Mansi Phute

My research focuses on the security and explainability of language and vision foundation models. I work on developing explanations for machine learning models and analyzing them to identify vulnerabilities in existing ML systems, then find solutions to mitigate these issues. My work spans a wide range of application areas, including robust multi-object tracking in computer vision, developing defenses against attacks on large language models, and understanding large language models and the insights they can give us into human interactions. I have also worked with 3D simulation software like CARLA and Unreal Engine.

Education

Fall 2022 —
Ph.D. in Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Fall 2022 — Spring 2024
M.S. in Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Specialization: Machine Learning
Fall 2018 — Spring 2022
B.Tech. in Electronics and Telecommunication
Vishwakarma institute of Technology,
Honors: Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics

Research Experience

Summer 2022 — Present
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Graduate Research Assistant School of Computational Science and Engineering
Advisor: Duen Horng (Polo) Chau
Member of the Polo Club of Data Science where we bridge and innovate at the intersection of data mining and human-computer interaction to synthesize scalable, interactive, and interpretable tools that amplify human’s ability to understand and interact with big data. Developed defences against adversarial attacks in Language and Vision domain.
Spring 2023
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Graduate Teaching Assistant School of Computational Science and Engineering
Mentor: Duen Horng (Polo) Chau
Fall 2021 — Spring 2022
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Undergraduate Research Assistant Cyber Security Research Centre at NTU (CYSREN)
Mentor: Thambipillai Srikanthan
Increasing python application security by analyzing libraries used. Developed dynamic dependency graph to trace vulnerabilities.
Fall 2021 — Spring 2022
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Undergraduate Research Assistant Cyber Security Research Centre at NTU (CYSREN)
Mentor: Thambipillai Srikanthan
Automated human resource planning and forecasting by combining business intelligence of NHS, UK with data analytics to properly shift the HR planning from manual to automated
Spring 2021
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, India
Undergraduate Research Assistant Associated with Dassault Systems
Mentor: Jyoti Madake
Developed AI based solutions for agricultural problems faced in India by usimg hyperspectral imaging to predict soil fertility in the land
Fall 2020
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, India
Undergraduate Research Assistant School of Electronics and Telecommunication
Mentor: Abha Marathe
Conducted a thorough literature survey on the use of AI in finance and the various ways it is used for risk management in the stock market
Summer 2019
Tech Mahindra Ltd, Pune, India
Intern, Web Development
Mentor: Rahul Bedmutha
Developed a portal for internal use, using HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Honors and Awards

2024
Marshall D. Williamson Fellowship
Awarded to a well-rounded, second-year Master's student who best embodies values of academic excellence and leadership
2023
Best Poster at BMVC'23
Robust Principles was awarded the Best Poster award at BMVC
2022
Best Scholar in ECE
Merit-based award for the ECE student with the highest undergraduate GPA in the entire department
2022
Best Student in ECE
One of the 3 students chosen as the best student in ECE department based on overall performance throughout undergrad
2020
Second place in IEEE "One Million Seconds" Hackathon
Designed an autonomous system to support healthcare workers for cleaning the isolation wards in COVID-19 hospitals in India. First Runner Up from a total of 1200 participants

Publications

Semi Truths: A Large-Scale Dataset for Testing Robustness of AI-Generated Image Detectors
Anisha Pal, Julia Kruk, Mansi Phute, Manognya Bhattaram, Diyi Yang, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Judy Hoffman
NeurIPS. 2024.
Project PDF BibTeX
LLM Attributor: Interactive Visual Attribution for LLM Generation
Seongmin Lee, Zijie J. Wang, Aishwarya Chakravarthy, Alec Helbling, ShengYun Peng, Mansi Phute, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau,, Minsuk Kahng
ACL demo. 2024.
Project PDF BibTeX
Robust Principles: Architectural Design Principles for Adversarially Robust CNNs
ShengYun Peng, Weilin Xu, Cory Cornelius, Matthew Hull, Kevin Li, Rahul Duggal, Mansi Phute, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Jason Martin
BMVC. 2023.
Project PDF Code Video Poster BibTeX Best Poster Award
LLM Self Defense: By Self Examination, LLMs Know They Are Being Tricked
Mansi Phute, Alec Helbling, Matthew Hull, ShengYun Peng, Sebastian Szyller, Cory Cornelius, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau
ICLR Tiny Paper. 2024.
Project PDF Code BibTeX Deployed at ADP

Talks and Presentations

Large Language Models and How They Work
June 2024
Georgia Institute of Technology, Course on Large Language Models
Invited
LLM Self Defense: By Self Examinations, LLMs Know They Are Being Tricked!
October 2023
IBM, San Jose CA

Press

April 2024
"Student Excellence Honored at Annual Event," Georgia Tech
August 2023
"GRE Success Stories: How Test Takers Scored Above the 90th Percentile," Jamboree
May 2020
"Team Eklavya- E&TC; students team Designs Autonomous sanitisation robot," Vishwakarma Institute of Technology

Teaching

Spring 2023
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Data and Visual Analytics (CSE 6242 / CX 4242), Instructor: Duen Horng (Polo) Chau
I was a Teaching Assistant (TA) at Georgia Tech for the class Data and Visual Analytics where I worked with a team of 30 TAs to enable learning in a class of more than 1200 students. I was a part of designing homework and mentoring students in their course work and project work.
Fall 2019
Teaching Volunteer
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune, India
Aashadeep: Literacy Program for underpriviledged people, Instructor:
A semester long teaching program where I created learning opportunities for increasing literacy in society aimed towards people outside the traditional schooling age. Thus proving that there is no binding of age to learn how to read or write. This program aimed at combating illiteracy in specific sections of society.

Grants and Funding

2023 — 2024
Guaranteeing AI Robustness against Deception
Funded by DARPA: Defense Advance Research Projects Agency
PIs:

Service

Reviewer
NeurIPS Workshop on Socially Responsible Language Modelling (NeurIPS SoLaR) 2023

Mentoring

Sri Ranganathan Palaniappan
B.S. in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology

References

Dr. Polo Chau, Associate Professor
School of Computational Science and Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. Thambipillai Srikanthan, Professor
School of Computer Science and Engineering
Nanyang Institute of Technology