Page 10 - The Clare Connection_Fall 2019 Flipbook

RESIDENT PROFILE
Dr. Sunil Shabde with his wife,
Sheela and daughters, Dipti and Aarti.
“I feel proud to have
participated in the microchip
revolution from the
beginning.”
Microchips on a silicon wafer. you take a job in some industry after your master’s, you won’t be able to do that,’”
Dr. Sunil Shabde: Physics and Electrical
Engineering Researcher Shares his
Journey to the United States
G rowing up in India, Clare resident Dr. Sunil Shabde was surrounded by
science.
His father was a renowned mathematician, known for conducting research on
Einstein’s Unified Field Theory in the 1930s. It was he who inspired Sunil to pursue
his own scientific passions.
After earning a degree in physics from Nagpur University and a degree in electrical
engineering from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, Sunil struggled
to find a job to his liking – one that would involve working with semiconductor
devices, since they were developing at the time. He moved to the United States in
1963, where his journey truly began.
Life in the U.S.
Sunil knew moving to the U.S. would provide him with life-changing opportunities,
but he felt guilty leaving his mother alone to care for his younger siblings. His
father had died a few years prior, but his family ultimately encouraged him to
leave.
So, Sunil married his childhood sweetheart and moved to the U.S. three months
later on a student visa, having been accepted to Purdue University.
Upon stepping foot on Purdue’s campus, Sunil knew he made the right choice.
“Purdue, compared to India, was like a breath of fresh air,” he says.
There, he experienced a new level of academic freedom at his fingertips. Sunil
wasn’t used to the idea that students could choose their own courses and career
paths.
“My counselor said I could take as many courses as I wanted,” he says. “That was
unheard of in India.”
In his home country, parents tended to choose careers for their children, and
students typically followed fixed curriculums, he says. He seized the freedom
afforded to him at Purdue and enrolled in courses outside of the electrical
engineering department.
“I took a quantum mechanics course that really thrilled me,” he says.
As he worked toward his master’s, his wife joined him in the United States, and he
soon began envisioning where his career might take him. When he received his
degree, a professor from Purdue who was given a promotion at Rice University
offered Sunil an assistantship while he worked on his Ph.D. He was hesitant, but
his wife pushed him to accept the offer.
“She said, ‘Remember what you came here for. You came to do research, and if
Sunil recalls. “That was the best advice she had ever given me.”