Kaushik Pillalamarri

Information

Bio

I am Kaushik Pillalamarri, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University, with a focus on AI Foundation models and Agentic AI systems for Earth Observation. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Andhra Pradesh, India and then pursued a master’s degree in Computer Science at North Carolina State University, where I am currently continuing my studies as a doctoral student.

Current Role

I am currently working on sea-ice type segmentation using multimodal data (optical, SAR, etc.). My research also focuses on exploring ways to advance multimodal AI foundation models for Earth Observation through techniques such as improved architectural design, data fusion strategies, and modality-aware learning. 

Areas of Expertise

My expertise lies in AI and remote sensing, with a focus on multimodal foundation models, vision–language models, and agentic AI systems. These specializations enable me to design intelligent systems that integrate heterogeneous data sources (e.g., SAR and optical imagery), reason effectively across modalities, and autonomously adapt to complex geospatial tasks. Through building scalable and generalizable AI systems for Earth Observation, I aim to contribute to the open-science practices within ESA Φ-lab CIN.

Vision for the Future

My vision is to develop trustworthy foundation models and agentic systems which support climate research, environmental monitoring, and rapid-response applications and other EO tasks that generalize across geographies and conditions, and operate transparently in high-stakes scenarios, and adhere to open-science principles by being fully open source.

Project as CIN Researcher

Coming Soon