Celebrating our graduates: Girish Joshi, Ph.D.

5/7/2020 As told to Allie Arp, CSL

Written by As told to Allie Arp, CSL

As far as final semesters go, Spring 2020 has been unprecedented. While the traditional graduation ceremony and many of the celebrations that go along with it may have been canceled, we want to recognize what our graduating students have contributed to research during their time at CSL and celebrate their future plans.

Our first feature is Girish Joshi, a Ph.D. candidate in Aerospace Engineering studying under CSL faculty member Girish Chowdhary. The focus of Joshi’s research was improving the
Girish Joshi and his daughter.
Girish Joshi and his daughter.
stability of autonomous aircraft, as explained in this recent article CSL researchers work to improve autonomous aircraft stability.

Read more about Joshi’s plans after graduation, what he’ll miss about CSL, and his advice for current students below.

What are your plans after graduation?
I am leaving for my job at MATHWORKS in Boston, MA.

How will your experiences at Illinois/CSL help you in this position?
The position is about developing Reinforcement learning algorithms for the Matlab toolbox. Reinforcement learning (RL) is one of my research areas in my dissertation. Being in CSL/at Illinois allowed me to take many courses towards RL and machine learning (ML). In fact, there are so many good courses around campus in machine learning and control, I could not resist enrolling in multiple courses on a similar subject. This probably helped me understand the constantly evolving areas like ML and RL from multiple points of view and hence better understanding of the state of the art.

What was your favorite part of your time at CSL?
Lab interaction, evening tea time discussion with peers in CSL lobby, and break room. I will miss the informal but yet highly intellectual discussions.

What advice do you have for current students?
We are in one of the best universities around the world in the areas of controls and artificial intelligence. Our faculty pool is diverse and highly knowledgeable, the courses offered cover a wide spectrum spanning from fundamentals to areas of current active research. Make the most of this conducive research environment and it will bring the best out of you.


Share this story

This story was published May 7, 2020.