Kayshavi Bakshi

Kayshavi Bakshi attended Arizona State University because it was close to home and offered a variety of opportunities and program choices. Ultimately, she decided to study mechanical engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering because of its versatile applications across numerous industries. She was also a student at Barrett, the Honors College.  

She knew she had made the right decision when she saw her research creating a positive impact. 

“Engineering changed my life by giving me the ability to give back to my community,” Bakshi says. 

She is also graduating as a scholar of the Grand Challenges Scholars Program. 

Looking back on her undergraduate career, Bakshi has no shortage of community involvement. She was heavily involved in the Fulton Schools community as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a member of Fulton Ambassadors and a participant in the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative. She interned at Intel and L3Harris, and pursued additional educational experiences at the University of Delaware and The Engineering & Design Institute in London.

“I learned the importance of empathy in engineering, what it means to truly understand a stakeholder and even made some lifelong friends,” Bakshi says. 

Through the Engineering Projects in Community Service program, known as EPICS, she worked on heat mitigation for mobile homes to alleviate the negative health and socio-economic impacts of extreme heat on mobile home residents in the Valley. She also researched ways to optimize the cost and efficiency of perovskite solar materials as a researcher in the Renewable Energy and Devices Lab.

Bakshi extends gratitude to her mentor Nicholas Rolston, an assistant professor of electrical engineering for the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. She notes that he has been instrumental in her student experience. 

“He encouraged me to continue following my research interests and has been extremely supportive and motivated me to present my research at conferences, apply for research grants, write an article and further my education with a PhD,” Bakshi says.

Bakshi will continue her education at ASU as she completes her accelerated master’s degree in materials science and engineering. She aspires to obtain a doctoral degree in materials science and engineering in the future.