Anant Shyam

About

I am a Computer Science PhD student at Purdue University, fortunate to work with Prof. Brian Bullins and Prof. Ruqi Zhang. My research focuses on efficient optimization and sampling algorithms for machine learning. I'm fortunate to be supported by the NSF ACCESS program for my project on low precision sampling algorithms for large scale training. Previously, I was an undergraduate at Cornell University, where I worked with Prof. Zhiru Zhang and Prof. Chris De Sa.

In my free time, I enjoy running and lifting. Please feel free to reach out!

Publications

On the Power of Biased Derivative Information for Nonconvex Stochastic Optimization

Anant Shyam, Brian Bullins

Under review at Conference on Learning Theory (COLT) 2026

Industry Experience

Engineering Development Intern
MathWorks — Financial Modeling and Econometrics Team
May 2024 – August 2024

Software Engineer Intern
Cleo — Product Development Team
June 2023 – August 2023

Software Engineer Intern
Interactive Brokers — Risk Management Team
June 2022 – August 2022

Teaching

Purdue University

TA, CS 180 – Problem Solving and Object-Oriented Programming (Fall 2025, Spring 2026)

Cornell University

TA, CS 4789/5789 – Introduction to Reinforcement Learning (Spring 2025)
TA, CS 4414 – Systems Programming (Fall 2024)
TA, CS 4820 – Introduction to Analysis of Algorithms (Summer 2024)
TA, CS 3110 – Data Structures and Functional Programming (Outstanding TA Award Recepient) (Spring 2024)
Consultant, CS 3110 – Data Structures and Functional Programming (Fall 2023)
Consultant, CS 2110 – Object-Oriented Programming and Data Structures (Spring 2023)
Consultant, CS 1110 – Introduction to Computing using Python (Fall 2022)

News

Aug 2025: Started my PhD in Computer Science at Purdue.
May 2025: I graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science Honors in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics with Magna Cum Laude distinction.