I'm currently pursuing my PhD in Computer Science at Purdue University under the guidance of Prof. Ruqi Zhang. Previously, I completed my Master's degree in Computer Science at Rutgers University, where I received an Outstanding Project Award. I earned my Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Vellore Institute of Technology, Bhopal, graduating as a Gold Medallist.

My research focuses on trustworthy and robust AI, particularly in aligning large language models (LLMs) through learning from human feedback. I also explore multimodal alignment and model uncertainty to improve generalization and safety across diverse model families.

1. Uniform-Correct Policy Optimization: Breaking RLVR's Indifference to Diversity

   A. Lochab, B. Li, R. Zhang

   Under Review

2. Addressing Performance Saturation for LLM RL via Precise Entropy Curve Control

   B. Li, Y. Wang, Y. Ding, A. Lochab, A. Grama, R. Zhang

   Under Review

3. VERA-V: Variational Inference Framework for Jailbreaking Vision-Language Models

   Q. Liao*, A. Lochab*, R. Zhang

   ICML 2026

4. VERA: Variational Inference Framework for Jailbreaking Large Language Models

   A. Lochab*, L. Yan*, P. Pynadath*, X. Zhang, R. Zhang

   NeurIPS 2025

5. Energy-Based Reward Models for Robust Language Model Alignment

   A. Lochab, R. Zhang

   Conference on Language Modeling (COLM), 2025

6. Cascade Reward Sampling for Efficient Decoding-Time Alignment

   B. Li, Y. Wang, A. Lochab, A. Grama, R. Zhang

   Conference on Language Modeling (COLM), 2025

• NeurIPS Scholar / Travel Award 2025
• NSF ACCESS Discover Project Award 2025–2026
• COLM Travel Award 2025
• Outstanding Project Award Rutgers University · 2024
• Gold Medallist VIT Bhopal · 2022