Ishaan Ranjan

Last entry

Atlanta, GA

Ishaan Ranjan

I study computer science at Georgia Tech, do efficiency research on language models with a PhD student in Prof. Brendan Saltaformaggio’s CyFI Lab, and co-founded Luxen AI, where I’ve built and shipped tools for working with AI agents.

Lately my work is about making language models cheaper to run without making them worse. In a study with Ganesh Talluri, a 3B model we fine-tuned for one narrow role reached 94.5% success on 200 held-out code-navigation tasks, against 95.5% for a 72B baseline, at 84.8% lower cost per success.

Degree
B.S. Computer Science, Georgia Tech, started Fall 2026Class of May 2028 · Artificial Intelligence + Theory
Email
ishaanranjan15@gmail.comRésumé on request
Elsewhere
GitHubgithub.com/IshaanAyaanLinkedInlinkedin.com/in/ishaan-ranjan-86a41a217Google Scholarscholar.google.com/citations?user=pV4cNlQAAAAJXx.com/ishaanranjan15ishaanranjan.com
Portrait of Ishaan Ranjan
Fig. 1The author.

§ 1

Now

A dated log entry, rewritten as things change.

Atlanta

Research
Measuring how accuracy trades against latency across the elastic subnetworks of NVIDIA’s Nemotron-Elastic models, with a PhD student in Prof. Saltaformaggio’s CyFI Lab.
Campus
The AI Safety Fundamentals and AI Governance fellowships at the AI Safety Initiative at Georgia Tech, and Data Science @ Georgia Tech (ARC).
Reading
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford.

I change the book line by hand.

§ 2

Work

Ongoing work first, then the rest, newest first. Links go to the code, papers and demos.

– nowResearch

Elastic language models, Georgia Tech

Undergraduate Researcher, with a PhD student in Prof. Brendan Saltaformaggio’s Cyber Forensics Innovation (CyFI) Lab.

Efficiency research on NVIDIA’s Nemotron-Elastic models.1 I measure how accuracy trades against latency across their elastic subnetworks: which of the smaller models inside the large one are worth running, and what each one costs in quality.

– nowCompany

Luxen AI

Co-founder.

Luxen’s products have reached more than 5,000 users. I built and shipped two open-source projects there. Arbor, formerly AgentTree, is a desktop workspace for agent trees, shared context and live multi-agent coding sessions.2 It gained more than 1,250 users after its January 2026 release. Regimen is an orchestration layer for small language models: it breaks a long task into parts and routes each to a specialized small model.

We’ve raised more than $48,000 in grants and cloud credits, including a 1517 Fund Medici grant.

Research

Small-model subagents

With Ganesh Talluri. Can a small, fine-tuned model replace a large one inside a multi-agent system?

The usual way to cut the cost of a multi-agent system is to swap its expensive worker model for a cheap general one, and it quietly fails. We fine-tuned a 3B model for one narrow role and built a harness around that role. On 200 held-out code-navigation tasks per condition, drawn from real repositories, it reached 94.5% success against 95.5% for a 72B baseline, at 84.8% lower cost per successful task.3 The white paper is [1].

Hackathon

YConstruction

Built at the YC × Google DeepMind × Cactus Voice Agents Hackathon, and selected to pitch live to YC investors.

A voice-first iPhone app for reporting construction defects. A worker describes the problem out loud; the phone transcribes it with Whisper and structures it with Gemma 3n, both on the device, ties it to the building’s BIM model, and syncs it through Supabase for the architect to review.

– Research

PRISM

An alcohol-policy impact atlas, and my senior project at BASIS Peoria.

A 51-jurisdiction panel (50 states and DC) of alcohol policy from 2000 to 2022, an event-study difference-in-differences design4 to estimate what each policy change did, and a public dashboard for the results. The paper is on SSRN [2]. The project was the basis of a $5,000 BASIS Educational Ventures scholarship.

Research

Precision Aging Network, University of Arizona

KEYS research intern. Vitamin D, omega-3 and exercise against epigenetic aging clocks.

I analyzed how vitamin D, omega-3 and exercise relate to epigenetic aging clocks, end to end in R and Python. The question I presented: do vitamin D supplements go with slower biological aging? Across 428 people and three clocks, I found no significant association.5 Sex, BMI and education were associated with the aging measures; supplementation was not. I presented it in a poster talk to more than 800 people [5].

§ 3

Papers

Also on Google Scholar.

  1. [1]

    Specialized Small-Model Subagents: co-designing a fine-tuned small language model and a task-specific harness for cost-efficient multi-agent systems. White paper, 2026 · with Ganesh Talluri · github.com/IshaanAyaan/slm-agents

  2. [2]

    PRISM: Policy Risk Inference through State Mechanisms. A mechanism-aware alcohol policy evidence system for causal auditing and forecasting. SSRN working paper, 2026 · doi:10.2139/ssrn.6756239

  3. [3]

    The Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 and its Global Legacy. SSRN, 2025 · with Anay Pruthy · doi:10.2139/ssrn.5349605

    How a colonial law that branded whole communities as hereditary criminals carried on in later habitual-offender laws. #1 in downloads in its SSRN eJournals, June–July 2025.

  4. [4]

    S.A.B.E.R.: Sustainable AI-automated Bioreactor for Environment Remediation, using Chlorella vulgaris and microcontroller systems. Preprint, 2025 · with Akshathram Vemana · doi:10.2139/ssrn.5353655 · ResearchGate

    Built without formal lab access: pH, turbidity and CO₂/O₂ sensors driving a pump controller. Grand Award, Arizona Science and Engineering Fair.

  5. [5]

    Vitamin D Supplementation and Slowing Biological Aging: Insights from Epigenetic Clocks in the Precision Aging Network. Abstract and poster talk, University of Arizona KEYS, 2025 · PDFishaanranjan.com/KEYS%20Abstract.pdf

§ 4

Recognition

Selected.

§ 5

Play

Fig. 2

Asterism, a small logic puzzle with a new sky every day.

One star in every row, column and constellation, and no two stars touch.

Today’s sky or press P

§ 6

Contact