# NVIDIA Developer Champion Directory

The following directory contains the list of all NVIDIA Developer Champions. These individuals are selected and recognized by NVIDIA for their developer community leadership.

[Apply to Become a Champion](https://developer.nvidia.com/developer-champions-program/join)



The rows below are the raw result records for this component — one row per record. Column names are the source index fields; the full data is also downloadable in the links that follow.

| bio | group | links | title | location | full-name | last_name | organization | profile_page_url | profile_image_url | stack_layer_focus | ai_ecosystem_focus | years_of_experience |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Behzad Torkian is an expert in AI, large language models (LLMs), high-performance computing, and scalable architectures. He has contributed to multiple patents and developed advanced platforms that bridge cutting-edge research with real-world applications. His work drives innovation in cloud computing and machine learning, enabling organizations to harness AI at scale. Behzad has been collaborating with NVIDIA and bringing his deep technical expertise to help develop new generative AI and agentic AI certifications. He also leads AI strategy across multiple startups, turning emerging research into impactful products and solutions. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/bentorkian, https://github.com/torkian/ai-code-reviewer   
https://github.com/torkian/ai-program-factory | Principal Research Scientist | San Diego,CA, \| Columbia, SC | Behzad Torkian | Torkian | USC | /developer-champions/behzad-torkian | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/behzad-torkian.png | Models | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 16-20 |
| Founding DevRel for Crusoe Managed AI. I build the community of developers shipping frontier AI on Crusoe's GPU infrastructure — through hackathons, technical content, hands-on walkthroughs, and developer programs. My focus: creating the spaces where engineers building on the frontier come to learn, ship, and connect. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuel-acheampong/, https://github.com/acheamponge, https://x.com/achampiong | Senior Manager Developer Relations | Seattle, WA | Emmanuel Acheampong | Acheampong | Crusoe | /developer-champions/emmanuel-acheampong | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/emmanuel-acheampong.jpg | Models | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 6-10 |
| Fabian Duarte, Associate CTO at Insight, is a full-stack AI leader with 25 years of expertise in technology strategy. From his roots as a storage engineer through cloud architecture to AI, he now focuses on scaling NVIDIA practices and GPU deployments. Fabian is a certified expert versed in AI application development, agent deployment, and AI-defined results. An Advisory Board Member and mentor, he is dedicated to demystifying complex infrastructure and driving continuous innovation. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/duartefabian | Associate CTO | Chandler, AZ | Fabian Duarte | Duarte | Insight | /developer-champions/fabian-duarte | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/fabian-duarte.jpg | Platforms | Full-Stack Application Development | 20+ |
| Grace Gong is a Cloud Reliability Engineer at Microsoft Azure with experience across developer tooling, machine learning observability, and cloud infrastructure. She has worked on Power BI and the Microsoft Fabric data platform, and previously worked on ML/LLM observability at Datadog. Grace is also a community builder, speaker, and mentor who has led developer programs and technical events for students and developers across data, cloud, and AI. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/1gracegong/, https://github.com/ggongg/, https://x.com/graceg0ng | Cloud Reliability Engineer | Redmond, WA | Grace Gong | Gong | Microsoft | /developer-champions/grace-gong | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/grace-gong.png | Systems | Full-Stack Application Development | 0-5 |
| Kranthi designs and deploys production AI systems for enterprise healthcare and life sciences customers. Over the past decade, he has built deep expertise across enterprise integration on Azure, AWS, and Oracle Cloud, with a sharpened focus in recent years on clinical NLP pipelines, prior authorization automation, and HIPAA-regulated agentic AI. He works daily with Microsoft Agent Framework, LangGraph, LangChain, CrewAI, and the Azure AI Foundry ecosystem, helping organizations move agent prototypes into reliable production deployments. His work sits at the intersection of compliance and capability. He has been actively exploring runtime HIPAA enforcement for AI agent tool calls, an area he sees as critically underserved — no existing tool detects all 18 Safe Harbor identifiers at runtime. He has also developed a working AI Solutions Engineer Agent — a self-service demo system for healthcare enterprise customers spanning Azure Content Understanding, Foundry, Agent Framework, Copilot Studio, and Content Safety — designed to help account teams and customers reason about agentic patterns without standing up bespoke environments. Kranthi is also the founder and editor of The AI Runtime, a Substack publication and community for engineers shipping AI to production. He hosts monthly AI Runtime meetups in Cambridge, MA, bringing together engineers building agentic systems, and maintains a companion events site featuring speaker archives and resources for the community. Outside of his AI work, Kranthi has built creative AI-powered keepsake projects around his daughter's milestones — small experiments that often surface design ideas for his more serious systems work. He is interested in children's product design and screen-alternative experiences, and continues to explore how the principles of reliable, production-grade AI translate into more humane consumer experiences. Whether shaping an enterprise agent rollout for a hospital system, deliberating editorial direction for The AI Runtime, or judging hackathon demos, Kranthi's throughline is the same: the work isn't done when a model produces an impressive output — it's done when the system behaves reliably in the hands of real users. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/kranthimanchikanti/, https://github.com/ogkranthi | AI Solutions Architect | Boston, MA | Kranthi Manchikanti | Manchikanti | Microsoft | /developer-champions/kranthi-manchikanti | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/kranthi-manchikanti.jpeg | Models | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 11-15 |
