Tushar Tyagi

“Mentoring and empowering others have always been at the heart of what I do,” Tushar Tyagi says.

The exceptional student is graduating with a degree in computer science from the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. As part of the Fulton Schools Grand Challenges Scholars Program, Tyagi has been busy studying in an intensive program designed to prepare the next generation of engineers to solve society’s biggest challenges as defined by the National Academy of Engineering.

It was his role as a mentor that he found the most memorable. Tyagi served as a Grand Challenges student leader where he sent out a weekly newsletter to approximately 500 students and assisted in running professional development events.

Tyagi also ran a student Python Users Group, where he hosted weekly workshops with more than 50 attendees. The club welcomed students of all levels and helped them master the programming language. He mentored high school students participating in ASU’s Engineering Projects in Community Service High program.

His desire to help others inspired his involvement in student research projects. Tyagi led a team on the project “ASU Audible Maps for Wayfinding” where they created an interactive map of ASU’s campus for visually impaired students. He also served as a student researcher in the Fulton Schools Neural Engineering Lab, studying the relationship between language and neural signals to assist those with speech impediments.

The stellar student balanced his leadership efforts and research with his classwork. Tyagi routinely made the dean’s list, won three hackathons, is a New American University Scholar and received three research stipends from the Grand Challenges Scholars program. He focused on business building, conceptualizing and pitching a platform called LocaLike which connected tourists with rural attractions as part of an entrepreneurship class.

After graduation, Tyagi plans to join a Dallas-based robotics startup where he hopes to continue to refine his technical skills while honing his entrepreneurial instincts.

For now, Tyagi is looking forward to a bright future.

“Engineering has made me heavily optimistic. As a builder, as a techie, knowing that I can actively make something that changes the world prevents me from becoming discouraged about problems currently faced by humanity,” he says. “But rather, it encourages me to be someone who makes a difference.”

Read about other exceptional graduates of the Fulton Schools’ fall 2024 class here.