Balancing research and entrepreneurship

Meghna Madhusudan will be earning her doctoral degree under the guidance of Professor Ramesh Harjani at the end of spring 2025. Her research, which straddles the areas of circuit design and computer-aided design (CAD), has thrown at her its own unique challenges and opportunities. She spoke to us recently about the complexities of working in a highly specialized area, and how she has balanced her entrepreneurial interest while working on her dissertation. She addresses the highs and lows of her time as a graduate student and shares how students can prepare for a demanding program and come through it successfully. 

(This is an abbreviated version of the full interview which is also available on the ECE website .)

Start in the graduate program: 
I started in the graduate program in fall 2017 under the supervision of Professor Ramesh Harjani. I was always keen on analog design, so I decided to pursue research in the area. It was a decision that surprised my family and friends. They felt that with everything going digital my pursuit of research in analog circuits was a terrible idea. But I went ahead with my decision and took courses with Professor Harjani. It wasn’t smooth sailing. I have always struggled with self-doubt. I tend to question myself and overthink every step even with things I am pretty good at. Despite the overthinking I still got things wrong. So it was hard, but I continued to persevere and made the most of Professor Harjani’s office hours.

On ALIGN, and honing non-academic skills: 
At the end of my first semester I joined the ALIGN research team*. My key responsibility was to write software for analog design. Although I was not very interested in writing code prior to that, the idea of doing it for analog design appealed to me. So I ended up being the analog design guide bridging the gap. I was only in my second semester at the time and the learning curve was steep. But it was a lot of fun to work with the ALIGN team. We worked hard together and challenged each other. 

Working on the ALIGN team meant that I had to also attend and present at DARPA integration meetings where teams working on DARPA funded projects showcase their work. We practiced a lot as a team before each of these meetings, and we got really good at it. All that practice helped me a lot, and I became more confident with speaking and presenting in public. 

On the challenges of publishing: 
Getting papers published is critical for a Ph.D. student. My work lives in a niche area straddling analog design and CAD, which puts me in a difficult position. Do I try to publish in analog conferences, papers, and journals, or CAD conferences, papers, and journals? My idea for my first paper lived at the intersection of the two areas. It was an analog design perspective to automation, a CAD paper with strong ties to analog design. The idea was compelling but very new and out there, which made me doubt my work. But I wanted to contribute and add value in my own way, in a way that other people could not do. Eventually I did publish the paper; that was important to me academically and personally. 

On entrepreneurial interests: 
Even as an undergraduate student, I was interested in starting a "hard technology" company. So sometime between my second and third years as a Ph.D. student, I decided to explore what it would take to be an entrepreneur. My idea was to commercialize ALIGN. I started with the MIN-Corps program at the University of Minnesota where I learned about customer discovery. After successfully completing the MIN-Corps program the next step for me was to gain acceptance to the NSF I-Corps program. It is similar to MIN-Corps, but more rigorous. You have to interview over a 100 people. You are given $50,000 and you can have a team of three to work with you on the project. 

We had to meet and interview roughly 15 people each week to meet our target of 100 interviews. This time around I was more confident having gone through a version of the tasks and expectations in the MIN-Corps round. We also had weekly calls with our NSF advisors and presented what we covered in our interviews, the questions we asked, and what we learned from those conversations. The advisors also coached us on questions to ask, and guided us on analyzing the responses we got. It was an involved process, but it was a lot of fun, and I am very glad I did it. 

On balancing your entrepreneurial interest with doctoral research:
Professors Harjani and Sapatnekar were very supportive of my entrepreneurial interests. They gave me the freedom and flexibility to explore these opportunities. I am grateful for that because I have always wanted to try my hand at entrepreneurship. The NSF I-Corps program was a lot of fun, but there were quite a few lows too. Towards the end of the program what I learned was that we had a market, and we had customers. But with our software not being patented, it was harder to differentiate it from our competitors who were big players such as Cadence and Synopsys.  

On career prospects: 
My search for internship opportunities and jobs was yet another significant challenge. It was very difficult for me to find a position that called for my niche expertise. Ultimately, it was through the NSF I-Corps program that I was introduced to the team I work with now at Analog Devices. I think talking to those 100 people as I worked through the NSF program opened up avenues for me that ultimately led me to where I am today. 

On doing mentorship right: 
I struggled a lot with comparisons. It comes from many places: sometimes I compare myself with others. At other times, people I know have compared me with others. The intent is to inspire you, but somewhere along the way it turns into a comparison where I am left with the feeling that I am not as good as the other student. Instead I wish I was told, “Here are your strengths, and these are your weaknesses.” 

On the road ahead: 
I think something that all students should remember is that the journey does not end with graduation. It continues and there are challenges and some things work out and some don’t. But the important thing is to keep going. It is important to know yourself. Even when you are looking for a job, know yourself well and understand what kind of environment you will work well in. Choose people and teams who will support and encourage you. 

The doctoral program for me was a path to self-discovery. I wanted to find myself. And it has made me a lot stronger and more capable of handling my emotions and reactions whatever they are, positive or negative. 

* ALIGN (Analog Layout, Intelligently Generated from Netlists) is an open source automatic layout generator for analog circuits. Developed under the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) IDEA (Intelligent Design of Electronic Assets) program, it is a collaborative endeavor undertaken by the University of Minnesota, Texas A&M University, and Intel Corporation.

Professor Ramesh Harjani's expertise lies in analog/RF circuits for wireless and wired communications, analog signal processing, and integrated power electronics. He hold the Edgar F. Johnson Professorship in Electronic Communications.

Professor Sachin Sapatnekar's expertise lies in computer-aided design of VLSI circuits and systems. He is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and holds the Robert and Marjorie Henle Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering.