R. Kaan Karaman

B.Sc. in Computer Engineering

I am a Computer Engineering undergraduate and researcher specializing in Generative AI and Autonomous Systems. Currently, I serve as an Undergraduate Researcher at TÜBİTAK, investigating high-fidelity histopathology image generation using GANs and diffusion models.

Simultaneously, I work as an AI Engineer at Hagia Labs, where I develop agentic workflows and RAG pipelines to automate complex enterprise processes. My background is deeply rooted in robotics and embedded systems; I previously led a 30 member engineering team at Sema Aviation, deploying real-time perception stacks on NVIDIA Jetson hardware.

#Publications

#Experience

  • TÜBİTAK

    December 2025Present
    Undergraduate Researcher (2247-C STAR)

    Investigating generative modeling approaches (GANs, diffusion models) for high-fidelity synthetic histopathology image generation. Building reproducible end-to-end experimentation workflows.

  • Hagia Labs

    October 2025Present
    AI Engineer Working Student

    Developing agentic workflows and RAG systems for internal automation. Improved query accuracy by 38% and reduced manual review times significantly through AI-powered process efficiency.

  • Sema Aviation

    March 2025December 2025
    Team Lead — AI Engineer

    Led a 30-member interdisciplinary team to design autonomous UAVs. Implemented real-time object tracking (YOLO-Seg + MobileSAM) and fault detection pipelines on NVIDIA Jetson hardware.

#Projects

  • Python Documentation RAG Assistantsource ↗

    A lightweight RAG assistant for Python docs using semantic chunking, transformer embeddings, and cross-encoder reranking. Achieved 77% top-3 accuracy and visualizes the pipeline via Streamlit.

  • Cortex — CNN from Scratchsource ↗

    A modular CNN framework built entirely in pure NumPy. Implements backpropagation, convolution, pooling, and optimizers from first principles, achieving 89% accuracy on MNIST.

  • Autonomous UAV System

    Real-time perception stack using ROS 2, RF-DETR, and Kalman filtering. Integrated sensor fusion and control pipelines for autonomous flight on embedded NVIDIA Jetson platforms.

#Blog

Check Medium for my latest writing.

#Recommended Reading

These are papers, references, and books I revisit often — for their foundational insights, theoretical clarity, or relevance to my work in AI engineering, robotics, and systems design.

I also spend time listening to and learning from researchers whose work and thinking have shaped the field. I regularly follow talks and writing by Ilya Sutskever, and I closely track the research of others like Transformer Explainer, Neural Networks and Deep Learning (Michael Nielsen), Chip Huyen's Blog, Lilian Weng's Blog.

Foundational Papers

Practical References

Books I Recommend

  • C++ Primer by Stanley B. Lippman, Josée Lajoie, and Barbara E. Moo — a thorough and well-paced guide to modern C++, ideal for building foundational systems knowledge.
  • Designing Machine Learning Systems by Chip Huyen — great for connecting ML theory to real-world system design, especially in production pipelines.
  • Mathematics for Machine Learning by Marc Peter Deisenroth, A. Aldo Faisal, and Cheng Soon Ong — covers linear algebra, calculus, probability, and optimization with clean motivation for ML applications.
  • Introduction to Linear Algebra by Gilbert Strang — a foundational text for understanding vector spaces, matrix operations, and the structure of linear systems; highly recommended for building ML intuition.
  • Neural Networks and Deep Learning by Michael Nielsen — a clear, code-first introduction to the core concepts of neural networks and deep learning.