Student Spotlights - University of Texas Austin

Lillian Ding

Lillian, from Kunming, Yunnan, China, is a PhD student under advisor Dr. Bard. She is interested in optimization and plans to find a research position in industry after graduation in 2023. Lillian is actively looking for internships now to gain experience and build her resume. In her spare time, she enjoys ping-pong, volleyball, hiking, flute, and drawing. Like many ORIE students, Lillian’s favorite memories with the department are potlucks. She can’t wait until we can all be back together, saying, “I miss the time that OR folks [could] chat with each other in the office or on the second floor of ETC.”

Sudesh Agrawal

Sudesh, a PhD student from India, works under the advisement of Dr. John Hasenbein. He has held two internships in the last two years. He was a Revenue Management Intern at Sabre in 2019, and he was a research science intern at Amazon in 2020. When he isn’t working on impressive internships, Sudesh enjoys photography, shooting both portraits and landscapes. You can check out his work at https://sudesh.myportfolio.com/. He is interested in other arts too and likes singing and drawing. Sudesh also enjoys teaching, and you can find more about his teaching experience at https://sudesh.myportfolio.com/teaching.

Le Lu

Le Lu is a PhD student from Liuzhou, Guangxi, China, who anticipates graduating in 2025. Her research interests are energy systems modeling and optimization, and she works with Dr. Benjamin Leibowicz. New to UT this year, all of Le’s experiences so far have been of “Zoom University,” but she has enjoyed getting to know classmates and professors nonetheless. Outside of school, Le likes cooking, music, and spending time with her cat, Oreo. She keeps active with badminton, hiking, and cardio. Le is not sure yet what she wants to do after graduation, but is considering applying for a post doc.

Priyadarshan Patil

Priyadarshan is a PhD student from Pune, India, and an advisee of Dr. Steve Boyles. He plans to graduate in 2022, and his research interests include network optimization, transportation engineering, and data sciences. When he is not working, Priyadarshan enjoys kayaking and travel photography. He is also a member of the University of Texas racquetball team. After graduation, Priyadarshan plans to find a job in academia. When asked his favorite memory as part of the UT ORIE department he said, “The potlucks are always fantastic!”

Erick Jones

Erick is a PhD student from Huston, Texas working with Dr. Benjamin Leibowicz. His research interests include food, energy, water systems, multi-system optimization, Digital Twins, and Cyber-Physical Systems. Erick plans on graduating in 2021, and completed an internship at Los Alamos National Lab this past summer. He currently plans on starting a career in academia when he finishes his PhD, but says there is still a chance he may “be tempted by the big bucks of industry.” In his free time, Erick enjoys tables games like Rummy, Chess, Spades, and Dominos, as well as classic board games ranging from Monopoly to Codenames. He likes watching and
playing sports, traveling, and cooking southern cuisine. Erick enjoys discussions on deep policy and progress, and you can read some of his thoughts on these topics and more on his blog https://engineerliving.com/. Erick is a Texan through and through. He says of his home state, “[he has] been to all habitable continents but have never left Texas for more than 3 months. Texas born, Texas raised, Texas educated. Texas has a strong gravity.”