Cornell Tech / Cornell Tech

Three Indian-origin academics will join Cornell Tech as faculty members, bringing expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, programming languages and operations research at a pivotal moment for the future of computing.

The three new faculty members are Pratyush Maini, Ayush Sekhari and Amrith Setlur. 

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Maini, who did his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, will join as an assistant professor of computer science at Cornell Tech and the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science starting January 2027.

Maini studies how the data used to train AI systems shapes what they learn, remember and how reliably they behave. His research focuses on data-centric AI, including improving pretraining data, generating synthetic data and understanding and mitigating unwanted memorization in foundation models.

His work on synthetic data and AI safety has informed practices at leading AI labs, while his benchmarks for machine unlearning have become widely used throughout the field. Before joining Cornell Tech, Maini earned a Ph.D. in machine learning from Carnegie Mellon University and was a founding member of DatologyAI, where he works on democratizing data curation for foundation models.

His honors include an OpenAI Research Award, a NeurIPS award nomination and multiple best paper awards at major conference workshops.

Ayush Sekhari, who did his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, will join as an assistant professor of computer science at Cornell Tech and the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science starting November 2026.

Sekhari’s research focuses on reinforcement learning and interactive learning, with the goal of developing machine learning systems that learn efficiently from experience, adapt to new environments and acquire new capabilities.

His work spans reinforcement learning, optimization, machine unlearning and privacy, and AI for science, drawing on both theoretical and empirical methods.

Sekhari is currently a senior research scientist at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, where he works on AI models for the biological sciences and explores how advances in machine learning can support scientific discovery. He previously held a postdoctoral position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned his Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University.

Amrith Setlur, who studied at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, will join as an assistant professor of computer science at Cornell Tech and the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science starting July 2027.

Setlur’s research focuses on building AI systems that can continually adapt and improve at test time, including foundation models that dynamically scale computing resources for reasoning and exploration as they solve complex problems.

He has been recognized with the JPMorgan Chase AI Ph.D. Fellowship, the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science Presidential Fellowship and the Laude Institute Slingshot Award.

His work has been published in leading machine learning venues, including ICLR, ICML, NeurIPS and AISTATS, and has received multiple spotlight and oral presentation selections as well as workshop best paper awards. Setlur earned his Ph.D. in machine learning from Carnegie Mellon University.

6 new faculty members will join Cornell Tech for the 2026-27 academic year, bringing expertise in AI, machine learning, programming languages, and operations research at a pivotal moment for the future of computing.

Learn more: https://t.co/xIRBSOu6oe @Cornell_Bowers @CornellEng pic.twitter.com/u7Na4XNWiy

— Cornell Tech (@cornell_tech) August 17, 2026

They will be joining along with three other faculty members. 

“We’re thrilled to welcome this exceptional cohort of faculty to Cornell Tech,” said Greg Morrisett, Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech.

These scholars have already established themselves as leaders in fields ranging from machine learning and AI safety to programming systems and operations research, producing work that is influencing both academic research and industry practice. Their arrival builds on Cornell Tech’s momentum and deepens our ability to tackle the technological challenges that will define the coming decades, he said. 

Discover more at New India Abroad.