--- title: "Lav R. Varshney — author profile and papers in our library" description: "Lav R. Varshney, State University of New York: 2 papers on Elamur Research (2019–2025), h-index 34 — affiliations, topics, co-authors and…" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/lav-r-varshney/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/lav-r-varshney/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [authors](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/) / Lav R. Varshney # Lav R. Varshney Lav R. Varshney has 2 papers in our library, in 2019–2025, most of them on [Language models & pretraining](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/); often with [Bryan McCann](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/bryan-mccann/), [Caiming Xiong](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/caiming-xiong/), [Dilek Hakkani-Tur](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/dilek-hakkani-tur/). 2 papers in our library · 2019–2025 [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/A5065423139) · [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2798-5308) · [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q67222597) · [**h-index 34**](https://openalex.org/authors/A5065423139) · [418 works](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5065423139) · [7,574 citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5065423139&sort=cited_by_count:desc) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 [📄 2 works in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/lav-r-varshney/#papers) · [🔗 Cited 620 times in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/lav-r-varshney/cited-by/) · [7 more in our library without a page yet](#also) · [⭐ Paper Stars ranking: #2295](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/paper-stars/page/23/#star-2295) The profile is the library's match of the name; two people with one name are not always told apart. Elsewhere: [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&mauthors=Lav+R.+Varshney) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=Lav+R.+Varshney) · [dblp](https://dblp.org/search?q=Lav+R.+Varshney) · [ACL Anthology](https://aclanthology.org/search/?q=Lav+R.+Varshney) ## Affiliations [🎓**University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign** Urbana · United States 2014–2026 · 240 papersEmployment 2014–2025*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign/) · [🎓**Stony Brook University** Stony Brook · United States 2025–2026 · 26 papersEmployment since 2025 · Della Pietra Infinity Professor, AI Innovation Institute*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/stony-brook-university/) · [🎓**State University of New York** Albany · United States 2026 · 5 papers*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/state-university-of-new-york/) · [🔬**IBM Research - Thomas J. Watson Research Center** Yorktown Heights · United States 2011–2014 · 35 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/labs/ibm-research-thomas-j-watson-research-center/) · [🎓**Massachusetts Institute of Technology** Cambridge · United States 2006–2016 · 33 papersEducation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/massachusetts-institute-of-technology/) · [🏢**IBM** Armonk · United States 2011–2013 · 20 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/companies/ibm/) · [🏢**Salesforce** San Francisco · United States 2019–2025 · 8 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/companies/salesforce/) · [🔬**National Center for Supercomputing Applications** Sofia · Bulgaria 2018–2021 · 6 papers](https://ror.org/03g9ch715) · [🔬**National Center for Supercomputing Applications** Urbana · United States 2018–2021 · 6 papers](https://ror.org/03r10zj06) · [🎓**National University of Singapore** Singapore · Singapore 2019–2020 · 3 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/national-university-of-singapore/) From the bylines of their papers (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14), ORCID and Wikidata; institutions on papers are matched by machine. 12 more institutions on single bylines are not listed. ## Fields, topics and concepts Of its works in our library, with the number of works on each. 📚 Shelves 7 The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).[Arts and Humanities · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · [Computer Science · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/) · [Artificial Intelligence · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/) · [Language and Linguistics · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · [Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/computer-vision-and-pattern-recognition/) · [Experimental and Cognitive Psychology · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/psychology/experimental-and-cognitive-psychology/) · [Psychology · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/psychology/) 🧭 Topics 1 Research subjects and languages the work is about.[Language models & pretraining · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/) 💡 Concepts 1 Key ideas and methods explained on our concept pages.[Transformer and attention · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/concepts/transformer/) ## Works by year ### 2020s [**2025** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/lav-r-varshney/year/2025/) ### 2010s [**2019** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/lav-r-varshney/year/2019/) ## Papers The most cited first (OpenAlex and our library). 1. **[CTRL: A Conditional Transformer Language Model for Controllable Generation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/keskar-2019-ctrl-conditional-transformer-language-model/)** *(2019 · 1,291 citations)* Large pretrained language models produce fluent text, but users have little influence over its style, topic or purpose beyond writing a prompt. 2. **[Spark: A System for Scientifically Creative Idea Generation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/sanyal-2025-spark-system-scientifically-creative-idea/)** *(2025 · 5 citations)* Research idea generation is the first step in efforts to automate science, and LLMs have recently shown they can propose novel ideas. ## All works 9 works of theirs in our library, the most cited first; 2 with a page here, the others link their original until we summarise them. 1. [**CTRL: A Conditional Transformer Language Model for Controllable Generation arXiv:1909.05858**Nitish Shirish Keskar, Bryan McCann, Lav R. Varshney, et al.*2019 · 1,291 citations*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/keskar-2019-ctrl-conditional-transformer-language-model/) 2. **[BERTology Meets Biology: Interpreting Attention in Protein Language Models ↗](https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.26.174417) bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · no summary yet**Jesse Vig et al.*2020 · 318 citations* 3. **[Mind Your Inflections! Improving NLP for Non-Standard Englishes with Base-Inflection Encoding ↗](https://aclanthology.org/2020.emnlp-main.455/) Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) · no summary yet**Samson Tan et al.*2020 · 57 citations* 4. **[COVID-19 Growth Rate Decreases with Social Capital ↗](https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.23.20077321) medRxiv · no summary yet**Lav R. Varshney, Richard Socher*2020 · 34 citations* 5. **[Limits of Detecting Text Generated by Large-Scale Language Models ↗](https://doi.org/10.1109/ita50056.2020.9245012) Information Theory and Applications Workshop (ITA) · no summary yet**Lav R. Varshney, Nitish Shirish Keskar, Richard Socher*2020 · 25 citations* 6. **[Pretrained AI Models: Performativity, Mobility, and Change ↗](https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.03290) arXiv (Cornell University) · no summary yet**Lav R. Varshney, Nitish Shirish Keskar, Richard Socher*2019 · 25 citations* 7. **[Evaluating State-of-the-Art Classification Models Against Bayes Optimality ↗](https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.03357) arXiv (Cornell University) · no summary yet**Ryan Theisen et al.*2021 · 6 citations* 8. [**Spark: A System for Scientifically Creative Idea Generation arXiv:2504.20090**Aishik Sanyal, Samuel Schapiro, Sumuk Shashidhar, et al.*2025 · 5 citations*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/sanyal-2025-spark-system-scientifically-creative-idea/) 9. **[Explaining Creative Artifacts ↗](https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.07126) arXiv (Cornell University) · no summary yet**Lav R. Varshney, Nazneen Fatema Rajani, Richard Socher*2020 · 1 citation* ## Co-authors here 5 co-authors with a page, the most papers together first. - [Bryan McCann](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/bryan-mccann/) - [Caiming Xiong](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/caiming-xiong/) - [Dilek Hakkani-Tur](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/dilek-hakkani-tur/) - [Nitish Shirish Keskar](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/nitish-shirish-keskar/) - [Richard Socher](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/richard-socher/) ## Venues Where their works here were published, the most works first, with the editions of those that have a page. - Information Theory and Applications Workshop (ITA) - Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) - bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) - medRxiv ## Cited by Papers of our library cite their works 620 times (of the 149,439 papers whose bibliographies we read); [131 citing papers with a page here →](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/lav-r-varshney/cited-by/). Updated 3 November 2026