Mauricio Ferrato

I am extremely grateful for the time I spent under the mentorship of Prof. Sunita Chandrasekaran and the support I received from the other members of CRPL. I first joined when I was a computer engineering undergraduate student and at the time I was not sure where I wanted to take my career. While in the lab I was able to partake in a vast range of research areas in accelerated computing. My journey at CRPL started from studying parallel programming models and high performance computing all the way to graduating with a PhD in Computer Science, applying machine learning and AI to real world scenarios. Sunita always encouraged the different avenues I took, and with the extensive knowledge from my collaborators and peers in the lab, it always felt like I was on the right path. I am now a Solutions Architect at NVIDIA, tackling some of the world’s hardest challenges, and thanks to the foundation that was created for me at CRPL I feel like I belong. With the help of Prof. Sunita I also attended my first professional conference (Supercomputing) and got to participate in my first hackathon. These were extremely valuable experiences as I was not only able to build connections and a strong professional network, but I also got to take on different roles. Since then I have now attended dozens of these events, mentoring teams from a variety of industries with many different use cases. CRPL has given me the opportunity to grow not only my academic discipline but also my interpersonal skills. I highly recommend CRPL to any student looking to advance their expertise and join a supportive research community!