Aaryan Samanta

Quantum-Inspired Hybrid Genetic Algorithm and Graph Neural Network Ensemble for Multimodal Classification

IEEE 7th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Manufacturing (AIAM), sole author

Combines a quantum-inspired genetic algorithm (qubit-encoded chromosomes updated by quantum-rotation gates) with a graph neural network, joins them with a learned late-fusion layer, and explains predictions with SHAP. In the paper’s experiments it reached F1 0.57, against 0.55 for Random Forest and 0.52 for SVM.

IEEE XploreCode and data

@inproceedings{samanta2025qihga,
  author    = {Samanta, Aaryan},
  title     = {Quantum-Inspired Hybrid Genetic Algorithm and Graph Neural Network
               Ensemble for Multimodal Classification},
  booktitle = {2025 7th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and
               Advanced Manufacturing (AIAM)},
  year      = {2025},
  month     = nov,
  publisher = {IEEE},
  url       = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11322272}
}

Natural Genetic Variation in Mitochondrial Health-Regulating Genes in the C. elegans Strains CX11314 and EG4725 Leads to Increased Mitochondrial Resilience

International Journal of High School Research, Vol. 8, Issue 16, first author with Mansi Mandal and Mohammed Yasar Meeran

Capstone of the UC Santa Barbara Summer Research Academies (Track 5: Molecular Clock), presented at the Capstone Seminar on July 24, 2025. Why do two wild worm strains resist mitochondrial dysfunction better than the lab strain N2? I combined variant data for 540 isotypes (CaeNDR), consequence prediction with Ensembl VEP, dN/dS selection tests, and 609 RNA-seq samples across six mitochondrial quality-control genes. A neural-network expression predictor reached a Spearman correlation of 0.959.

Paper (DOI)Code and data

@article{samanta2026celegans,
  author  = {Samanta, Aaryan and Mandal, Mansi and Meeran, Mohammed Yasar},
  title   = {Natural Genetic Variation in Mitochondrial Health-Regulating Genes in
             the C. elegans Strains CX11314 and EG4725 Leads to Increased
             Mitochondrial Resilience},
  journal = {International Journal of High School Research},
  volume  = {8},
  number  = {16},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.36838/ijhsr816.137}
}

Functional imaging of the pelvic floor

Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Urology. Independent mentored researcher. Mentor: Christos E. Constantinou, Associate Professor of Urology, Emeritus.

I analyzed anonymized pelvic-floor ultrasound from 23 subjects and extracted displacement, velocity and acceleration curves during voluntary contraction (“the Knack”), Valsalva and cough, a question that matters for stress urinary incontinence. Preliminary result: voluntary contraction increases urethral support, and cough produced no significant caudal displacement. Not yet published.

Project notesMentor’s Stanford profile

Mentored research in computational linguistics

MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, independent mentored researcher. Mentor: Prof. Robert Berwick.

Weekly research sessions applying machine learning and data analysis to questions in computational linguistics.

InfernoCommand: fire-relative reinforcement learning for wildfire response

UCLA COSMOS, Cluster 1: Brain-Inspired Computing, student researcher

Co-developed and presented as a team poster. An actor-critic agent (a CNN over a 595 × 316 terrain grid plus an MLP over weather and fleet state) that dispatches firefighting resources. Because actions are defined relative to the fire, it generalizes to ignition points it never trained on. The environment is a real Los Angeles terrain model built from SRTM elevation, OpenStreetMap, NOAA weather, and the January 2025 Palisades Fire. Over training, mean reward rose 52% and buildings lost fell 54%. The repository lists its limitations, including synthetic traffic and a few unsourced constants. Manuscript in progress.

Code

Molecular Clock: natural genetic variation in C. elegans

UC Santa Barbara Summer Research Academies, Track 5: Molecular Clock, student researcher

Team study of natural genetic variation in mitochondrial-regulating genes in C. elegans, presented at the Capstone Seminar on July 24, 2025. It became the IJHSR paper above.

AI/ML capstone

Legend College Preparatory, AI intern (2025) and DS/ML capstone student (2025 to 2026)

Completed a three-course AI/ML capstone: a CNN pneumonia detector, symptom and disease pattern analysis, and a diabetes-risk model comparison.

Code

AI Ethos, Inc.

Founder, President and CEO. 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Built multilingual, privacy-first AI tutoring for low-income, rural, multilingual and neurodiverse students. Reached 75+ students in three languages with an average 22% gain in math scores. Received IRS approval in September 2025 and launched a program for San Jose’s Spanish-speaking community in June 2026.

aiethos.org

NextGenAI International

Founder and President

Lead a student-run AI education organization offering bootcamps, mentored projects and exchange. Led Taiwan and Thailand roadshows and signed a university MOU. 100+ participants across three countries.

nextgenai.org

CogArc

Founder and research lead

A wearable and EEG neurofeedback platform testing whether emotion is encoded in how body signals couple (hypothesis stage).

cogarc.ai

Cupertino Junior Olympiad Math/CS Team

Co-captain and student coach

Coached 20+ peers across 5+ districts toward AIME qualification and USACO Gold.

VA Palo Alto Health Care System

Volunteer team leader

Led a student team that reviewed 25+ patient medical images under staff supervision and developed a standardized review workflow to support clinical image access.

Peer tutoring and STEM outreach

Team lead and mentor, AP Calculus Tutoring and Faria STEM Outreach

Tutored 15+ peers in multivariable calculus and graph theory, and mentored 20+ elementary students in coding.

Track and field, Monta Vista Matadors

Freshman-year school record in the 100 m (11.89) and Rookie of the Year. I anchored the winning frosh/soph 4×400 m relay at the Los Gatos Top 8 Invitational (3:36.02) and ran on the 4×400 m relay that set an all-time stadium record at the RustBuster Invitational. 2026 season bests: 100 m 11.85, 200 m 24.35, 400 m 54.53.

Athletic.net profile

Percussion, Monta Vista Concert Band

Elected percussion section leader. Directed rehearsals leading to the first-ever unanimous Superior rating across all Monta Vista ensembles at the CMEA Festival.

English, Spanish and Bengali

Spoken: English, Spanish (AP level) and Bengali (beginner).