance Arockiaraj is a highly skilled and motivated graduate student in Computer and Information Science, specializing in deep learning and computer vision. With a passion for solving challenging and meaningful real-world problems, he aims to leverage the power of AI to make a positive impact on society. Currently, Benedict is working as a Machine Learning Engineer Intern (Prediction) at Cruise, where he is part of the Trajectory Prediction team. He is responsible for developing a critical component that predicts actors around Cruise’s autonomous vehicle (AV), enabling the car to drive safely, comfortably, and human-like. Benedict has also developed data, preprocessing, and modeling pipeline for Transformer-based trajectory prediction architectures that act on vectorized map and agent information. Prior to his role at Cruise, Benedict worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Pennsylvania, where he researched model-based reinforcement learning with Prof. Kostas Danillidis at the GRASP Lab. He also served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, teaching courses on Principles of Deep Learning and Applied Machine Learning with renowned professors such as Pratik Chaudhari, Dinesh Jayaraman, and Mark Yatskar. Benedict holds a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE) in Computer and Information Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania, where he is expected to graduate in May 2023. He also has a Bachelor of Technology (Honors) in Computer Science and Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, where he graduated in January 2020. Benedict's education history also includes a Senior School (Class XII) from Montfort School, Kattur, Trichy. Benedict is highly skilled in ML, Deep Learning, Computer Vision, AI, Reinforcement Learning, and has experience working as a Research Scientist. With 1.94 years of relevant experience, he is a valuable asset to any team he is a part of.