PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Niranjan Srinivas

Niranjan Srinivas is a computational biologist who co-wrote a 2010 paper that analyzes the GP-UCB algorithm and ties Gaussian process optimization to bandits and experimental design. As a Caltech PhD student, they presented it at ICML in 2010 with Andreas Krause, Sham Kakade and Matthias Seeger, and ICML honored it with a Test of Time Award in 2020. Their Caltech doctorate in computation and neural systems, advised by Erik Winfree, produced a system of DNA machines that implements an oscillator and won the 2015 Demetriades-Tsafka-Kokkalis Prize in Nanotechnology; a Damon Runyon postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley followed. By 2020 they were a computational biologist at 10x Genomics, and as of July 2026 they are at Coactive Science, where they and Debajyoti Ray posted a preprint that pairs GP-UCB with cost-aware Bayesian hypothesis discrimination for autonomous materials discovery.

Now at
Coactive Science

Timeline

  1. 2010

    The GP-UCB paper at ICML

    As a PhD student at Caltech, they co-author "Gaussian Process Optimization in the Bandit Setting: No Regret and Experimental Design" with Andreas Krause, Sham Kakade and Matthias Seeger, presented at ICML in 2010. The paper analyzes the GP-UCB algorithm and establishes the first sublinear regret bounds for Gaussian process optimization in the nonparametric setting.

  2. 2013

    Biophysics of DNA strand displacement

    In 2013, they co-author a Nucleic Acids Research paper on toehold-mediated DNA strand displacement with Thomas Ouldridge, Petr Šulc, Joseph Schaeffer, Bernard Yurke, Ard Louis, Jonathan Doye and Erik Winfree. It studies the process with a random-walk model, a secondary-structure kinetics model and a coarse-grained molecular model, together with experiments on three-way branch migration.

  3. 2015

    A DNA oscillator at Caltech

    In 2015, they win Caltech's Demetriades-Tsafka-Kokkalis Prize in Nanotechnology for designing and building a system of DNA machines that, in bulk, implement an oscillator; their advisor is Erik Winfree. Their doctoral degree is in computation and neural systems at Caltech.

  4. By 2015

    Damon Runyon fellow at Berkeley

    By 2015, they are a Damon Runyon postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, working with Hernan Garcia and Adam Arkin. Their project combines live imaging, synthetic biology and mathematical modeling to understand how gene regulatory networks code for chemical patterns in the fruit fly embryo.

  5. By 2020

    Computational biologist at 10x Genomics

    After the Berkeley postdoc, they join 10x Genomics as a computational biologist. In 2020, they are among the authors of a Nature Biotechnology paper on direct-capture Perturb-seq, a single-cell CRISPR screening approach that sequences expressed guide RNAs alongside single-cell transcriptomes, with 10x Genomics in Pleasanton, California as their affiliation.

  6. 2020

    A Test of Time Award at ICML

    In July 2020, ICML announces that "Gaussian Process Optimization in the Bandit Setting: No Regret and Experimental Design" receives its 2020 Test of Time Award, given to an ICML paper from 2010. ICML's chairs say the paper brought together Bayesian optimization, bandits and experimental design by analyzing Gaussian process bandit optimization.

  7. July 2026

    Bayesian optimization at Coactive Science

    In July 2026, they and Debajyoti Ray, both at Coactive Science, post the arXiv preprint "Cost-Aware Recovery-Pathway Identification and Bayesian Optimization for Autonomous Materials Discovery." Their Coactive learning method pairs a cost-sensitive Bayesian hypothesis-discrimination policy with Gaussian-process Bayesian optimization, and they test it on synthetic benchmarks built from results of PNNL's CICERO selective-precipitation study.

Career

  1. NowCoactive Science
  2. University of California, BerkeleyPostdoctoral Fellow
  3. 10X GenomicsComputational Biologist

Education

  1. California Institute of TechnologyPhD

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of California, Berkeley. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University of California, Berkeley. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of California, Berkeley. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  4. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes University of California, Berkeley. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Sham Kakade earns Test of Time Award at ICML 2020 for novel optimization techniques that sparked new directions in machine learning research news.cs.washington.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Test of Time: Gaussian Process Optimization in the Bandit Settings: No Regret and Experimental Design icml.cc. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. On the biophysics and kinetics of toehold-mediated DNA strand displacement pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Niranjan Srinivas dna.caltech.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Winners of the 2015 Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes Announced eas.caltech.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Niranjan Srinivas, PhD | Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation damonrunyon.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Combinatorial single-cell CRISPR screens by direct guide RNA capture and targeted sequencing pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. Amazon scientist Matthias Seeger receives ICML "test of time" award amazon.science. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. ICML 2020 Announces Test of Time Award syncedreview.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  10. Cost-Aware Recovery-Pathway Identification and Bayesian Optimization for Autonomous Materials Discovery (arXiv abstract) arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  11. Cost-Aware Recovery-Pathway Identification and Bayesian Optimization for Autonomous Materials Discovery (arXiv HTML) arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.