Academic Appointments

December 2024 – Present
Assistant Professor
Centre for Quantitative Economics and Data Science, Birla Institute of Technology Mesra, Ranchi, India.

December 2021 – December 2024
Assistant Professor, Mathematics
Department of Humanities and Science, Indian Institute of Information Technology Dharwad, India. 

July 2019 – December 2021
Assistant Professor, Grade-II, Level-11, Mathematics
Department of Humanities and Science, Indian Institute of Information Technology Dharwad, India. 

August 2017 – July 2019
Assistant Professor, Grade-II, Level-10, Mathematics
Department of Humanities and Science, Indian Institute of Information Technology Dharwad, India.

August 2016 – August 2017
Assistant Professor, Contractual, Mathematics
Department of Humanities and Science, Indian Institute of Information Technology Dharwad, India. 

Postdoctoral and Research Experience

February 2015 – August 2016
Postdoctoral Fellow, Mathematics
The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India.
Mentor: Dr. S. Kesavan. 

September 2014 – January 2015
Project Assistant
DST-sponsored research project on differential equations, School of Basic Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, India.
Supervisor: Dr. Syed Abbas. 

February 2010 – September 2010
Senior Research Fellow
DST-sponsored research project on statistical techniques, Department of Applied Mathematics, Birla Institute of Technology Mesra, India.
Supervisor: Dr. Manish Trivedi.

My research lies at the intersection of dynamical systems, statistical learning, stochastic optimization, generative modelling, and control theory, with a broad focus on learning-driven autonomy. I develop mathematical and computational frameworks for systems that can learn from heterogeneous and multimodal data, model nonlinear dynamics, forecast multiple plausible futures, and support safe decision-making under uncertainty. My work spans autonomous mobility, CVAE-based trajectory forecasting, traffic-flow modelling, nonlinear dynamical systems, irrigation-aware control, unmanned aerial systems, and socioeconomic decision systems. A central goal of my research is to build intelligent and adaptive systems that integrate perception, prediction, planning, and control while respecting physical, operational, and social constraints.

1. Qualified CSIR-NET, 2012. 
2. Qualified GATE, 2010. 
3. IMSc Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship in Mathematics, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, 2015–2017

A. Journal Articles

1. Jagadish, D. N., Chauhan, A., & Mahto, L. “Conditional Variational Autoencoder Networks for Autonomous Vehicle Path Prediction.” Neural Processing Letters, 54, 3965–3978, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11063-022-10802-z.

2. Mahto, L., Abbas, S., Hafayed, M., & Srivastava, H. M. “Approximate Controllability of Sub-Diffusion Equation with Impulsive Condition.” Mathematics, MDPI, 7, Article 190, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/math7020190. SCI Indexed; IF: 2.7; Q2.

3. Abbas, S., Mahto, L., Favini, A., & Hafayed, M. “Dynamical Analysis of a Fractional Model of Phytoplankton Allelopathy.” Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems, Springer, 24(3), 267–280, 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12591-014-0219-5. Scopus Indexed; Q3.

4. Mahto, L., & Abbas, S. “PC-Almost Automorphic Solution of Impulsive Fractional Functional Differential Equations.” Mediterranean Journal of Mathematics, Springer, 12(3), 771–790, 2015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00009-014-0449-3. SCI Indexed; IF: 1.4; Q2.

5. Abbas, S., Mahto, L., Hafayed, M., & Alemi, F. M. “Asymptotic Almost Automorphic Solution of Impulsive Neural Network with Almost Automorphic Coefficients.” Neurocomputing, Elsevier, 142, 326–334, 2014. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2014.04.028. SCI Indexed; IF: 5.5; Q1.

6. Mahto, L., & Abbas, S. “Approximate Controllability and Optimal Control of Impulsive Fractional Functional Differential Equations.” Journal of Abstract Differential Equations and Applications, 4(2), 44–59, 2013. DOI/URL: http://mathres-pub.org/jadea/4/2/approximate-controllability-and-optimalcontrol-impulsive-fractionalfunctional. MathSciNet Indexed; MCQ: 0.3. 

7. Mahto, L., Abbas, S., & Favini, A. “Analysis of Caputo Impulsive Fractional-Order Differential Equations with Applications.” International Journal of Differential Equations, Article ID 704547, 11 pages, 2013. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/704547. Scopus Indexed; Q3.

B. Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings

1. Mahto, L. “Learning-Driven Autonomy in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.” International Conference on Autonomous Aerial Vehicles, ICAAV 2026, Bangalore, India, August 20–21, 2026. Accepted / Forthcoming.

2. Mahto, L. “Learning-Driven Autonomy in Tactical Operational Scenarios.” International Conference on Autonomous Aerial Vehicles, ICAAV 2026, Bangalore, India, August 20–21, 2026. Accepted / Forthcoming.

3. Mahto, L. “Irrigation-Aware Probabilistic Forecasting and Safe Control via CVAE and Variational Gaussian-Process Dynamics.” Conference on Applied AI and Scientific Machine Learning, CASML 2025, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, 2025.

4. Mahto, L. “Learning Algorithms for Non-Linear Dynamical Systems, Control and Autonomy.” Conference on Applied AI and Scientific Machine Learning, CASML 2024, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, 2024.

5. Mahto, L. “Computational and Statistical Complexities of Learning Algorithm for Nonlinear Dynamical Systems.” Indo-German Conference on Computational Mathematics, IGCM 2023, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, 2023.

6. Chauhan, A., Jagadish, D. N., & Mahto, L. “Multimodality Data Fusion for COVID-19 Diagnosis.” In Proceedings of the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, pp. 4659–4666, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/BigData52589.2021.9671302.

