About Me
Rabimba Karanjai is a Staff Agentic AI Researcher at PayPal Research. He completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Houston (defended July 2025), where his research focused on the intersection of blockchain, secure AI reasoning, and LLM-assisted program analysis and repair.
Education
Ph.D. in Computer Science
University of Houston
M.S. in Computer Science
Rice University
Interests
Agentic AI & AI Reasoning
LLMs Security & Smart Contracts
Decentralized Systems & Blockchain
Formal Verification & Software Engineering
Web VR & High Performance Computing
Research Overview
I am a Staff Agent Researcher at PayPal and a PhD graduate from the University of Houston, advised by Prof. Weidong (Larry) Shi. My research sits at the intersection of AI reasoning, decentralized systems, and software security.
Core research areas:
- LLM Reasoning & Code Generation — Multi-agent architectures for reliable code/test generation (AgentTester, LogBabylon) and hallucination mitigation
- Blockchain & Smart Contract Security — Cross-chain vulnerability detection, decentralized infrastructure, and formal verification of smart contracts
- Quantum-Enhanced ML — Quantum contrastive embeddings for near-term devices (QuCoWE, AAAI 2026)
I am a Google Developer Expert in Web Technologies & ML, a 3x Sui Foundation Research Award recipient, and serve as Associate Chair for CSCW 2026.
Key Achievements
35+
Peer-Reviewed Publications
28 as first author across AAAI, IEEE ICBC, ACM FSE, USENIX Security, KDD, and more
4
US Patents
1 issued (US11025643B2) + 3 pending (PayPal) covering AI, voice commerce, and authentication
4x
Research Grants
$90K+ from Sui Foundation (3x) and Grant for Web as Principal Investigator
85+
Invited Talks
Google I/O, OSCON, NDC Sydney, FOSDEM, KubeCon, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley RDI, and more
ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award
ACM AIWare 2025 — Securing the Multi-Chain Ecosystem
Best Dissertation Award
Dan E. Wells Outstanding Dissertation Award & UH CS Best Dissertation (2025)
Google Developer Expert
Web Technologies (2018–present) & Google Cloud AI/ML (2024–present)
NVIDIA Developer Champion
Recognized for contributions to AI and GPU computing community (2026)
Distinguished Publications
Grants & Funding
- Sui Foundation Academic Research Award (2023, 2024, 2025) — Primary Investigator, $25,000/year for research on decentralized infrastructure and smart contract security
- Grant for Web — Primary Investigator, $15,000 for advancing privacy-preserving and decentralized web technologies
- Google Cloud Research Innovator (2023, 2024) — Cloud credits and research support for AI/ML projects
Research Projects
AI Race Coach (Project Koru)
Built a real-time AI Race Coach at Sonoma Raceway with Google Developer Experts, using Antigravity, Gemini API, Gemma 4, and Jetpack Compose to process live telemetry at 100 mph.
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LLM Reasoning & Code Generation
Investigating how Large Language Models reason, generate code, and can be made more reliable through multi-agent architectures and hallucination mitigation.
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Quantum Computing & AI
Developing quantum-enhanced machine learning techniques for near-term quantum devices.
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Blockchain & Decentralized Systems
Building secure, scalable decentralized infrastructure with smart contracts, cross-chain frameworks, and AI-powered vulnerability detection.
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Edge Computing & Trusted Execution
Exploring secure inference and trusted execution environments at the edge, combining IoT, blockchain, and TEE technologies.
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Recent Publications
(2026).
Context Contamination in LLM Analysis of Network Security Logs: Poison with Passive Prompt Injection and Mitigation Evaluation.
USENIX Security 2026 (To Appear).
(2026).
Empowering Smart Contracts with Real-time On-Chain AI Inferences.
IEEE ICBC 2026.
(2026).
Rethinking Publication: A Certification Framework for AI-Enabled Research.
arXiv:2604.22026.
(2026).
CausalGraphX: A Counterfactual Graph Neural Network Framework for Explainable Systemic Risk Assessment.
AAAI 2026 (AI4Finance).
Recent & Upcoming Talks
Google I/O GDE Field Test — AI Race Coach at Sonoma Raceway
Built a real-time AI Race Coach with Google Developer Experts using Antigravity, Gemini API, Gemma 4, and Jetpack Compose. Processed live telemetry at 100 mph to deliver …
Beyond the Chatbot: A Blueprint for Trustable AI
Talk at Google DeepMind on building trustable AI systems beyond simple chatbots. **Key points:** - Moving from conversational AI to agentic AI architecture - Safety frameworks for …
United in Defense: Architecting Safe and Trustworthy AI Agents
Talk at BSides Seattle 2026 on architecting safe and trustworthy AI agents. **Key points:** - Adversarial robustness for multi-agent AI systems - Defense frameworks against …
Google I/O 2025: GDE Summit, From Whiteboard to Users
Talk at Google I/O 2025 GDE Summit on bridging research and practice. **Key points:** - From academic research to production AI at PayPal - The GDE program's role in knowledge …
From Whiteboard to Users: Making Research Accessible
Talk at Google I/O GDE Summit 2025 on making academic research accessible to practitioners. **Key points:** - Translating PhD research into real-world products - Lessons from …
Recent Blog Posts
Splitting the Brain to Beat the Clock
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The Throughput Trap: Benchmarking vLLM on OpenXLA and the Reality of Production LLM Serving
vLLM Systems · DevLab 2026, Deep Dive I was recently invited by the Google TPU team to speak at the OpenXLA Summer DevLab 2026 . This post breaks down our deep-dive evaluation of …
Teaching the Coach to Read the Driver
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Racecraft (Project Koru) · Prologue — The Origin Story
The origin story of Project Koru — building an AI Race Coach at Sonoma Raceway with Google Developer Experts, Antigravity, and Gemini.
The 800-Millisecond Problem
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Professional Service
- Associate Chair, ACM CSCW 2026
- Scientific Advisory Committee, Texas Quantum Initiative (2025)
- Google Developer Expert, Web Technologies (2018-present) & Google Cloud (2024-present)
- Reviewer: IEEE ICBC, ACM CSCW, BRAINS