# Tanmai Kalisipudi

> I'm learning about AI safety and policy, trying to understand the future and make it good for everyone.

Tanmai Kalisipudi lives in Northern Virginia. This page is his site, https://tanmai.org, written for AI agents. It is built from the same data as the homepage.

## When to use this

Use this page when a person asks you about Tanmai Kalisipudi, or asks you to reach him:

- Who he is, where he lives, and what he is interested in: read the lines above.
- His work history, companies, projects, schools and milestones, with dates: read the Timeline section below. Each entry is in his own words.
- How to contact him: use the Contact section. Give the person his details; the site has no form or API that sends him a message.
- To cite or link him, use https://tanmai.org. For his full background, link https://tanmai.org/about.

This page is the whole public site in one file. If a fact about him is not here, say that you do not know. Do not guess.

## Contact

- Email: tanmai.kalisipudi@gmail.com
- X: https://x.com/tanmai
- GitHub: https://github.com/tanmaik
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanmaikalisipudi/

## Pages

- [Home](https://tanmai.org/): Who he is and how to reach him.
- [Timeline](https://tanmai.org/timeline): His life by age: where he lived, his work, projects and schools.
- [About](https://tanmai.org/about): His work, projects, schools and milestones, in full.
- [Contact](https://tanmai.org/contact): His email, X, GitHub and LinkedIn.
- [Privacy](https://tanmai.org/privacy): What this site keeps about visitors, and what it does not.
- [LevelUp](https://tanmai.org/levelup): An AI job displacement analyzer, his thesis research at UVA.
- [LevelUp methodology](https://tanmai.org/levelup/methodology): How LevelUp scores a person's AI displacement risk.

## Timeline

Newest first, from his timeline at https://tanmai.org/timeline. Entries that run "to now" are current as of November 1, 2026.

### Work

- **Maslow**, Co-Founder & CEO (Jul 2025 to Sep 2026). Ishaan Sharma and I started an AI consulting company for government contractors in Washington, D.C., with Tanish Jain and Sumanth Kalluru in it that first summer. We talked to 150+ govcon leaders. After the summer I kept it going from UVA and commuted to D.C. I ran Claude Code workshops and AI strategy sessions, for free at first and then as paid work, and I sold our first six-figure contract. I turned down job offers after graduating and stayed with it until September. I was learning a lot of entrepreneurial skills, like managing and shipping projects and doing enterprise sales. Tanishk Govil worked with me at the end. Links: [Maslow OS on GitHub](https://github.com/tanmaik/maslow-os), [Try Maslow OS](https://tanmai.org/maslow).
- **Suitable**, Software Engineer (Jun 2025 to Aug 2025). I was on the product team under Dominic Visco, one of Suitable's co-founders. I migrated our QA suite, which was one of our biggest infra costs. I took the job to see how a founder scales a company, and watching Dom up close taught me more than the code did.
- **GradSteps**, Co-Founder & CEO (Jan 2024 to Jan 2025). I started GradSteps in my second semester at Pitt with Hitesh Davuluri, Pravan Balamurugan and Ashka Shah. It was an AI degree planner: you told an agent which majors and minors you wanted to earn, it built a plan from the course catalog, and a validator checked that plan against your degree requirements. I ran product and engineering, Pravan did partnerships, Hitesh did marketing and Ashka did design. Links: [GradSteps](https://www.gradsteps.com).
- **Lineaje**, AI Engineer (Jul 2023 to Aug 2023). Lineaje was a seed-stage startup that secures software supply chains, and I was one of its first interns. With Tejas Balebail, and under Mudit Sinha, I shipped an AI agent that let customers search their supply chains for vulnerabilities in plain English. I fine-tuned the model and built the RL pipeline behind it, and I demoed it to stakeholders as we went. Links: [Lineaje](https://www.lineaje.com).
- **Cisco**, High School Intern (Jun 2022 to Jul 2022). I learned networking from a Cisco mentor. I pitched a Cisco executive on an interoperable blockchain for domestic asset tracking.

