Umakant Kulkarni

Graduate Student

Graduate Research Assistant

Joined department: Spring 2021

Education

An ECE/CS Engineer, with Master’s in Computer Systems Networking & Telecommunications from Northeastern University, Boston, MA USA. Earlier, I worked as a Software Engineer at Microsoft, with primary focus on software development, architecture designing and building automation infrastructure for Affirmed Networks' Cloud Native 5G Mobile Core solution.

The main focus of my research is to enhance the user's QoE across various types of networks. For 5G cellular core networks, I proposed state management optimizations to reduce NF-to-database transaction times, significantly improving call setup time. In backhaul networks, I developed a multipath routing algorithm based on statistical flow measures to improve QoE for multimedia applications. For Wi-Fi networks, I introduced a QoE-aware dynamic resource allocation policy, particularly for long-duration QoE-sensitive flows. Recently, I designed a lightweight, protocol-agnostic Zero-Trust security architecture for 5G core networks. Currently, I am working on making this security solution adaptive to further optimize call setup time while maintaining a balance between performance and security.

Research Interests: Cellular Networks, Cloud Computing, Networking Systems, SDN-NFV, Network Slicing, Objective QoE, Packet Data Gateways, Wi-Fi Networks, Network Security, Reinforcement Learning, LLMs

Selected Publications