Resume

Saarland University Oct 2025 - present

Ph.D. in Computer Science

Advisor - Prof. Dr. Michael Hahn

Saarland University Oct 2023 - Aug 2025

M.Sc. in Computational Linguistics

GPA - 1.1, with distinction

Manipal Institute of Technology Aug 2016 - Jul 2020

B.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering, Minor in Intelligent Systems

CGPA - 9.09 / 10

Barriers to Universal Reasoning With Transformers (And How to Overcome Them). Kraus O.^†, Sarrof, Y.^†, Yao, Y., Koller, A., & Hahn, M. (2026). COLM 2026. (^†Equal contribution)
On the Ability of Transformers to Verify Plans. Sarrof, Y., Du, Y., Stein, K., Koller, A., Thi’ebaux, S., & Hahn, M. (2026). ICML 2026.
Born a Transformer–Always a Transformer? On the Effect of Pretraining on Architectural Abilities. Jobanputra, M., Veitsman, Y., Sarrof, Y., Bakalova, A., Demberg, V., Pavlick, E., & Hahn, M. NeurIPS 2025.
A Formal Framework for Understanding Length Generalization in Transformers. Huang, X., Yang, A., Bhattamishra, S., Sarrof, Y., Krebs, A., Zhou, H., Nakkiran, P., & Hahn, M. ICLR 2025.
Homophonic Pun Generation in Code Mixed Hindi English. Sarrof, Y.. 1st Workshop on Computational Humour, COLING 2025.
The Expressive Capacity of State Space Models: A Formal Language Perspective. Sarrof, Y., Veitsman, Y., & Hahn, M. NeurIPS 2024.

Theory of Machine Learning for Language Models, Co-Instructor, Summer 2026: Saarland University; co-taught with Michael Hahn.
Milestones in Machine Learning, Lead Instructor, Winter 2025: Saarland University.
Computational Linguistics, Tutor, Winter 2024: Saarland University.

LCT Summer School 2026, August 25, 2026: Workshop on Mechanistic Interpretability.
Aleph Alpha, August 17, 2026: When do Transformers length generalize.
Formal Languages and Neural Networks Seminar (FLaNN), June 29, 2026: Length Generalization of Transformers with a Growing Test-Time Alphabet.
AG1 Mittagsseminar, Max Planck Institute for Informatics, June 16, 2026: Length Generalization of Transformers with a Growing Test-Time Alphabet.
Ploutus AI, March 13, 2026: Born a Transformer–Always a Transformer? On the Effect of Pretraining on Architectural Abilities.
LCT Summer School 2025, 2025: Prompting Workshop.
Computational Humour Workshop, COLING 2025, 2025: Homophonic Pun Generation in Code Mixed Hindi English.
Formal Languages and Neural Networks Seminar (FLaNN), 2024: The Expressive Capacity of State Space Models: A Formal Language Perspective.
TaCoS, Student Conference on Computational Linguistics, 2024: Transformers or RNNs or SSMs: Who’s More Sensitive?

Eastern European Machine Learning Summer School (EEML), 2026: Accepted participant.
FLaNN Workshop 2026, 2026: Posters, On the Ability of Transformers to Verify Plans, On the Learnability of Chain of Thought.
1st Workshop on Computational Humour, COLING 2025, 2025: Workshop paper, Homophonic Pun Generation in Code Mixed Hindi English.
Athens NLP Summer School, 2024: Participant.

Outstanding Reviewer, CoNLL 2026: Reviewer recognition.
Gold Reviewer, ICML 2026: Recognized among the top 25% of reviewers of the conference.
Top Reviewer, NeurIPS 2025: Recognized among the top 10% of reviewers of the conference.
Master’s with Distinction: Awarded for achieving an overall grade of 1.1 at Saarland University.
Winner, Smart India Hackathon Software Edition 2019: Led a 6-member team to 1st place in a national 36-hour hackathon involving over 300,000 participants.
Finalist, GE HackElt Pan India 2019: Selected as a top-10 national finalist for developing a predictive hospital management system to reduce patient wait times.

Reviewer: TMLR, COLM 2026, ICML 2026, CoNLL 2026, NeurIPS 2025.
Organizer, Formal Languages and Neural Networks (FLaNN) Seminar, Sep 2026 - present: Seminar series on formal languages and neural networks.
Organizer, LangLunches, 2025 - present: Biweekly research talk series at Saarland University.
Organizer, ELLIS Poster Sessions, Saarbrücken, 2024 and 2025: Local ELLIS poster sessions for NeurIPS-associated work.
Student Council Member, Department of Language Science and Technology, Saarland University, Apr 2024 - Mar 2025: Participated in departmental meetings and helped organize department-wide student events.

Machine Learning Engineer, Glib.ai Dec 2020 - Aug 2023

R&D team; financial document intelligence

Lead developer on Finray, a financial statement analyzer that reduced manual financial spreading from approximately 9 to 2 person-hours per report.
Implemented models for automated extraction of relevant tables from long documents.
Configured and trained DETR-style models to detect table bounding boxes in document images.
Developed internal libraries for information retrieval from unstructured text and models for document image restoration.

Student Trainee, Samsung R&D Bangalore Jan 2020 - Jun 2020

On-Device AI division

Designed and deployed compact deep learning models for text extraction and script identification.
Curated datasets and automated parts of data cleaning for Samsung’s Alt Z Features.
Developed data augmentation techniques for natural-scene images containing Indic-language text.

Project Intern, Novartis India Ltd. Nov 2018 - Jul 2019

Hyderabad, India

Implemented an end-to-end solution for comparing medical and pharmaceutical documents.
Developed models to compare dosage information and detect medical terms in text corpora.
Built a domain-specific algorithm for semantic similarity between medical sentences.

Languages: Python, C, C++.
Machine Learning: PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face ecosystem.
Web/Tools: Django, Flask, Git, LaTeX, Docker, Linux.
Certifications: Deep Learning Specialization, Coursera; Data Science Specialization, Coursera.

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