Ramtin Sirjani

PhD Candidate in Computer Science
Student at Western University with research interests in Large Language Models (LLMs) and structured data. Currently working on developing optimal tabular Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems and local LLM deployment for information security.
Ramtin Sirjani

Current Research

LLMs as Agents for Tabular RAG Systems

PhD Research Project

Developing innovative approaches using LLMs as intelligent agents to create optimal RAG systems specifically designed for structured data. This research aims to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of information retrieval in complex data environments.

Sovereign AI Coding Assistant

MITACS Internship - Farpoint Technologies

Developing a privacy-preserving AI coding assistant that runs directly on users' computers. The system automatically detects hardware capabilities and deploys appropriately quantized LLMs, enabling secure AI assistance for privacy-constrained environments in government and healthcare sectors.

Past Research

Functional Characterization of Arogenate Dehydratase Isoforms

Master's Thesis

Characterized soybean arogenate dehydratase (ADT) enzymes for their ADT and prephenate dehydratase (PDT) activity using yeast complementation assays. Identified alternate transcripts that exclude transit peptides, providing insights into mechanisms regulating specialized metabolite synthesis in plants.

Phylogenetic Inference with Deep Learning

Undergraduate Thesis

Implemented ProtT5 transformer model for protein embeddings, developing custom clustering algorithms using embedding cosine similarities. Managed computational constraints working with a large dataset of proteins.

Research Lab

Supervisor

Dr. Mostafa Milani
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Western University

Professor's Website →

Lab Focus

Our lab specializes in data management and databases, with particular emphasis on helping database users access, understand, and clean data. My research within the lab bridges these core areas with modern AI approaches, specifically exploring how Large Language Models can enhance data retrieval and understanding in structured database environments.

Publications

Journal Article

Soybean AROGENATE DEHYDRATASES (GmADTs): involvement in the cytosolic isoflavonoid metabolon or trans-organelle continuity?

Emily J. Clayton, Nishat S. Islam, Kelsey Pannunzio, Kuflom Kuflu, Ramtin Sirjani, Susanne E. Kohalmi, Sangeeta Dhaubhadel

Frontiers in Plant Science

Volume 15 - 2024 | Section: Plant Metabolism and Chemodiversity

Published: January 22, 2024

Master's Thesis

Functional Characterization of Arogenate Dehydratase Isoforms in Soybean

Ramtin Sirjani

The University of Western Ontario

Department of Biology

2021

Master's thesis focusing on the characterization of soybean arogenate dehydratase (ADT) enzymes and their role in phenylalanine biosynthesis and specialized metabolite production.

Previous Labs

Bioinformatics Algorithms

Dr. Lucian Ilie
Professor
Department of Computer Science
Western University

Professor's Website →

Legume Cell & Molecular Biology

Dr. Sangeeta Dhaubhadel
Research Scientist
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada / Western University

Profile Page →

Scholarships & Funding

MITACS Business Strategy Internship

$20,000

Partner Organization: Farpoint Technologies

Project: Sovereign AI Coding Assistant for Privacy-Constrained Tasks

Duration: 8 Months (2 Internship Units)

Funded to develop a privacy-preserving AI coding assistant with advanced model quantization and local LLM serving capabilities for secure, on-premise deployment in privacy-sensitive sectors.

Teaching Experience

Graduate Teaching Assistant - PhD

Department of Computer Science
CS XXXX

Course Title (To Be Determined)

Fall 2025

Course description and responsibilities to be added.

Graduate Teaching Assistant - Master's

Department of Biology
BIO 2290

Scientific Methods in Biology

2019-2021 • Instructor: Michelle Belton

Facilitated lab sessions on spectrophotometry, graded course material.

BIO 2217

Economic Botany

Winter 2019 • Instructor: Richard Gardiner

Facilitated lab sessions on the economic use of various plants, graded course material.

Education

Sept 2025 - Current

PhD in Computer Science

Western University, London, Ontario

Focus: LLMs and Structured Data

2022 - 2025

Hon. BSc Computer Science & Bioinformatics

Western University, London, Ontario

2019 - 2021

MSc Cell & Molecular Biology

Western University, London, Ontario

2012 - 2018

Hon. BSc Biology & Genetics

Western University, London, Ontario

Technical Skills

Programming Languages

Python C/C++ Java SQL TypeScript PHP HTML/CSS

ML/AI Tools

QLoRa Fine-tuning RAG Hugging Face PyTorch TensorFlow NumPy scikit-learn

Infrastructure and Libraries

GPU Computing Linux/Unix Windows Mac OS Docker React Node.js

Get In Touch

Feel free to reach out for discussions about LLMs and structured data!