On Track to a Career in Sustainable Innovation
Bharath Varma Mudunuru, MS’25, cyber-physical systems, is integrating his experiences with systems project work, leadership, and a co-op at Lightmatter to ready himself for a successful career in sustainable innovation.
Bharath Varma Mudunuru, MS’25, cyber-physical systems, is passionate about embedded systems, networking, and connected systems development. While at Northeastern, he participated in several systems projects, taken on leadership roles, and worked as a co-op at Lightmatter. The experiences are helping him shape a vision for the future in sustainable innovation.
One project called for building custom Linux distributions and developing drivers for enabling connectivity. Initially, he focused on creating bespoke Linux distros, which are a collection of software components, but upon the advice of Rolando Herrero, cyber-physical systems program director, he transitioned to using an industry standard approach for Linux development. This shift highlighted his adaptability and dedication to adopting the best practices.
Mudunuru also designed network services for a small-scale organization, where he established Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) and Constrained Application protocol (CoAP) communication on the IP stack. This project displayed his expertise in managing complex network protocols, which is essential to building dependable, scalable, and connected systems.
He demonstrated leadership capabilities as a key member of the Northeastern Electric Racing team. He made crucial contributions, such as designing the printed circuit board for the steering wheel, ensuring optimal controller area network (CAN) communication between the steering and other subsystems, and writing segments of the firmware codebase responsible for saving fault conditions and motor control. He particularly enjoyed helping to foster a culture of collaboration and continuous learning.
Mudunuru worked as a co-op at Lightmatter, an experience he describes as transformative. It allowed him to apply his classroom knowledge to real-world applications and gave him an opportunity to work on the hardware/firmware stack to bring up photonic supercomputers. He also designed printed circuit boards and coded for lab automation, testing, and firmware.
This experience reinforced his belief in continuous learning, collaboration, and a discipline to meet deadlines. He credits Debbie Steiner Hayes, associate co-op coordinator, for her guidance on his co-op journey.
Looking ahead, Mudunuru is committed to contributing to a sustainable and renewable world through innovative engineering solutions. He believes engineering is more than just a discipline; it’s a way of thinking, a method of problem-solving, and a path to creating a more sustainable world.
In the short term, he will again participate on the Northeastern Electric Racing team and work for Lightmatter.