2/8/2021 As told to Lizzie Roehrs
HMNTL alum Aditya Sarathy shares how the time he spent at Illinois helped shaped his current work.
Written by As told to Lizzie Roehrs
A conversation with HMNTL alum, Aditya Sarathy.
Who was your advisor at Holonyak Lab?
Professor Jean-Pierre Leburton
2018
Where do you work now?
Apple Inc.
I worked on developing simulation models for next generation solid state devices that might be capable of sequencing bio-molecules.
Throughout my time at Illinois, I worked across many fields across ECE. I was initially working on Electromagnetics for my Masters but later decided to switch to semiconductor device research for my PhD program. The department gave me this wonderful chance to seamlessly switch across fields. Furthermore, even during my PhD program, my advisor was very gracious and gave me the opportunity to develop my own collaborations with other faculty of the department too. This opened the doors for my wonderful collaboration with Professor Lav Varshney, who introduced me to some ideas of statistical signal processing and machine learning. I have really enjoyed working with both my advisor and Professor Varshney. I also had the incredible opportunity to visit EPFL, Switzerland where I got to work Professor Aleksandra Radenovic who introduced me to the complexities of making 2D semiconductor devices for biological applications. This unique blend of experiences where I got to work on a combination of semiconductors, sensor physics, signal processing and machine learning really helped shape my work now.
What advice do you have for current students?
The best advice I can give current students is to not be scared to follow your interests, even if they are divergent from your current area of research. Being open to explore new areas might help in finding newer avenues of addressing some of the problems being faced in your current area of research. Another valuable piece of advice I can offer is to try to talk to many other faculty in the department, even if they have different research interests, and learn about their work. Other faculty can be valuable avenues to learn about other fields and techniques, which can open up your career and experiences in new and exciting ways! Illinois is one of the few places where a student can have access to such a wide variety of experts, take advantage of it!