Miss. Nikita: Research Scholar at Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat, India
Nikita is a passionate and innovative Research Scholar at the National Institute of Technology Surat, specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU). Her work primarily revolves around developing advanced machine learning and deep learning models, with a keen focus on applying these techniques to domain-specific unstructured text documents, especially within the legal field. Nikita’s research aims to bridge the gap between complex textual data and actionable insights by creating intelligent systems that improve information retrieval, summarization, and recommendation for specialized domains.
Online Profiles
Since 2020, Nikita’s research has garnered 20 citations, with 18 citations coming in the recent years, reflecting growing recognition in the field. She currently holds an h-index of 3, indicating her publications have consistently contributed to advancing knowledge in natural language processing and related domains.
Education
Nikita is currently pursuing her PhD in Natural Language Processing at the National Institute of Technology Surat, where she has been engaged since 2021. She earned her Master of Technology (M.Tech) degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Durgapur in 2018, where she specialized in network optimization. Her undergraduate degree, Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) in Computer Science and Engineering, was awarded by BPUT, Odisha in 2015. Nikita also completed her schooling with strong academic performance, laying the foundation for her technical and research career.
Research Focus
Nikita’s research focuses on harnessing the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT and BERT to tackle challenges in domain-specific text processing. She is actively working on semantic structuring of unstructured documents, developing few-shot and zero-shot prompting techniques, and building robust information retrieval systems tailored to legal and technical domains. Her projects involve creating annotated corpora for semantic tasks, designing chatbots for legal assistance, and innovating recommendation systems that improve user query understanding through keyphrase extraction and thematic classification.
Experience
Nikita’s professional journey includes her current role as a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Technology Surat, which she assumed in August 2023. Prior to this, she worked as a Junior Research Fellow at the same institute from September 2021 to July 2023, where she contributed extensively to her PhD research projects. She also has significant teaching experience, having served as an Assistant Professor at Presidency University, Bengaluru, and earlier at Smt. S. R. Patel Engineering College, Ahmedabad, where she taught computer science courses and mentored students in research projects.
Research Timeline & Activities
Starting in 2017, Nikita’s research trajectory has spanned from traffic grooming in hybrid optical and wireless networks during her M.Tech studies to sophisticated NLP-based projects in her doctoral work. Since 2021, she has been developing LAWBOT, a legal assistant chatbot, pioneering research on recommendation systems based on document keyphrases, and curating semantic theme-based annotated corpora. Her recent activities include leveraging few-shot prompting methods to improve intent-based information retrieval systems, contributing to both theoretical frameworks and practical applications.
Awards & Honors
Nikita has been honored with the MHRD Fellowship for her doctoral studies (2021-2026) and previously for her master’s degree (2016-2018), recognizing her academic excellence and research potential. She qualified the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) in 2015, which is a testament to her technical proficiency. Additionally, she has earned certifications from prestigious platforms such as NPTEL and Coursera in areas including Machine Learning, Soft Computing, Deep Learning Specialization, and Data Science, reflecting her commitment to continuous learning and expertise development.
Top Noted Publication
One of Nikita’s significant publications is “Layout features and semantic similarity-based hybrid approach for thematic classification of paragraphs in documents,” published in Knowledge and Information Systems in 2025. This work introduces a novel hybrid methodology that combines document layout features with semantic similarity measures to effectively classify thematic content within paragraphs. It offers valuable advancements for automated document analysis, especially relevant for legal and technical documents where structure and semantics play a crucial role.
Congestion aware traffic grooming in elastic optical and WiMAX network
D Naik, T De, Nikita
2018 Technologies for Smart-City Energy Security and Power (ICSESP), pp. 1-9 — 8 citations (2018)Normalized uplink bandwidth scheduling algorithm for WiMAX networks
D Naik, S Dora, Nikita, T De
Advances in Computer, Communication and Control: Proceedings of ETES 2018 — 5 citations (2019)Research challenges for legal document summarization
DP Rana, RG Mehta, Nikita
2023 IEEE World Conference on Applied Intelligence and Computing (AIC), pp. 307-312 — 3 citations (2023)LAWBOT: A Smart User Indian Legal Chatbot using Machine Learning Framework
E Srivastav, A Patel, A Singh, R Sharma, DP Rana, RG Mehta, Nikita
2024 IEEE 9th International Conference for Convergence in Technology (I2CT), pp. 1-7 — 2 citations (2024)Traffic aggregation in elastic optical and wireless networks
D Naik, Nikita, A Bauri, T De
International Conference on Communication, Devices and Computing, pp. 55-70 — 2 citations (2019)
Strengths for the Best Innovator Award
Pioneering Research in Domain-Specific NLP Applications
Nikita has developed innovative NLP systems specifically tailored for complex and specialized domains such as legal text processing. Her work on LAWBOT, a legal assistant chatbot using machine learning, exemplifies her ability to create cutting-edge solutions that bridge academic research and real-world applications.Advanced Use of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Few-Shot Prompting
Leveraging state-of-the-art transformer models like GPT-4 and BERT, Nikita explores novel techniques such as few-shot and zero-shot prompting to enhance semantic understanding and information retrieval from unstructured texts. This positions her at the forefront of AI innovation.Interdisciplinary Expertise Combining NLP and Network Optimization
Her unique background spanning both network communication (elastic optical and WiMAX networks) and natural language processing allows her to approach problems with a broad, interdisciplinary perspective—enabling the design of innovative, resource-efficient algorithms and systems.Contributions to Research Infrastructure through Annotated Corpora
By curating semantic theme-based annotated corpora for domain-specific tasks, Nikita significantly contributes to the research community’s ability to train and benchmark intelligent systems, fostering further innovation in semantic structuring and text processing.Strong Research Impact with Growing Recognition
With a total of 20 citations since 2020 and an h-index of 3, Nikita’s research output has consistently contributed to advancing knowledge in NLP and related fields. Her multiple well-cited publications and prestigious fellowships, including the MHRD fellowship, underscore her academic excellence and innovative contributions.