Pranav Kumar
Namaste!
I recently completed my MS in Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech, where I was a graduate researcher in the Systems Software Research Group, advised by Prof. Binoy Ravindran and Prof. Freek Verbeek. My thesis, FUSE, instruments stripped binaries with memory-safety checks and fuzzing coverage in a single verified pass — built on FoxDec, as part of the LLRM project.
Before Virginia Tech, I was an embedded systems researcher at ARTPARK @ IISc Bangalore, advised by Prof. Shishir Kolathaya, working on actuator drivers and real-time control firmware for quadruped robots. Earlier I was an embedded engineer at Flux Auto and Futuristic Labs, and I am a Google Summer of Code alum with BeagleBoard.org. I work across the stack — hardware, firmware, operating systems, compilers, and binaries.
I am applying for PhD positions for Fall 2027 and open to research collaborations. Always happy to chat.
View my CV → · Google Scholar · GitHub
Research Interests
Binary Analysis & Instrumentation — static instrumentation of stripped binaries, verified disassembly, memory-safety and coverage instrumentation, register liveness analysis.
Compilers & Program Analysis — LLVM passes, register allocation, IR and machine-level analysis, compiler metadata for binary recoverability.
Memory Systems & Microarchitecture — cache hierarchies and replacement policies, virtual memory, concurrent memory reclamation, RISC-V design-space exploration.
Hardware–Software Co-design — RTL implementation and performance/area tradeoffs on FPGA, real-time scheduling, and the interfaces between firmware, OS, and hardware.
Publications
Adding Compilation Metadata To Binaries To Make Disassembly Decidable IEEE QRS 2026, Florence, Italy — also presented at EuroLLVM 2026, Dublin Daniel Engel, Freek Verbeek, Pranav Kumar, Binoy Ravindran
FUSE: Single-Pass Binary Co-Instrumentation for Accurate Vulnerability Detection MS thesis, Virginia Tech, May 2026 — manuscript under review Pranav Kumar, Freek Verbeek, Binoy Ravindran
Autonomous System of Heavy Vehicle Using CAN Networking ICDEMI 2023 — Springer proceedings, 2024 Pranav Kumar, Uba. Sunil
Latest News
Aug 2026: Released Daily Dial on the Chrome Web Store
Jul 2026: Paper presented at QRS'26, Florence, Italy
May 2026: Defended MS thesis — FUSE — Virginia Tech
Apr 2026: Preprint on arXiv; presented at EuroLLVM'26, Dublin
Jun 2025: Joined VNX Robotics as Embedded Systems Supervisor
Dec 2024: Joined the Systems Software Research Group, Virginia Tech
Nov 2024: Paper published at ICDEMI, Springer
Aug 2024: Started MS in Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech
May 2023: Joined ARTPARK @ IISc Bangalore
Jun 2021: Joined Flux Auto, Bangalore
Sep 2020: Completed BE in ECE, UIET, Panjab University
Jan 2020: Joined Futuristic Labs
Nov 2019: ROSCon-19 Scholarship holder, Macau
Aug 2019: Mentor, winning team — Smart India Hackathon, IIT Hyderabad
May 2019: Google Summer of Code, BeagleBoard.org
2018: Speaker, Software Freedom Day, Panjab University
Selected Work
Research — FUSE: single-pass binary co-instrumentation
Architecture & hardware — Floating-point performance/area exploration · Road Rage RTL on DE1-SoC · Chipyard design-space exploration
Systems — Real-time scheduling & ceiling protocols · Kernel modules · Page table walker · xv6 filesystem checker · Memory reclamation in Rust
Compilers — Register allocation · LLVM analysis passes
Open source & tools — STSPIN220 stepper library · BeagleBone PRU work (GSoC) · JobHakken · Daily Dial
Get In Touch
Email: pranavkumar@vt.edu