Vaibhav Upadhyay

I am Vaibhav Upadhyay, a final year IDDDP (Bachelor of Technology in Aerospace Engineering + Master of Technology at the Centre for Systems and Control) student at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. I am privileged to be under the supervision of Prof. Debasish Chatterjee, who has been mentoring me for the past two years, and I am also grateful to Dr. Siddhartha Ganguly, whose mentorship has complemented this journey. Their combined support has been instrumental in shaping my academic growth. Beginning in Fall 2026, I will join the PhD program in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I will conduct my doctoral research under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Liberzon.

Outside academics, I enjoy trekking, hiking, exploring other cultures, and capturing the world through my lens whenever I get the chance. A collection of my naive endeavours can be found here. Alongside my academic and outdoor pursuits, I have a growing interest in the history of Indian philosophy and ancient scriptures. In this spirit, I hold to the following:

दूरेण ह्यवरं कर्म बुद्धियोगाद्धनञ्जय ।
बुद्धौ शरणमन्विच्छ कृपणाः फलहेतवः ॥

- a reminder to seek wisdom over the mere pursuit of results (~Bhagavad Gita, Verse 49, Sankhya Yoga).

I am interested in developing mathematically rigorous tools for practically relevant problems, with particular emphasis on the interplay between differential topology, stochastic processes, control theory, optimal transportation, and numerical optimization.