The name “MARGA” has a symbolic connotation — it refers to a “path” or “journey” in Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language. As the name symbolizes, the group aims to serve as a pathway, assisting students in their Ph.D. journey.

As science and technology evolves, the individual research problems that students investigate, although impactful in the near-future, may or may not have a direct relevance to the society, twenty-thirty years down the lane. However, the tools that are learnt in the process — what I refer to as the four A’s of scientific inquiry: Arrive (motivation to solve a problem), Analyze (assess the problem), Approach (adopt the right methodology to address), and Address (solve it with rigor); stay with them forever, fulfilling its purpose across multiple other facets of life, both professionally and personally. It is this internalization of the inquiry process that I consider to be the biggest take-away of a Ph.D. journey.

On a day-to-day basis, the group specializes in research on cutting-edge problems with real-world impact in various aspects of wireless and mobile networking, sensing and computing. The latter serves as a platform for the internalization of the Ph.D process for students in our group.

— Karthik