### Projects

- **LevelUp**, Thesis (May 2026 to now). Research under Professor Anton Korinek, with Vithal Goel, Patarasate Unjitwattana and Joe Liang, on how AI changes which skills the job market pays for. I was taking his class at the time. Links: [LevelUp](https://tanmai.org/levelup), [LevelUp methodology](https://tanmai.org/levelup/methodology).
- **Perceptron**, Co-Founder (Sep 2024 to May 2025). I started a group at UVA to build multi-agent simulations of how different people react to things like elections and marketing. We had 12 active members. I also gave a talk at a UVA founders event about going from 0 to 1, with Perceptron and GradSteps as the examples.
- **Hawking**, HackHarvard 2023 (Oct 2023 to now). An AI app that makes study material for any subject. Johanna Lohmus designed it, and Suraj Vaddi and I built it. Links: [Hawking on Devpost](https://devpost.com/software/hawking).
- **First Year Council**, University of Pittsburgh (Sep 2023 to Apr 2024).
- **TJRides**, Creator (Sep 2022 to Jun 2023). A carpool app for TJ students, kind of like Uber. I built it with Ishaan Sharma.
- **Tutoring business**, Founder (Sep 2022 to Jun 2023). I tutored kids for TJ and AOS admissions, the SAT and ACT, AP Physics, CS and Econ, and personal finance. When I had more students than I could handle, I brought on 8 underclassmen to help. We put in 900 volunteer hours in all.
- **ElectrAlert**, Creator (Sep 2021 to Mar 2022). Goggles that use EEG to catch drowsy drivers. Tanish Jain and I built them. I did the CAD prototype and the business model, and we were Conrad Challenge finalists. Links: [2022 Summit Finalist Teams, Conrad Challenge](https://web.archive.org/web/20220327050233/https://www.conradchallenge.org/2022finalists).
- **Model UN**, Delegate and Chair (Sep 2021 to Jun 2023). I won a few awards and chaired TechMUN, TJ's own conference.
- **Kalisipudi Holdings**, Fund Manager (Sep 2020 to May 2024). I co-managed $250k to $1M of my own money and some friends' money.
- **TJ Investment Club**, Vice President (Jan 2020 to Jun 2023). My friend Shahzad got me to join at 14. The pandemic bull market got me into trading, and I became vice president at 17.
- **TJ Track and Field**, Sprinter (Dec 2019 to Jun 2021).
- **VEX Robotics**, Vexperts (Sep 2017 to Jun 2019). I was on team Vexperts 5047B with Sumanth Kalluru, Dwij Joshi, Shrihan Kadhiresan and Jai Arora, and we made it to districts.
- **Newer Environment Starts Today (NEST)**, Co-Founder (Sep 2016 to Jun 2019). I started NEST, an environmental nonprofit, with Shreyaa and Esha Venkat and my sister Nikhita. We posted crafts made from recycled stuff on YouTube and got 100k views. I built a web app where people could post leftover food for homeless shelters. It had exactly 1 user. We still ended up on NBC News and won a few awards. Links: [2018 Outstanding Volunteer Award Recipients, Loudoun Cares](https://web.archive.org/web/20190822100821/https://www.loudouncares.org/2018-outstanding-volunteer-award-recipients/), [Tanmai Kalisipudi, Author at NEST](https://web.archive.org/web/20180902232527/http://nest4us.org/author/tanmai/).
- **Piano classes** (Sep 2011 to Jun 2016). Piano classes and other immigrant kid activities.
- **Taekwondo** (Sep 2011 to Jan 2020). I kept going until I got my third-degree black belt.

### School

- **University of Virginia**, Computer Science (AI Focus) + Math (Aug 2024 to May 2026). Links: [University of Virginia](https://www.virginia.edu).
- **University of Pittsburgh**, Computer Science and Physics (Aug 2023 to May 2024). I was in the Frederick Honors College and CSC @ Pitt. Links: [University of Pittsburgh](https://www.pitt.edu).
- **Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology**, High School (Sep 2019 to Jun 2023). Links: [Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology](https://tjhsst.fcps.edu).
- **Riverside High School**, Math Classes (Jan 2019 to Jun 2019).
- **Belmont Ridge Middle School**, Middle School (Sep 2016 to Jun 2019).
- **Newton-Lee Elementary School**, Elementary School (Sep 2012 to Jun 2016).
- **Dominion Trail Elementary School**, 1st Grade (Sep 2011 to Jun 2012).
- **Virginia Academy**, Preschool (Sep 2008 to Jun 2011).

### Milestones

- **First marathon**, Richmond Marathon (Nov 2025). I ran it in 3:57 after 12 weeks of training. Before that, I had never run 26 miles.
- **National Merit Scholar** (Mar 2023).
- **Third-degree black belt** (Jan 2020).
- **First tweet** (Sep 2011). My first tweet, at 6. It literally said "nothing". Links: [My first tweet](https://x.com/kalisipudit/status/116602838720839680).
- **Discovered the internet** (Nov 2007).
- **Born** (Jul 2005). I was born in Leesburg, Virginia, on July 17, 2005. My parents married in 1999, moved to the US, and settled in Ashburn. I have an older sister.