Hi, I'm Pranav 👋
I am a Software Engineer with over 8 years of experience in higher-education settings and a proven track of developing cutting-edge applications in various domains including:
- Back-end Development
- Data Engineering
- XR Engineering
- Game Development
Check out some of my work below 👇
Projects
Helios VR
This VR visualization tool allows farmers and breeders to make data-driven crop growth decisions. It uses Helios 3D Plant Modeling Software to provide interactive, 3D visualizations of plant models, highlighting key data crucial for agricultural analysis.
GEMINI Framework
A scalable, container based data pipeline that allows farmers and breeders to store and retrieve high volume sensor and plant trait data (e.g. RGB Cameras, Weather Sensors etc).
Tar AR
An augmented reality (AR) exhibit displaying how animals during the ice age, turned into fossils that we find today at the La Brea Tar Pits. This project was done in collaboration with USC Rossier School of Education and
Advancing Ethical Decision Making in Virtual Reality
This project explores how virtual reality (VR) can be used to investigate moral judgment, specifically by placing participants in a Trolley Dilemma scenario as either the victim or the driver. A pilot study with four participants was performed.
CICERO
A versatile system for training social skills with interactive virtual agents reacting to the user’s automatically assessed performance.
Work Experience
Software Engineer III
University of California, Davis — Plant Simulation Lab
July 2022 - July 2025
- Deployed a containerized and scalable data pipeline in Docker to manage complex sensor data, eliminating manual data handling and reducing data access time for a team of 30 researchers.
- Resolved critical data fragmentation by building a high-performance data framework using PostgreSQL, AWS S3 and MinIO, creating a centralized solution to support agricultural research efforts.
- Automated data collection for farming and breeding partners by deploying a software solution that replaced manual Excel spreadsheets, eliminating the need for internal data cleaning and improving data consistency.
- Developed a unified React and Next.js front-end that consolidated multiple data sources into a single, searchable interface.
- Improved developer efficiency by creating a REST API that reduced boilerplate code and accelerated development cycles for new internal tools.
- Programmed native Python APIs and CLI tools to streamline AI workflows, automating pipeline management and providing researchers with direct command-line access to cloud data for model training.
Software Engineer II
USC Institute for Creative Technologies
June 2018 - June 2022
- Led the development of a multi-platform AR exhibit using ARKit, ARCore and Vuforia for mobile devices that engaged 300 participants to educate museum visitors about the Ice Age.
- Partnered with paleontologists and learning scientists on exhibition design and directly contributed to research that demonstrated a 30% increase in learning retention and 90% user satisfaction among museum visitors.
- Contributed key data on the viability of spatial audio for navigation by developing and testing a proof-of-concept Android application, informing the lab's future research strategy in this domain.
- Implemented visual abstraction algorithms on raw drone data to reduce terrain file size and rendering times by 85% without affecting research task performance.
Education
M.S. in Computer Science
University of Southern California
August 2016 - May 2018
B.E. in Information Technology
University of Mumbai
May 2012 - May 2016
Publications
Advancing ethical decision making in virtual reality
Sinhwa Kang, Jake Chanenson, Pranav Ghate, Peter Cowal, Madeleine Weaver, David M Krum
2019 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)
Read MoreA generic platform for training social skills with adaptative virtual agents
Mathieu Chollet, Pranav Ghate, Stefan Scherer
Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems
Read MoreInfluence of individual differences when training public speaking with virtual audiences
Mathieu Chollet, Pranav Ghate, Catherine Neubauer, Stefan Scherer
Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
Read More