fix: cherry-pick combined projection fixes (#1324, #1357) into r0.2.1#1388

HuiyingLi wants to merge 2 commits intor0.2.1NVIDIA-NeMo/Automodel:r0.2.1from

cherry-pick-1324-1357-r0.2.1NVIDIA-NeMo/Automodel:cherry-pick-1324-1357-r0.2.1Copy head branch name to clipboard