Why did you choose to enroll at USC?
When deciding there were three factors that would lead to me enrolling in any school that had one of them. These factors are: having good alumni network, close to the Silicon Valley and having study-life balance. USC has all of them and this why I chose to enroll at USC.
What's an experience at USC you'll never forget?
Running the 2019 LA Marathon as part of Team USC and raising nearly $10,000 that goes to combat homelessness in LA. Being an engineering student and training for running 26.2 miles wasn't easy at all but having a study-life balance is achievable at USC and this is what helped me to finish the LA marathon among the top 40% finishers.
What did you enjoy most about living in California?
People in the world are divided into either being a beach person or a mountain person, however, I am a mix of both. I enjoyed hiking the most in California and there is no better plan for the weekend than taking a hike in Santa Monica mountains then enjoying the waves of Venice Beach.
What are some personal achievements or experiences you’d like to share?
I was chosen by The Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) to receive the ECE Most Outstanding Student Award which is an award given to only one student out of all the 1000 MS students. I wasn't only active inside the classroom but outside as well as an active member of the USC Community as graduate boards member of two associations on campus, which allowed to have a family away from my family that I can celebrate my achievements with.
Is there something that may surprise people to know about you?
I am admitted into the PhD program at USC but before applying to the program I visited more than 20 campuses in the US and drove in more than 20 states, fortunately, I ended up applying only to USC and most of the schools in the University of California system, except UCLA of course.
What advice would you give future Viterbi students?
Graduate life would be the best period of your life if a study-life balance was guaranteed. flourishing in the classroom is not enough to create lifelong memories and being academically excellent and active in the USC community will surely guarantee you that so until you meet some of the greatest minds in the world at Viterbi School of Engineering, keep fighting on!
Kartik Lakhotia
MS in Computer Engineering
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Best place I've been to is Phi-phi island. It's a thin strip of land with mountains, a jungle (sort of) and white sand turquoise water beaches. Extremely laid back and great Thai food.
What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?
Finishing the PhD would be a great accomplishment (hopefully happens in Fall 21). Two-three years down the lane, I felt stuck and couldn't generate new ideas to work upon. I almost quit the PhD, but my wife insisted that I continue and create a broader perspective. Thereafter, I published a few papers, two of them being in one of the highly sought after Computer Science conferences. Those two papers were great achievements given where I was coming from.
What's your favorite impulse purchase from the past 12 months?
Car - I bought a Passat Diesel premium in a day. Went to dealerships, test drove some cars and got turned down on the car I actually set out to buy. Got a phone call in the evening about some deal on this other car and bought it the next morning. It turned out to be good because you get renewable diesel in California which aligns with my environmental friendly goals (still try to take public transport as much as possible).
Please describe a little about your research and what excites you about it
I work on parallel algorithms for graphs that model relationships in data. The algorithms I develop make it feasible to mine useful information from these abstract structures in a reasonable time. Recently, I have worked on some notorious analytics that are very difficult to parallelize. Finding new insights in them and coming up with these ideas that nobody else thought of really excites me. I also love to work on parallel computing platforms and am really amazed by how large-scale systems are built on top of them. Those are some really complex hardware+software collaborations.
If you could choose any other profession outside of engineering or computer science, what would it be?
My pick for an alternate profession would be a Forest Officer in India - love outdoors, love forests andtropical forests have a lot of animal biodiversity
What are some factors that helped you decide to pursue your PhD at USC?
I was a hardware engineer and wanted to move up the computing stack - more towards algorithms or high-level optimization. My advisor works on this mix of FPGA (hardware) + high-level optimization techniques which was quite a fit. Although in the end, I did not do any FPGA stuff in my PhD.
If you were to recommend to an incoming student 3 places to go in California/Los Angeles, what would they be?
I love California and absolutely love Los Angeles. Three must go places for me would be Venice beach (it's a really cool and hip place), Joshua Tree national park (best night sky I've ever seen in my life) and Idyllwild (mountains, snow, hiking, skiing, small bistros, what more does one want).
What is a memory you'll cherish about your time at USC?
I will certainly remember my Teaching Assistantship under Prof. Puvvada Gandhi. He works really hard for his course and expects you to do the same. Initially, it can feel like way more work than fellow TAs, but the response from him and from the students in the class is extremely rewarding. I actually used to look forward to my TA work as a source of joy.
What's one thing about you that might surprise me?
My love for adventure activities would surprise anyone who knows me. I am a really easy person to scare. I shout and scream when watching a horror movie or when on a(mini) roller coaster, at times to the great embarrassment of my wife. But I still love doing all of that. I mean I regret immediately once I am in that situation, but before that I really want to give it a shot. That, and tattoo :P
What are your plans after graduation?
Not much to be honest. Taking a couple of weeks break to help with my wife's residency applications and then I will be joining Intel labs. I plan to go home soon, my dog back in my hometown is growing old and I want to spend some time with her.
Hometown (city, country)
Sumerpur in Pali district, India.
Personal Website (if any)
https://kartiklakhotia.
Faculty Advisor
Academic Advisor - Diane Demetras
Thesis Advisor - Viktor Prasanna
Yun Cheng Wang
PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.
What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?
I consider pursuing a PhD degree as my greatest accomplishment right now because it requires lots of work but the rewards are also satisfying.
What's your favorite impulse purchase from the past 12 months?
I decided to spend less money at Starbucks and bought a portable coffee machine but I still went to Starbucks once in a while.
Please describe a little about your research and what excites you about it.
My research is to use mathematical tools and machine learning models to discover underlying facts in relational data, such as web pages and user profiles. There are a lot of applications in my research. For example, Google uses it to rank web pages for Google search. Another more exciting application recently is that scientists are developing Covid vaccine by modeling the Covid spike protein as relational data.
If you could choose any other profession outside of engineering or computer science, what would it be?
I once had the impulse to be a physicist and an astronaut after watching the movie “Interstellar”. I was fascinated by space travel and I wanted to discover the mystery of the origin of time.
What are some factors that helped you decide to pursue your PhD at USC?
First of all, I think finding an advisor that you have a good time collaborating with is very important for a PhD student. I like how my current advisor runs the lab and I am interested in the research topic we are working on. Secondly, I like LA.
If you were to recommend to an incoming student 3 places to go in California/Los Angeles, what would they be?
Griffith Observatory is definitely the first place to visit when you are in LA. You can enjoy the best sunset and night view there. There are also many hiking trails to go on the weekends. If you like to spend time in art museums, I recommend the Getty Center. They also have a beautiful garden to take pictures in. If you want to enjoy some local foods and shopping, you should visit the farmer’s market and The Grove.
What is a memory you'll cherish about your time at USC?
What I like about USC is the diversity of the students. I have friends from Korea, China, India, and Vietnam. We study together and we like to hang out on the weekends. My Korean friend always shows us authentic Korean foods in Korean Town.
What's one thing about you that might surprise me?
I like to sing rap songs lol.
What are your plans after graduation?
I would like to join the industry first because I think it’s the most direct way to contribute to human society. Besides, it’s important to know the trends and needs of the customers in my field. After several years, I might consider becoming a professor in my home country, Taiwan, to educate the next generation.
Hometown (city, country):
I am from Kaohsiung, Taiwan, a beautiful port city.
Personal Website (if any):
https://yunchengwang.github.
Faculty Advisor:
Professor C.-C. Jay Kuo
