Danish Athar

dathar [at] purdue [dot] edu

danish8athar [at] gmail [dot] com

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I am a graduate student in Computer Engineering (CE) at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. I recently graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science (High Distinction, cGPA: 3.80/4.00) from Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan.

I have been part of the Networks and Systems research group at LUMS, collaborating on projects in browser caching, web affordability, and LLM-based automation of network operations. At LUMS, I was primarily advised by Dr. Zafar Ayyub Qazi alongwith Dr. Ihsan Ayyub Qazi and Dr. Zartash Afzal Uzmi. I am currently advised by Dr. Sanjay Rao at Purdue University.

My research interests include distributed systems, networking algorithms for ML, and the intersection of ML and AI with networked systems.

I am also passionate about web affordability, internet measurements, and leveraging large language models for impactful research. My previous research work includes projects on smarter, semantic web browser caching and LLM-based IP geolocation from reverse DNS hostnames. Most recently, I have been looking into ML and AI applications for the networking space.

I am currently looking for internship roles in the areas of networking, distributed systems, AI applications and software engineering for Summer 2026. Please feel free to reach out if you have any opportunities or suggestions!

Education

  • Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
    Graduate Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)
    August 2025 - Present
  • Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore, Pakistan
    B.S. in Computer Science; cGPA: 3.8/4.0 (Graduated with High Distinction)
    Sep. 2021 - June 2025

Publications

  • LLM-Enabled Semantic Caching for Affordable Web Access
    Hafsa Akbar, Danish Athar, Muhammad Ayain Fida, Hammad Javed, Dr. Zartash Afzal Uzmi, Dr. Ihsan Ayyub Qazi, Dr. Zafar Ayyub Qazi (Accepted to WiML @ NeurIPS 2025)
  • Ready or Not, Here I Come: Leveraging Language to Locate Routers!
    Danish Athar, Muhammad Saqib Ilyas, Kave Salamatian, Frederick Douzet, James Cowie, Qasim Lone, Zartash Uzmi, Zafar Ayyub Qazi (Work in progress)

Research Experience

Other than the aforementioned projects, I have also worked on the following smaller projects:
  • Embedding The Truth: Approximate Caching for Fact Checking
    Course Project for CS6303: Topics in Large Language Models. Explored the feasibility of reusing fact-checking claims across organizations and languages to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Used an approximate caching approach with multilingual embeddings in a vector database to identify recurring claims. [PDF]

  • Utilising LLMs for Streamlined Analysis of PTA Datasets
    Course project for the Topics in Internet Research course at LUMS. Idenitified ways for efficient analysis of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) datasets using LLMs. [PDF]

  • A Framework for Improving Web Affordability and Inclusiveness
    Assisted the authors of this paper. Conducted a user study with 35 participants comparing web page quality and UX for Opera Mini, Brave and HBS-based affordable web frameworks. [Link to published paper (SIGCOMM 2023)]

Teaching Experience

  • Graduate Teaching Assistant, Purdue University
    • ECE36800: Data Structures (Fall 2025)
  • Head Teaching Assistant, LUMS
    • CS-582: Distributed Systems (Fall 2024)
  • Teaching Assistant, LUMS
    • CS-382: Network-Centric Computing (Spring 2025)
    • CS-382: Network-Centric Computing (Spring 2024)
    • CS-100: Introduction to Programming (Fall 2023 and Summer 2023)
  • Teaching Assistant, FutureTech
    • Served as the teaching assistant for the FutureTech (for more info on the Decoding The Internet module: a details site I made for my FutureTech students) sessions held at LUMS in summers of 2023 and 2024.
  • On-Site Instructor, CodeKids PK
    • Taught programming concepts to young learners using block-based and no-code platforms.

Work Experience

  • On-Site Instructor, CodeKids PK (June 2024 – July 2024)
    • Taught fundamental programming concepts to 20 young learners using block-based and no-code coding platforms, achieving a 95% satisfaction rate in post-class surveys.
  • Programming Intern, SenPi (Remote) (June 2022 – September 2022)
    • Worked on web development using the MERN stack.
  • Content Advisor, SenPi (January 2020 – December 2023)
    • Guided the development of high-quality educational content and instructional design, including strategic content planning, curriculum design, market research, and assessment design.
  • Content Development Specialist, OED Pakistan (Lahore) (October 2020 – October 2021)

Other Projects

  • Distributed Key-Value Store | Golang
    • Developed a fault-tolerant distributed key-value store using the Raft consensus algorithm, including leader election and log replication.
  • Distributed Hash Table | Python
    • Created a distributed hash table using socket programming, supporting a peer-to-peer model with failure tolerance.
  • Command Line Shell | C
    • Implemented a basic shell replicating UNIX shell functionalities, including pipelining and command chaining.
  • Basic File System | C
    • Implemented a simplified version of a UNIX file system that organizes memory into superblocks, inodes, and data blocks.
  • Second Time Around | MERN Stack
    • Developed a web application for a marketplace featuring auctions and donations with ML-powered recommendations.

Skills

  • Programming Languages: C, C++, Python, Golang, JavaScript, Haskell, TypeScript, HTML
  • Technologies & Tools: Agent Development Kit (ADK by Google), Android Debug Bridge (ADB), Android Studio, Appium, Bash, CAIDA’s Hoiho, ChromeDevTools, Docker, Figma, Git, LaTeX, LangChain, MatPlotLib, MongoDB, NumPy, OpenCV, Pandas, Postman, PyAutoGUI, PyTesseract, React, RIPE Atlas toolkit, SciKit, Selenium, Socket Programming, SQL, WebPageTest, Wireshark

Awards

  • Graduation with High Distinction award at LUMS for outstanding academic performance during my undergraduate studies.
  • Dean's Honor List for all my years of study at LUMS.

Misc

  • In addition to problem-solving, I absolutely love cars and racing.
  • Returnal, a rogue-like game that counts on your failures for progress, is the hardest game I have completed, but has also been my most enjoyable gaming experience in recent times! I find research to be a very similar process in its effort-reward returns.