| I'm Matthew, a sophomore Computer Engineering student at Texas A&M. I'm excited to bring NVIDIA's developer ecosystem to campuses worldwide! Outside of tech, I like to read, draw, and play basketball. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-shi-a2376b239/, https://github.com/Matthewtershi | Founder & Community Director | Austin, TX | Matthew Shi | Shi | tidalTAMU | /developer-champions/matthew-shi | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/matthew-shi.jpeg | Systems | AI Factory Infrastructure & Networking | 0-5 |
| Rabimba is a Staff Machine Learning Scientist at PayPal with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Houston. He is a Google Developer Expert in ML and a Champion Innovator in Cloud AI. His work focuses on Large Language Models, multi-agent orchestration, security, and automated vulnerability detection. A passionate FOSS enthusiast, Rabimba actively develops AI solutions like LogInject and contributes to advancing the open-source ML ecosystem. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/rabimba, https://github.com/rabimba, https://x.com/rabimba | Staff ML Scientist | San Jose, CA, USA | Rabimba Karanjai | Karanjai | PayPal | /developer-champions/rabimba-karanjai | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/rabimba-karanjai.jpeg | Models | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 6-10 |
| Ron Caplan is a computational scientist whose interests are in developing and optimizing numerical methods for physics simulation models and their implementations in parallel high-performance-computing environments including GPU accelerators. His research currently focuses on the operation, development, and optimization of the thermodynamic magnetohydrodynamic code (MAS) used to study the solar corona and heliosphere, as well as providing computational solutions for additional projects. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/caplanr/, https://github.com/predsci, https://x.com/sumseq | Computational Scientist | San Diego, CA | Ron Caplan | Caplan | Predictive Science Inc. | /developer-champions/ron-caplan | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/ron-caplan.jpeg | Software | Industrial Digital Twins & Simulation | 16-20 |
| Pacific northwest enthusiast, super passionate about how we can use AI to make the world a better place for all of us. In my free time I am an avid hiker. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/saalik-ahmed/, https://github.com/Kaboom2025/ | Software Engineer | Seattle, WA | Saalik Ahmed | Ahmed | UW | /developer-champions/saalik-ahmed | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/saalik-ahmed.jpg | Software | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 0-5 |
| Samaresh Kumar Singh is an engineering principal at HP Inc. with more than 21 years of experience in designing and implementing large-scale distributed systems, cloud native platform systems, and edge AI / ML systems. His expertise includes agentic AI systems, GenAI / LLMs, Edge AI, federated and privacy preserving learning, and secure hybrid cloud / edge computing. Through-out his career he has been responsible for leading the design and implementation of high throughput, low latency services and resilient orchestration frameworks that provide intelligence closer to devices and data sources. Samaresh is also very active in the technical community, serving as a book review editor for Apress and Manning, and has reviewed more than 100 research papers submitted for publication in IEEE conferences and journals that span AI / ML, distributed systems, edge computing and cybersecurity. In addition, Samaresh is passionate about taking academic research from concept to working systems, and mentoring engineers and researchers. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/samaresh-singh-9772ba23/, https://github.com/ssam18 | Principal Engineer | Austin, TX | Samaresh Kumar Singh | Singh | HP Inc. | /developer-champions/samaresh-kumar-singh | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/samaresh-kumar-singh.jpg | Software | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 20+ |
| Tom Bendien, Founder & CEO of GT Edge AI, leverages decades of tech experience to provide private, secure open-source AI solutions globally while advocating and running workshops for AI Literacy & Cyber education. He is actively working to support both Commercial and Government AI projects. | developer-champion-en | https://linkedin.com/in/tbendien, https://github.com/GT-Edge-AI-Internal/gt-ai-os-community | Founder & CEO | Washington, DC | Tom Bendien | Bendien | GT Edge AI | /developer-champions/tom-bendien | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/tom-bendien.png | Systems | AI Factory Infrastructure & Networking | 20+ |
| I build AI products for Latin American enterprises. As Head of Product at Saptiva AI, I've taken our platform from concept to the infrastructure that banking, government, and education clients rely on, including a 5-year AI Lab at Universidad Iberoamericana and Mexico's first sovereign LLM, launched with the Ministry of Economy and NVIDIA. Background: International Relations (ITAM), full-stack Python, 3x NVIDIA Certified. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/carloslaraarias?, https://github.com/LaraArias, https://x.com/iaencorto?s=21 | Head of Product | Mexico City, MX | Carlos Lara | Lara | Saptiva AI | /developer-champions/carlos-lara | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/carlos-lara.jpeg | Models | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 6-10 |

[Download the raw results data (JSON)](https://developer.nvidia.com/search-data/developer_champion_en.json)



## What Makes an NVIDIA Developer Champion?

Champions are community-focused builders who lead by example.

### Community Centric

You're a natural doer, helper, and leader, plus have a public track record in the developer community – starting or leading groups, or contributions such as speaking at or hosting events, publishing content, or mentoring other developers.

### Proof of Work

An active GitHub, public demos, a winning hackathon track record. Whatever you've built, you make it real by showing instead of just telling.

### Technical Depth

You've got technical chops and you're hands-on. Whether you're optimizing kernels or building full-stack apps, you're using NVIDIA technology to solve hard problems.

### Share the Craft

You don't just build; you share the journey. Whether it's a deep-dive on Substack, a tutorial on YouTube, or a sharp thread on X, you break down complex builds and show others how it's done.

[Apply to Become a Champion](https://developer.nvidia.com/developer-champions-program/join)