Amal Joseph and Akhila Matathammal Awarded Prestigious TCS PhD Fellowship
Amal Joseph and Akhila Matathammal, doctoral research scholars at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H), have been selected for the TCS Ph.D. Fellowship under the Tata Consultancy Services Research Scholar Program. This recognition underscores their research potential and IIIT-H’s growing prominence in high-impact, industry-relevant research.
The fellowship, effective from July 1, 2025, will support each scholar for a period of four years or until the submission of their Ph.D. thesis, whichever occurs earlier. The award provides financial assistance, mentorship, and access to TCS’s research ecosystem, encouraging cutting-edge work in critical areas of computer science and engineering.
Amal Joseph
Amal Joseph is currently pursuing his doctoral research at the Center for Visual Information Technology (CVIT), under the guidance of Dr. Ravi Kiran Sarvadevabhatla. His research focuses on the intersection of computer vision and machine learning.
Before joining IIIT-H, Amal worked as a Machine Learning Engineer at Arcesium, where he contributed to semantic mapping and document information extraction. He also held a role as a Data Engineer at Tata Communications, where he gained experience working with large-scale data systems and pipeline architectures.
Akhila Matathammal
Akhila Matathammal is a PhD scholar at the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC), working under the supervision of Dr. Karthik Vaidhyanathan. Her research interests lie in systems engineering, with a focus on performance optimization and scalable computing infrastructures
About the Fellowship
The TCS Research Scholar Program was instituted to nurture future leaders in computer science and allied disciplines. The fellowship is awarded through a highly competitive selection process and is aimed at strengthening industry-academia collaboration, encouraging scholars to pursue innovative research that has real-world applications.
The selection of Amal and Akhila reflects the quality of doctoral research at IIIT Hyderabad and the Institute’s sustained commitment to academic excellence and research leadership.
Innovative Research by MS Student Earns Qualcomm Fellowship India 2025
Varghese Kuruvilla, a Master’s student working under the guidance of Dr. Ravi Kiran Sarvadevabhatla , has been awarded the prestigious Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship India 2025. His research proposal, titled “PLATO: Generating Objects from Part Lists via Synthesized Layouts,” was one of only 18 projects selected from over 150 competitive applications submitted nationwide.
The Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship (QIF) recognizes and supports innovative research projects from top engineering institutions in India. The fellowship encourages cutting-edge ideas in areas such as machine learning, computer vision, hardware systems, and communication technologies.
About the Proposal: PLATO
In his winning proposal, Kuruvilla introduces PLATO (Part List And layouT-based Object generation) — a novel framework for object generation that leverages symbolic part lists and synthesized spatial layouts to construct coherent and high-quality 3D or 2D objects. Unlike traditional generative models that rely on monolithic representations, PLATO emphasizes a part-aware generation pipeline, which brings interpretability, control, and compositionality to the forefront.
This approach has significant potential across domains such as computer graphics, augmented/virtual reality content creation, digital manufacturing, and assistive design tools, where user-driven or automated part-based modeling is highly desirable.
Speaking about the achievement, Dr. Ravi Kiran Sarvadevabhatla said, “Varghese’s work represents a fresh and creative direction in generative modeling. Being recognized by Qualcomm at this stage is a significant validation of his approach and potential.”
About the Fellowship
The Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship India is a highly competitive program that recognizes and supports exceptional graduate students engaged in forward-looking, innovative research in areas of interest to Qualcomm. These include Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Robotics, Wireless Communication, SoC (System-on-Chip) Design, and VLSI, among others.”
Each winning team receives financial support, mentorship from Qualcomm engineers, and the opportunity to present their work to senior technical leaders at Qualcomm Research. The program is designed to foster industry-academia collaboration and to empower student researchers tackling problems with real-world impact.
Kuruvilla joins a distinguished cohort of QIF fellows contributing to the future of AI and technology in India.