Build. Break. Be Curious.

Hi, I'm Akshith! I build secure systems. I break insecure ones—on purpose. I live at the boundary where elegant design meets utter chaos. As a security researcher and systems programmer, I'm driven by a passion for building software that's secure by design—and breaking things so we can make them better.
I aspire to be the kind of systems programmer James Mickens writes about in The Night Watch—someone who can debug a driver at the edge of civilization, trace a network issue through three time zones and one haunted mule, and patch a kernel not just to fix a bug, but to restore cosmic balance.
When the world breaks, I want to be the person who already knows how to live without law—because I've read the scheduler code, I've seen the "DOES THIS WORK LOL" comment, and I didn't just laugh... I submitted a patch.
What I'm up to
-
I'm about to graduate with a PhD in Computer Science with a focus on software and systems security from Oregon State University.
-
I’m exploring how to make security-by-design more accessible through my early-stage venture, unexploitable.xyz being incubated at the OSU Advantage Accelerator.
What I Do Well
- Understanding large, complex systems—and finding bugs in them.
- Static & dynamic program analysis, reverse engineering and vulnerability research.
- Explaining hard topics in ways that make them click.
Let's Connect
- Security researcher? Let's collaborate.
- Starting something and need help thinking through security? Let's chat.
- Prospective grad student? I'm happy to share what I've learned.
- Hiring a security researcher? You can find my resume here.
Drop me a line—whether it's about zero-days or grad school applications.
Outside of work
- I hack for fun and profit with OSU Security Club.
- I make good food, eat too much of it, then run through the woods 🌲 pretending that balances out.