I was born and brought up in Hyderabad, India. This city is the capital of the Indian state of Telangana. My mother tongue is Telugu, and I'm also very proficient in English and Hindi. After my high school, I passed the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and secured a seat in the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras (IIT-M). I chose Electrical Engineering as my major with a specialization in semiconductor devices.
Once I completed my Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree from IIT-M, I joined the Ph.D. program at North Carolina State University (NCSU) within the Nano-electronics and Photonics (NEP) program as a Teaching Assistant (TA) in fall 2004. Through the guidance and support of my advisor, Dr. Michael Escuti, I was able to obtain my Ph.D. in 2009. My research work led to several publications, and patent applications; and the technology is being commercialized by the startup company ImagineOptix. Since 2009, I have continued to work with the startup inventing new technologies, finding new applications, and working with customers from various industries to develop new optical solutions for challenging problems.