Welcome to my exploratory & fun site โ€” embracing early internet vibes! ๐ŸŒŒ

Looking for something more formal? Check out my professional site

My Story

I immigrated from Nepal at the age of 5, and grew up in Texas. I was always fascinated by physics and computers, and graduated from a STEM oriented high school (the School of Science and Engineering in Dallas, TX) in 2017. I then pursued my interest and graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and a second major in Physics from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in 2021. During this time, I worked on various clubs related to entrepeneurship (DeltaV and MIT II) and helped build a large part of a startup and smaller parts of other startups. I also led the MIT UAV (Unmanned-Aerial-Vehicle) Club and was the webmaster for the ISA (International Students Association).

I enjoyed learning about Reinforcement Learning (RL), and pursued a MEng (Master of Engineering) in Computer Science with a focus on RL and AI. I graduated with my masters degree in 2022, also from MIT, with grad classes focusing on systems, security, and AI. For my MEng, I am indebted to all those who I was fortunate enough to work with, from Professor Cathy Wu at MIT to Taylor Hogan and Luke Roberto at Cadence Design Systems, and a whole host more people. I now work at Google as a Software Engineer working on authentication flows.

Outside of work, I can be found tinkering on drones, making beats, learning astrophotography, exploring software ideas, and playing a range of sports (anything from MMA to Tennis, with powerlifting and Calisthenics as a crutch). When able, I also love to volunteer. I had my first batch of mentees this year at work, for example!

I'm very thankful to everyone who has helped me on my journey so far, from (especially) family (Shiva Kaphle, Gita Kaphle, Aaron Kaphle) and extended relatives to friends, co-workers, mentors, and mentees, and anyone else I've met along the way. I look forward to continuing to work towards building great projects.

Fun Undertakings

Not necessarily the toughest (though some were quite tough), but certainly the ones that brought me the most joy and fulfillment.

Fun Tidbits & Time Capsule

A collection of fun memories, academic work, and a bit of nostalgia from the journey so far.

Academic Highlights
  • MIT Commencement 2022 โ€” A wonderful memory, virtually walking through Killian Court (thanks, COVID ๐Ÿฆ ).
  • Masters Thesis on Google Scholar โ€” RL for PCB routing. Grateful to all the advisors and collaborators!
  • Senior year 6.804 project with Tianmin Shu โ€” predicting behavior of bad actors near buildings. Fun times!
Blast from the Past
  • Once upon a time, I was certain I'd work in space. Made the news talking about John Glenn! MIT's Astronomy (8.282) and Inflation Theory with Alan Guth (8.286) scratched that itch โ€” plus a Physics second major! ๐Ÿš€
  • National Merit Semifinalist (2016) โ€” High school me thought this was peak achievement. Oh, sweet summer child... ๐Ÿ˜„
  • UIL Calculator Competition โ€” Top 3 tied score, 6th place on tiebreakers. Shoutout to the stack-based calculator our teacher gave us! ๐Ÿงฎ
  • Shoutout to the School of Science and Engineering (Dallas ISD) โ€” where I learned that all-nighters are not a sustainable life strategy. Lesson only partially learned.
Open Source Work @ Google
  • Android Credential Manager Contributions โ€” Productionized the pre-U CredMan system in Jetpack, added Single Tap for providers.
    Most code lives in AOSP + proprietary Google repos (not shareable), but these are the visible bits!

Find me elsewhere:

@arpankaphle ยท @break-through ยท @arpankaphle ยท @arpankaphle
(Most GitHub projects are private. Twitter is... aspirational. Someday I'll tweet more. ๐Ÿฆ)

Get in touch:

akaphle@mit.edu (forwards to alumni email) ยท arpankaphle@gmail.com