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2010 Summer Interns Present Their Research

Thirty-nine students from the China, India, Mexico and the U.S. finish mentored projects and return home - but many will come back
Eric Mankin
September 01, 2010 —

Undergrads from elite schools all over the world compete for grants that enable them to spend several summer months in USC labs, mentored by Viterbi faculty.

Doctoral Programs Coordinator Tracy Charles, left rear, and Senior Associate Dean Raghu Raghavendra, right rear, with picnicking interns.
This years crop included 18 students from Tsinghua University in China; 12 from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in India, 3 from the Autonomous University of Mexico and 6 from various U.S. institutions.

A large and outstanding group of faculty from numerous Viterbi departments worked with the students, including Jean-Pierre Bardet, Adam Fincham, Roger Ghanem, Leana Golubchik, Tsung Hsiai, Michael Khoo, Jay Kuo, Jerry Loeb, Stephen Lu, Noah Malmstadt, Gerard Medioni, Ellis Meng, Shri Narayanan, Ulrich Neumann, Steve Nutt, Michelle Povinelli, Viktor Prasanna, Costas Sioutas, Milind Tambe, Theodore Tsotsis, Francisco Valero-Cuevas, Priya Vashishsta, and Chongwu Zhou.

Senior Associate Dean Raghu Raghavendra, and Associate Dean Margery Berti work closely with the program, which is administered by Doctoral Programs Coordinator Tracy Charles.

Here are the students. Click on each image below to view a pdf describing the research done by each individual in that group,

IIT Kharagpur

The university is one of India's premier institutions for engineering study, and one that has long been working with the Viteribi School. The Viterbi-IIT internship program, funded by IIT-Kh alumnus Vinod Gupta, the founder of InfoGROUP (previously InfoUSA), is now in its fifth year.

Front Row L-R: Arvind Ramanthan, Khushboo, Kalyan Asis Sahoo, Harsh Kumar, Allen Dan Babu, Aman Kumar and Mohit Agrawal. Back Row L-R: Aritra Chatterjee, Asawari Moon, Avik Dutt, Jayant, and Pankaj Raja
 Tsinghua University

Located in Beijing, Tsinghua University is a well-known training ground for outstanding Chinese students. Funding for Tsinghua students was provided by Feng Deng, a Tsinghua undergraduate alumnus who obtained a masters degree in computer engineering at USC in 1993 and went on to a highly successful career as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Today Deng and several partners run the North Light Venture Capital company. Last year's group was ten students; this year's was 18.

Front Row L-R: WenHan Dai, Peng Guo, Congshi Hu, Zhenyu Liu, Yuan Zhang, Rongqi Qiu, Xuezhi Wang, and Yangyang Xie. Back Row L-R: Junqi Jin, ChenGuang Ma, Junjian Zhao, Min Wu, Simiao Niu, Kai Xiang, Yaqiong LI, Dongping Deng, Guangjie Zheng, and Fuyuan Gong

 USC/UNAM

The Viterbi summer intern program brings undergraduate students to USC on the basis of competitive applications, and this year attracted a strong group from numerous elite institutions, along with current USC students. For the first time three students from Mexico's UNAM were part of the number.  "Many of these students return to the Viterbi School as grad students," said Associate Dean Margery Berti.

Front Row L-R: Christina Yee, Dan Russo, Juan-Miguel Ramirez-Rocamora, Maneesh Gujarati, Roman Sandler, Stephanie Davalos-Segura, Irving-Elyasib Santiago-Catzim, Joshua Liaou and Don Tran. Back Row L-R: Mario DiDonna, Paul Martin, Juan Enrique Arguelles-Morales, Perpetue Cadet, Eric Welder, Meghan Jenks, Jorge Rodrigo Vazquez-Alvarez and Leonardo Nava-Guerra.