7. Jagadish, D. N., Chauhan, A., & Mahto, L. “Autonomous Vehicle Path Prediction Using Conditional Variational Autoencoder Networks.” In K. Karlapalem et al. (Eds.), Advances in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, PAKDD 2021, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 12712, pp. 129–139, Springer, Cham, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75762-5_11.

8. Jagadish, D. N., Mahto, L., & Chauhan, A. “Deep Learning and Density-Based Clustering Methods for Road Traffic Prediction.” In S. K. Singh, P. Roy, B. Raman, & P. Nagabhushan (Eds.), Computer Vision and Image Processing, CVIP 2020, Communications in Computer and Information Science, Vol. 1378, pp. 332–343, Springer, Singapore, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1103-2_29.

9. Chauhan, A., Kumar, S., Mahto, L., & Jagadish, D. N. “Detection of Reckless Driving Using Deep Learning.” In Proceedings of the 2020 19th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications, ICMLA 2020, Miami, FL, USA, pp. 853–858, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICMLA51294.2020.00139.

10. Jagadish, D. N., Mahto, L., & Chauhan, A. “Density-Based Clustering Methods for Road Traffic Estimation.” In Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE Region 10 Conference, TENCON 2020, Osaka, Japan, pp. 885–890, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/TENCON50793.2020.9293790. 

11. Mahto, L., & Abbas, S. “Existence and Uniqueness of a Solution of Caputo Fractional Differential Equations.” AIP Conference Proceedings, 1479, 896–899, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4756286. 

12. Abbas, S., & Mahto, L. “Existence of Almost Periodic Solution of a Model of Phytoplankton Allelopathy with Delay.” AIP Conference Proceedings, 1479, 900–905, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4756287. 

C. Workshop Proceedings

1. Jagadish, D. N., Chauhan, A., & Mahto, L. “Deep Learning Techniques for Autonomous Vehicle Path Prediction.” AAAI Workshop on AI for Urban Mobility, AI4UM 2021. URL: https://aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI-21/ws21workshops/. 

2. Mahto, L., & Chauhan, A. “An Approximate Gradient-Based Hyper-Parameter Optimization in a Neural Network Architecture.” NeurIPS 12th Workshop on Optimization for Machine Learning, OPT 2020. URL: https://opt-ml.org/papers/2020/paper_62.pdf. 

D. Book Chapter

1. Abbas, S., & Mahto, L. “Piecewise Continuous Stepanov-Like Almost Automorphic Functions with Applications to Impulsive Systems.” In H. Dutta, L. D. R. Ko?inac, & H. M. Srivastava (Eds.), Current Trends in Mathematical Analysis and Its Interdisciplinary Applications, Birkhäuser, Cham, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15242-0_4. 

E. Preprints, Books, and Working Papers

1. Mahto, L. “Learning-Driven Autonomy in Traffic Flow: A Multi-Modal Perception, Forecasting and Planning Framework.” SSRN, 2026. DOI/URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6811568. 

2. Mahto, L. Introduction to Probability and Statistics: A Computational Framework of Randomness. arXiv preprint, arXiv:2401.08622, 2023. 

Funded Research Project:

Deep Learning Model for Autonomous Navigation on Indian Roads
Funding Agency: SERB-DST, Core Research Grant
Role: Co-Principal Investigator
Host Institution: Indian Institute of Information Technology Dharwad, India
Project Duration: 2023–2026
Status: Ongoing
Sanctioned Amount: ?17,61,905.

Scholarly and Teaching Resources

Publication / Open Educational Resource

1. Mahto, L. Introduction to Probability and Statistics: A Computational Framework of Randomness. arXiv preprint, arXiv:2401.08622, 2023.

Course Pages and Teaching Resources

Google Classroom Course Pages

1. Intermediate Analysis, Spring 2025.
   Course page: https://classroom.google.com/c/NzQ0MDc4NTM4ODEw?cjc=kokw6pl [classroom.google.com]

2. Advanced Optimization, Spring 2025.
   Course page: https://classroom.google.com/c/NzMzNzM1NTMzOTA5?cjc=lbvlfev [classroom.google.com]

3. Advanced Optimization, Spring 2026.
   Course page: https://classroom.google.com/c/ODI0MTg3MjQyNzgz?cjc=cjtiwke5

4. Intermediate Analysis, Spring 2026.
   Course page: https://classroom.google.com/c/ODI0MTg3Njk5MDEy?cjc=y6ibwqy6

Workshop and Academic Outreach

1. LDC-FMAID 2025 Workshop
   Learning Dynamical Systems and Control: Foundation, Method, Algorithm and Implementation
   Centre for Quantitative Economics and Data Science, Birla Institute of Technology Mesra, Ranchi, July 21–25, 2025.
   Workshop website: https://sites.google.com/view/ldc-fmaid/ [sites.google.com]

Video Lecture Resources

YouTube Lecture Playlists

1. Linear Algebra
   Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrv_b_Wg7BhQlPZ49yEGWXd02VuqVhaXz&si=WIIhbTzd5J6rMcCr

2. Optimization
   Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrv_b_Wg7BhQgo5r3RfcrgECYl2KiHHWv&si=xeGXjvrBXE4GIqMb

3. Linear Models
   Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrv_b_Wg7BhS0gKKgxWWYUNWvTsrCPMiK&si=oi9osOlHq_pMmx3x

4. Analysis
   Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrv_b_Wg7BhQk3IihxBNKRbL_vlJchz09&si=wbNEDBNV2UGndi8k