At the core of Jio Institute's foundational philosophy lies a bold commitment to transformative, world-class research. Built to address complex national and global challenges, the Institute's research vision spans an ambitious spectrum of future-ready disciplines. The newly launched Summer Research Internship Programme embodies this vision, functioning as a high-impact catalyst where theoretical knowledge meets disruptive, real-world application. 

The Institute welcomed undergraduate and postgraduate students from premier institutions, including IIT Bombay, IIT Roorkee, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Patna, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Birla Institute of Technology Mesra, Dhirubhai Ambani University, Manipal University Jaipur, VIT Vellore, UPES Dehradun, University of Mumbai, and NMIMS University. 

Through this initiative, the Institute provided a structured environment to tackle open-ended problems in emerging areas including Artificial Intelligence, multimodal systems, materials science, semiconductor physics, marketing, consumer behaviour, and sports management. 

Debut with Enormous Interest

This year marks the definitive first edition of the prestigious programme. Highlighting a tremendous demand for rigorous academic mentorship among India's brightest minds, the institute registered over 25,000 inquiries and 8,000 completed applications from aspiring researchers. Following a meticulous screening process, the Institute enrolled 14 interns. These selected scholars have been welcomed onto the campus for an intensive eight-week residency, working with distinguished faculty members. 

Cohort of 2026: Faculty Mentors and Pioneering Projects

A unique aspect of the programme is the direct collaboration between the selected interns and their faculty mentors. Categorised by their respective technical and strategic domains, the interns are deeply immersed in cutting-edge explorations: 

Dr. Shailesh Kumar-Dean & Chief Data Scientist, Jio Platforms

Dr. Kumar's research focuses on developing human-inspired reasoning frameworks, universal automation engines, and cognitive architectures within deep learning systems. 

• Ajit Kumar (Undergraduate Student, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra) is developing VLM-INSTINCT, a novel project implementing instinct-driven reasoning models to mitigate visual and textual cognitive biases. 
• Arslaan Sayyad (Undergraduate Student, Ramarao Adik / DY Patil Engineering) is building FORGE, a universal Reasoning Graph Engine designed to substitute traditional fixed workflows with dynamic, state-based process orchestrations. 

Dr. Sudipta Roy-Associate Professor & Principal Investigator, Applied AI & Medical Imaging Lab

Dr. Roy's research focus centers on leveraging Transformer-based meta-learning for hardware-aware computing and advancing structural failure detection strategies within multimodal frameworks. 

• Aksh Modi (Undergraduate Student, Manipal University Jaipur) is pioneering a project on Principled Quantum Architecture Search via Meta-Learning, utilizing Transformer-based models to generate hardware-aware quantum circuits. 
• Nisarg Trivedi (Undergraduate Student, Dhirubhai Ambani University) is driving a vital study on Failure Detection in Multimodal Deep Learning Systems to maximize safety thresholds in autonomous settings. 

Dr. Mohna Chakraborty – Assistant Professor & Principal Investigator, NLP Lab

Dr. Chakraborty's research area investigates the alignment and safety of generative models, focusing on cross-modal knowledge transfer, noise injection algorithms, and deceptive conversational patterns in LLMs. 

• Yashwanth Sai Nallapuneni (Undergraduate Student, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore) is heading Chain of Lies, an investigative project evaluating deceptive alignment and self-consistent beliefs in Large Language Models under conversational stress. 
• Aantriksh Sood (Undergraduate Student, University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Dehradun Uttarakhand) is simultaneously managing complex studies surrounding visual-language reasoning biases and noise injection methods for mathematical reinforcement. 

Mr. Bharath Reddy

Mr. Bharath’s research interfaces machine intelligence with socioeconomic data, exploring consumer analytics through the deployment of algorithmic human models. 

• Makul Swami (Undergraduate Student, Indian Institute of Technology, Patna) and Karina Dhaka (Undergraduate Student, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur) are jointly working on applying Digital Twin techniques to human economic patterns, leveraging LLMs and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to model accurate synthetic consumers. 

Dr. Anuj Vora – Assistant Professor & Mentor, Machine Learning, Decision Systems & Game Theory

Dr. Vora's research domain explores algorithmic decision-making, Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning framework design under uncertainty, and multi-armed bandit systems. 

• Krishna Pathak (Undergraduate Student, University of Mumbai) is formulating a Novel Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Algorithm rooted in Bayesian Posterior Sampling to perfect coordination under ambient uncertainty. 
• Sanchit Arora (Undergraduate Student, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur) is expanding algorithmic bounds by researching Multi-Armed Bandits with Strategic Arms, assessing how institutional incentives sway choices. 

Dr. Samik Mukherjee – Assistant Professor & Principal Investigator, SMEIT Lab

Dr. Mukherjee's research is dedicated to clean-energy modeling and photonics, specifically evaluating tokamak reactor configurations and structural perovskite material characteristics. 

• Diya Shirbhate (Postgraduate Student, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay) is conducting a Parametric Study of Tokamak Reactor Design, deploying computational modelling via Julia and the FUSE framework to map out plasma behaviour. 
• Aahana Navin Mohod (Postgraduate Student, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee) is running an XRD and Spectroscopic Analysis of Oxide Perovskite Materials to uncover structural properties critical for photonic applications. 

Prof. Anirudh Kalia – Associate Professor of Practice, Sports Management

Prof. Kalia's research addresses the operational and systemic dimensions of sports ecosystems, tracking retention, attrition, and the socio-professional post-career pathways of athletes. 

• Kesha Patel (Undergraduate Student, NMIMS University) is mapping out Leakages in Sport Talent Pathways among rural and urban school sports structures across Maharashtra. 
• Ishika Agrawal (Undergraduate Student, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, DU) is evaluating the Post-Career Pathways of Sub-National Athletes to facilitate smoother professional transitions out of active sports. 

Launching the Next Generation of Thinkers

Jio Institute’s Summer Research Internship Programme is far more than a conventional summer internship; it is a launchpad designed to yield systemic academic advancements. By instilling foundational, research-first principles within its participants, the initiative accelerates the institute’s broader collective research agenda. 

As the intensive research internship progresses, it provides these 15 bright minds with a structured, clear channel toward their ultimate academic goal: handholding them carefully through the creation, refinement, and successful submission of their very first international peer-reviewed publication. Through this rigorous approach, Jio Institute is shaping the nation's premier research pioneers of tomorrow.