Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month (APIDA) is observed in May.  We are celebrating early due to the semester coming to a close next month.

Fawad Ahmad, Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department, GCCIS

I joined RIT in the Fall of 2022, so roughly four excruciatingly long winters and four very short summers.

My responsibilities are three-fold. First, as a researcher, my primary role is to (try to) expand the boundaries of human knowledge. This involves writing grants, mentoring graduate students, writing scientific papers and giving talks about our findings. In between all that, I try to spare a few minutes to do the actual science.

Second, I teach courses about helping computers understand the physical world around them (like humans do). For instance, how does a self-driving car understand where the road is, what the traffic light means, and where pedestrians are, etc.

Lastly, I serve the department, college, and the research community. This involves things like hiring new faculty or admitting PhD students and reviewing research papers.

Academia is one of those rare places where you choose what you want to work on and still get paid for it! At RIT, I can spend my morning researching how to make self-driving cars safer and my afternoon building high-tech tools for sports enthusiasts like myself.

Beyond this, Rochester is a great place to live (barring the winters). It has everything you can ask of a city. At the same time, it’s small enough that you are not wasting your life away in traffic or hunting for parking spots. The best part is, every now and then, you run into people you know at the supermarket. The summers are stunning with a never-ending list of places to visit nearby. And last but definitely not least, the people here are genuinely great.

My path wasn’t exactly a straight line. I actually started out wanting to be a medical doctor, but fate had it that I landed in engineering school instead. Even there, I spent most of my time waiting to get out so I could explore something else. However, funnily enough, during my undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, I realized I’d grown deeply fond of two things: computing and research. This was a lot more than working with circuits.

After graduating, I took a detour and co-founded a game studio where my team and I developed simulation and action games for smartphones. It was an incredible experience, but that 'research itch' never quite went away. I eventually moved to the U.S. for graduate school at USC. Even there, there were moments when I was tempted to fly back and jump back into game dev, but I told myself: 'No more jumping around, it's time to see this through.' I did exactly that, finished my PhD, and the road eventually led me here to RIT.

I am lucky to work in a research area where we move beyond simulations and test our developments in the real world. For example, we deploy our self-driving cars research on actual roads, like the RIT campus, to show the tangible impact it can have on safety. There is nothing quite like seeing months of hard work, thousands of lines of code, and endless whiteboard sessions come to life to have a positive impact on the world around us.

In teaching, it’s all about growth. The most rewarding part is the long-term relationships I get to develop with my students. I’m lucky to work with students who often start in my classes and then transition into working with me on research projects. Witnessing that evolution firsthand and seeing them go on to succeed after they graduate is very fulfilling.

Believe it or not, self-driving cars are a lot like us. Just as we see the world through our eyes, they 'see' through sensors, and if we’re prone to blind spots, they are too. Think about a busy intersection: there are so many moments where a car has an incomplete view of its surroundings, which is exactly how accidents happen.

To solve this, we developed VRF (Vehicle Road-side Point Cloud Fusion) to give these cars 'X-ray vision.' We use roadside sensors, like traffic cameras, to feed data to the car in real-time. By doing so, we enable them to “see-through” other vehicles and corners. Since more than half of all accidents happen at intersections, we aren’t just making tech cooler, we’re trying to save lives.

Fast forward to today, we are building on this to make it more accessible. This means building out to the technology so that it is not only useful for autonomous vehicles but also for human drivers and pedestrians. We have follow-up works which we will present at another conference in France this summer.

To be honest, I kind of fell into this role because one of my PhD students started the group. So far, my main contribution has been helping them get indoor cricket off the ground. For international students, community is everything. Cricket is a universal language for us, and seeing students gather for a match to leave behind homesickness and academic stress is a great way to make a big campus feel like a small, welcoming home

APIDA Heritage Month is a chance to celebrate how much this community has shaped the fabric of the U.S. As someone in tech, I see this impact every day. It is the backbone of the industry. You don’t have to look far; just scan the leadership of top tech companies or the faculty lists at our universities. For me, this month is about relishing that history and celebrating the diversity that makes this society actually work.

I’ve been lucky to have some incredible role models. My father taught me the value of contentment—the idea of being at peace with whatever life throws at you. My uncles instilled in me the importance of family; they taught me to deeply value this relationship because these are the people that will have your back no matter what.

Finally, my PhD advisor at USC,  whom, despite everything he has achieved, stays incredibly humble and genuinely cares about his students. He puts his whole heart into everything he does, and that’s a level of dedication I try to bring to my work every day.

I am a huge cricket fan, sometimes to an unhealthy level. If I could go anywhere, I’d be at the Sydney Cricket Ground in Australia for a World Cup final between Pakistan and India. And ideally, I’d like Pakistan to win, which in all reality seems like asking for too much!

No, between two kids under five, I think my plate is full.

"Never make a decision until you absolutely have to." It sounds like procrastination, but it’s actually about gathering all the information possible before committing. I'm still working on implementing it perfectly, but it’s a great North Star.

It’s a traditional meal called Lawan, Saag, and Juwaru Rotei. In simple terms, it’s a yogurt-based curry served with spinach and a special type of flatbread. It is still my absolute favorite. Whenever I visit my hometown or my mother comes to Rochester, it’s the first thing on my wish list. I almost always end up overeating to the point of a major food coma, but it’s so good that I never actually learn my lesson.

If you had asked me this seven or eight years ago, I could have given you a whole playlist. But these days? My musical repertoire is strictly dictated by my kids. If I were forced onto a stage tonight, you’d probably hear a very enthusiastic rendition of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' or 'Humpty Dumpty.' It’s not exactly a chart-topper, but it’s the only music I have fully memorized right now!

I absolutely adore Rochester in the summer. When the days are long and the weather is finally perfect, there’s really nothing better. My family and I spend as much time as possible exploring the local parks and beaches—Mendon Ponds has been a recent favorite for us. But if it’s a weekend, you’ll almost certainly find me at Genesee Valley Park for a cricket match. There’s nothing like a good game in the sun to make you forget about the five months of gray we just endured!

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