#IIITDStudentsRock in the US!

Continuing on my fascination about exciting things that IIITD students do around the world (see my earlier blog post on #IIITDStudentsRock in Europe! and my meetup with students in Singapore and Bengaluru), I was traveling in the US (east coast) in the second week of October when I met some IIITD Alums. It is generally exciting to see alums of IIITD pursuing higher studies in the US and some coming back to academia after a stint in the industry; you will see many such examples in this blog!

Pittsburgh / Carnegie Mellon University (My alma mater): As most of you know, this place is special for me! Below are the students who are at CMU now and I was able to meet all of them.

• Hemank Lamba: Graduated with a B.Tech. in 2012 (first batch). Currently pursuing a Ph.D. from the School of Computer Science at CMU. Has interned at IBM, Newcastle University, Data Science for Social Good. Has probably taken all the courses that I taught during his time 🙂 Was one of the first B.Tech. thesis that I had at IIITD.
• Megha Arora: Finished her B.Tech. this year, 2016. Currently pursuing Masters in Computer Science at CMU. Has interned at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland, University of Southern California, and EMC^2. Has taken all courses from me and she has actually spent the last 3+ years with Precog.
• Mudita Khurana: Graduated with a B.Tech. in 2013. Currently pursuing Masters in Information Security at CMU. Spent time at Sapient, and Accenture during time between IIITD & CMU. Has taken some of my classes.
• Rushil Khuarana: Finished his B.Tech. in 2013. Finished MS in HCI from GaTech in 2015. Currently pursuing Ph.D. in HCI at CMU. Did some very exciting project on technology for physically challenged users in my Designing in Human Centred Systems course!

Below is a picture with all of them, taken inside the Gates Hillman Centre at CMU.

Atlanta / GaTech: From a place like CMU which I knew more than any other academic campuses, I went to GaTech; this was my first visit to GaTech! I have booked tickets twice in the past and did not end up going there, once cancelled the trip from India, and the other one, the flight did not take off from DCA airport because of snow! At last the jinx was broken and I was so happy to go to GaTech. It was nice to see students from first batch of IIITD, 2012 to the current batch of IIITD, 2016 studying at GaTech, i.e. to show that students of IIITD come back to academia after some years of work experience. I learned that “Georgia Tech.” is referred to as the “Tech” or “GaTech” and never “Georgia Tech.” Below are the students who are at GaTech now and I was able to meet all of them.

• Rohan Katyal: Graduated with a B.Tech. in 2016. Currently pursuing Masters in Human Computer Interaction at GaTech. Has interned at Google Summer of Code, EMC, and Inria France. Taken all my courses at IIITD.
• Bhanu Verma: Graduated with a B.Tech. in 2012, first batch of B.Tech. from IIITD.    Currently pursuing Masters in Computer Science at GaTech. Has interned at CISCO. Spent some years in the industry before coming back to academia. Has probably taken all the courses that I taught during his time 🙂
• Nikita Juneja: Graduated with a B.Tech. in 2014, second batch of B.Tech. Currently pursuing Masters in Computer Science at GaTech. Interestingly, she has never taken any of my classes! Worked at EMC & Flipkart before coming back to academia. She was also at the IIITD Alums meet in Bengaluru in Summer 2015.
• Vedant Das Swain: Graduated with a B.Tech. in 2016. Currently pursuing Masters in HCI at GaTech. Has probably taken all my courses! Should be credited to some of the cool fliers that I have used in the last 1 year or so!
• Nilaksh Das (not a IIITD alum, RA of IIITD): Graduated from NSIT with a B.Tech. in 2014. Currently pursuing Masters in Computer Science at GaTech. Worked for 1.5 years with me at PreCog full time before going to GaTech.

Below is a picture with all students from GaTech; you can see in the background, that “First session. Oct 7, 1888” at GaTech.

Baltimore / UMBC: My next stop in this trip was University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).  During my visit, I got a chance to see the inauguration of the new PI^2 Immersive Hybrid Reality Lab.  As in CMU & in GaTech, got a chance to meet with some of my own students, below is a list of students who are doing some cool stuff at UMBC. It is also an incredible feeling when your own students from IIITD are working together in a different context now, i.e. Aditi my first Ph.D. student and Sudip my first Dual degree student from IIITD are currently working together on a project at UMBC!

• Aditi Gupta: My first Ph.D. student graduated in July 2014. Currently a Post-doc at UMBC.
• Sudip Mittal: Graduated with a B.Tech. & M.Tech. in 2014. Currently pursuing Ph.D. in Computer Science at UMBC. Has interned at GE Research. Probably has taken all my courses at IIITD, except HCI. Completed his BTP and MTP with me.
• Srishty Saha: Graduated with a B.Tech. in 2016. Currently pursuing Masters in Computer Science at UMBC. Completed her BTP with me. Has probably taken all the courses that I taught at IIITD.

Below is a picture with Srishty & Sudip from UMBC, in front of the ebiquity Lab.

I always try and connect with students while traveling, something that I rejoice so much these days. It is always fun to sit with IIITD alums and talk about their time at IIITD and update them on happenings in campus. Some of them are very curious about things in campus and some are already quite updated too. I request all students of IIITD to update their current city in Facebook, this will help me connect while traveling. Continue IIITDing!

If you are an alum of IIITD and if you are planning to attend the Retrace on 7th of Jan, 2017, please drop me a note, will be happy to catch up with you.