2008 Screening Committee
The screening committee includes doctoral and post-doctoral students (at MIT and other Boston Universities) and professionals working in the Greater Boston area.
Information Technology
Samir Sawanth, Sloan School , MIT
Gaelyn M. Almeida, Assistant Vice President, Wellington Management Company
Healthcare/Biotechnology
Venkataramanan Soundararajan, Biological Engineering, MIT
Dr.Amit Dutt, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Materials/Devices
Vyom Sharma, Material Science and Engineering, MIT
Biraja , Material Science and Engineering, MIT
Priya Jadav Electrical Engg. and Computer Science, MIT
Grassroots Technology and Energy
Ayusman Sarangi, Sloan School, MIT
Jaisree ,Chemical Engineering, MIT
koundinya Singaraju ,Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Samir Sawanth
Graduate Student, Sloan School of Management and School of Engineering, MITSamir Sawant is System Design and Management Fellow and graduating with SM in Engineering and Management. His area focus is Product Design and Development, Technology Strategy and Large Scale Project Management. Prior to joining graduate program at MIT, Samir worked for 8-years in High Tech Product Development, which involved designing and developing consumer reference platforms like Videophone, VOIP Phone, Portable Media Players and Networked Surveillance System, etc. He holds M.Tech in Communication Engg from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and B.E. in Electronics Engg from University of Mumbai.
Priya Jadhav
Electrical Engg. and Computer Science, MITPriya Jadhav is a 2nd year PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engg. and Computer Science. She works in the area of organic semiconductors. The big industrial application of organic semiconductors today is Organic semiconductor LEDs(OLEDs) which are used in displays for cell phones, mp3 players and also TVs. Priya worked for 10 years in the software industry before starting a PhD. She was involved in a software startup - Nagarro Inc. - which continues to grow.
Vyom Sharma
Material Sciences and Engineering, MITVyom Sharma is a fourth year PhD candidate in DMSE and is the currently Vice President of the MIT chapter of Materials Research Society (MRS). His research focuses on the self-assembly of nano-particles and their subsequent application as complete photonic band gap crystals, DNA micro-arrays and open channel catalytic structures. Working with the E-Center at MIT he has developed extensive contacts with the PV companies in and around New England, which manufacture thin film solar cells. He holds a B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology (Madras) and a MS from Max Planck Institute of Metals Research, Stuttgart.
Dr.Amit Dutt
Broad Institute of MIT and HarvardAmit Dutt is a Swiss National Science Foundation post doctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard since 2005. His research involves identifying cancer-causing somatic alterations using genomic approaches followed by functional validation of the candidate cancer genes. After completing his two year of doctoral training (1998-2000) in plant genetics from the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) New Delhi, Amit pursued another Ph.D. in Developmental Biology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland studying signal transduction during the cell fate specification in C.elegans (2000-2004).
Venkataramanan Soundararajan
Biological Engineering, MITVenkataramanan Soundararajan graduated with the B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and his undergraduate IIT thesis on Biomedical Signal Processing and Medical Instrumentation won the 'Agilent Technologies All India Best Thesis Award' for 2005. During his undergraduate days, he was also a visiting research fellow with the Department of Bioengineering at Christian Medical College, Vellore, India and the ATIPS Laboratory in University of Calgary, Canada, where he worked on research projects relating to Bio-MEMS, Dielectrophoresis, Cancer and Electrophysiology. He is currently a graduate research student of the Sasisekharan Laboratory at MIT where he is pursuing his PhD in Biological Engineering, that is focussed on Nanoscale Drug Delivery, Computational Molecular Structual Biology and Cellular Bioinformatics.
Koundinya Singaraju
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, BostonKoundinya is presently at the Center for Community Health and Health Equity, managing the Center’s evaluation and monitoring initiatives. Prior to joining the Brigham, Koundinya was at the Institute for Health Policy, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Research Office, Boston Public Health Commission.
With a decade of experience in community based participatory research, she has led several needs assessment efforts and evaluations to assess effectiveness of diverse public health and service delivery programs in Boston. Her work has focused on capturing and addressing outcomes in the areas of child and adolescent mental health, domestic violence, women, elder and community health, and in racial and ethnic disparities in health and healthcare.
Koundinya received her Masters of Science in Human Development and Family Studies from the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara, Gujarat. Following her service with CARE in rural India, she received a Master of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health from Boston University.
