Brief Bio: Sriharsha Aradhya is currently Principal Engineer at Western Digital Corp., working to advance the state of the art in Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology. Previously he was a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University (Ithaca, USA), advised by Prof. Robert Buhrman (Applied Physics) and Prof. Daniel Ralph (Physics), where he demonstrated nanosecond switching of magnetic nanostructures using the spin-Hall effect which has a direct impact on non-volatile memory technologies. Overall, his interests lie in the interdisciplinary area of nanoscience, where he hopes to learn new science and explore future technological applications while leveraging his skills in data analysis ("big data") and statistical process control (SPC).

He graduated with a Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Columbia University (New York, USA) working in the laboratory of Prof. L. Venkataraman. This research experimentally explored the interplay between mechanics, electronics and energetics at the single molecule level (Dissertation Abstract). He is a recipient of graduate student awards at the highest levels from the Materials Research Society (MRS), American Physical Society (APS), and the Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM). Previously, he graduated with a M.S. from Purdue University (West Lafayette, USA) and a B.Tech. from IIT Madras (Chennai, India).