Episode 007 | December 22, 2020 One of Microsoft Research India’s goals is to help strengthen the research ecosystem and encourage young students to look at research as a career. But it is not always easy for students to understand what research is all about and how to figure out if research is the right career for them. The Research Fellow program at Microsoft Research India enables bright young students to work on real-world research problems with top notch researchers across the research lifecycle, including ideation, implementation, evaluation, and deployment. Many of the students who have been part of the program have gone on to become researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs. Today, we speak to Shruti Rijhwani (https://shrutirij.github.io/), a graduate of MSR India’s Research Fellow program who is currently doing her PhD at the Carnegie Mellon University, and joining us is Dr. Vivek Seshadri, a researcher at MSR India who also heads the Research Fellow program at the lab. Shruti was a research fellow at MSR India in 2016, working on natural language processing models for code-switched text. She is currently PhD student at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Stemming from her work at MSR India, she has continued research in multilingual NLP, with a focus on low-resource and endangered languages. Vivek primarily works with the Technology for Emerging Markets group at Microsoft Research India. He received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from IIT Madras, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University where he worked on problems related to Computer Architecture and Systems. After his Ph.D., Vivek decided to work on problems that directly impact people, particularly in developing economies like India. Vivek is also the Director for the Research Fellow program at MSR India. For more information about the Research Fellow program, click here (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/academic-program/research-fellows-program-at-microsoft-research-india/). Related Microsoft Research India Podcast: More podcasts from MSR India (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/lab/microsoft-research-india/articles/) iTunes (https://feeds.blubrry.com/feeds/msrindiapodcast.xml): Subscribe and listen to new podcasts on iTunes Android (https://subscribeonandroid.com/feeds.blubrry.com/feeds/msrindiapodcast.xml) RSS Feed (https://feeds.blubrry.com/feeds/msrindiapodcast.xml) Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4z8l3ofB3tsL8i3JHxurkK) Google Podcasts (https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ibHVicnJ5LmNvbS9mZWVkcy9tc3JpbmRpYXBvZGNhc3QueG1s) Email (https://subscribebyemail.com/feeds.blubrry.com/feeds/msrindiapodcast.xml) Transcript Shruti Rijhwani: I think I credit my whole graduate school decision-making process, the application process,