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Dr. Deepak Khemani

Professor, Plaksha University



Area of Expertise

  • Artificial Intelligence


Research Interests

  • Search methods for problem solving
  • Knowledge representation
  • Memory based reasoning
  • Constraint satisfaction problems
  • Game playing
  • Epistemic logic


Education

  • B. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay
  • M. Tech. in Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Bombay
  • Ph.D.in Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Bombay


Past Associations

  • IIT Madras, November 1988 – July 2023.
  • Visiting scientist, Technical University Munich, 1995 (DAAD), 1996, 1999, two months each.
  • Visiting scientist, Tata Research Centre, Pune, 1997 – 1998.
  • Visiting faculty (Dean Students, Chair SCEE) IIT Mandi, 2011.
  • Visiting faculty (Dean Faculty, Member Inst. Standing Committee), IIT Mandi, 2016 – 2018
  • Adjunct faculty, IIT Dharwad, 2019 – 2020

Bio

Dr. Deepak Khemani, currently working as a faculty member at IIT Madras, will be joining the Plaksha team soon. All along he has been working in artificial intelligence, with a focus on symbolic reasoning. His research has been on approaches in which an autonomous agent can represent the world around it, draw upon experience to solve problems, and can imagine the future to search for solutions for problems. He has done several projects for government and industry, and collaborative projects funded by BMBF Germany and UKIERI.

 

He started working in AI during his doctoral studies where he explored the application of memory-based planning in the game of contract bridge. Contract bridge is a game yet unconquered by AI, unlike other games like Chess, Go, Backgammon, and Scrabble where machines rule supreme. His current goals are to combine knowledge representation, heuristic search, and constraints processing to build problem solvers. These methods can be applied to creating articulate tutoring systems that can help students with math and physics problems, amongst other things.

 

Dr. Khemani teaches courses at the heart of AI, and has popular courses on Search Methods, Knowledge Representation, and Constraint Satisfaction on the NPTEL/Swayam platform. His 2013 book A First Course in AI has wide ranging coverage of the subject.

 

He has also had interest in popular science and was in the small team that started the children’s science magazine Jantar Mantar in the early nineties published by Tamil Nadu Science Forum. During that period he also wrote a small book The Signs of Zodiac explaining astronomy to young children.