Built a citation‑aware assistant that lets users upload academic papers and receive structured, reference‑backed answers. The system uses FAISS for vector search, regex for citation extraction, and Google Gemini for synthesis. Frontend is Streamlit with a guided workflow, while backend is FastAPI with Supabase authentication and PostgreSQL history storage. Docker and GitHub Actions ensure smooth deployment. This project reduces LLM dependency, improves performance, and delivers a production‑ready platform for academic research queries.