2017-2023
I am Juniyali Nauriyal from India, I’m finished a PhD in Electrical Engineering with a focus on integrated photonics and how to connect optical fibers to photonic chips in 2023. I completed my Bachelors in Engineering from Mumbai University in 2016 and then come to the United States to further do a masters. I completed my Masters in Optics from the University of Rochester in 2018 and continued my journey of graduate school as a PhD student. I was always interested in physics and sciences since childhood, but optics was always fascinating for me. In my high school my physics teacher once joked about what would happen if we started to travel at the speed of light, for her it was a light joke but for me it opened up a sea of curiosity for the field. Hence, I went for Instrumentation and control engineering as my undergraduate degree because it had physics, optics and electronics. When I was applying for graduate school, I was looking into electrical engineering with a focus on optics and photonics. Photonics sounded very futuristic and cool, while searching for schools I came across the Institute of Optics and I applied for the same. After getting admitted, I was overwhelmed by the field of optics but I always wanted to study something that can have an impact in the world. So, I stopped by Prof Jaime Cardenas’s office to look for a Master’s thesis project, and he gave me three options, one was for on chip laser, second for a nanoprobe for biosensing and third was this method to improve the performance of a photonic device. I instantly knew, I liked the third project as it had tremendous engineering, lasers to melt glass, and photonics. I got so involved in the work that I decided to then pursue the same project for my PhD.
I joined Cardenas Lab in January 2017, and since then I have been on an exponential curve of growth and knowledge. When I started, I didn’t even know how an optical fiber looked like, now I can fusion splice two in sleep. I enjoyed building the lab from scratch, working with my lab mates, Meiting, Marissa and Raymond. Every day we would come in, respond to emails, work on the computer for a while and then head to the lab for testing and building. Whenever I got tired or exhausted I would drop by the office for a quick break and engage in meaningful as well as not so meaningful conversations with my lab mates. Prof Cardenas would always stop by the office nearly everyday and that was very helpful for small debugs or problems that we were facing. I personally would stop by his office as soon as I had any questions or doubts which was generally multiple times a day, and he always made sure he helped me first even if he was in a meeting.
Prof Cardenas has weekly group meetings, where we do journal paper presentations, conference practice talks and he teaches us how to write a nice research paper, helping us develop interpersonal skills, written and oral communication skills, and researching skills. You learn very soon that you cannot google everything, and you need to read not just papers but multiple books to figure out the problems, this helped in developing problem solving skills.
Here are some of my favorite memories from Cardenas Lab, free food on every group meeting, quarterly activities organized by Cecilia from go-carting to ice skating, Friday evenings in the office when everyone is just tired and chills, giving lab tours to students, visiting conferences, every December when we are waiting for CLEO deadline and last but not the least, trips to Cornell and working in an outer space environment.
After my PhD, I will be working on my startup that I co-founded with Prof Cardenas. He is very supportive, helpful, and will make sure you progress in life. With his support, I was able to win a number of awards and competitions.
During the PhD you go through a lot of ups and downs, there are some days where everything works and you get fabulous results, however, there are some months where you are struggling to even get the laser working. This taught me a very important life skill, resilience. I am glad I joined the group and met some exceptional people along the way because it made me what I am today.
