From West Bengal to Westphalia

When Debtanu boarded a plane from India to Germany in May, he wasn’t just changing time zones – he was entering a new research domain. The PhD student from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur came to the RC Trust as part of the international Research Internship Program.
His goal? Dive into explainable AI with a focus on Large Language Models (LLMs).
What he found was more than he expected: a well-structured Lab, collaboration, and a research group that made him feel right at home.

Debtanu Datta, born in 1997 and currently pursuing his PhD in Natural Language Processing with a focus on the legal domain, joined the RC Trust in Bochum for a three-month research internship between May and August 2025. He had come across the program while following the work of Prof. Bilal Zafar, whose research on explainable AI caught his attention. Soon after, he reached out and a collaboration began to take shape.
"In research, collaboration is one of the key elements," says Debtanu. "The opportunity to work with a group like this one, even if it's outside my main field, helped me learn a lot of new techniques."
His expectations going in were clear: gain hands-on experience in LLM architecture and learn how to incorporate that in several domains more effectively. He also mentioned about academic writing. "Along with experiments and coding, writing a good research paper is very crucial in academia – and I learned several key nuances of that during the paper submission here."
He highlighted the level of structure and documentation. "Everything was well-documented in this Lab. From onboarding steps to how to access the GPU cluster effectively – there were documents for almost everything."
But it wasn’t only about research. Personally, the internship helped him grow, too: "I’ve become more comfortable in reaching out to people. And the weekly team standup really helped. Everyone could put their challenges on the table – it felt like true collaboration."
Debtanu also appreciated the high-end infrastructure and the supportive environment of the Lab. "It was very easy to get into the workflow. The team was incredibly helpful, and I had the opportunity to connect with researchers from diverse backgrounds."
When asked for his most memorable moment, his answer comes quickly: a dinner at Prof. Zafar’s home with the whole team. “That really stayed with me – it was such a warm and welcoming experience!”
His advice for future applicants? “Check the research profiles of the professors at RC Trust – look into those whose work aligns with your interests – and apply!”
And how would he sum up his experience in one sentence? “A wonderful time in Germany – I will truly miss these days.”

Curious about the RC Trust Internship Program?
Learn more here: https://rc-trust.ai/career/internship-program