For this episode, I welcome Ankur Verma, a 26-year-old Ph.D. candidate in industrial and manufacturing engineering at Penn State University. Verma is also the co-founder and CEO of Lightscline, a company that offers AI-based data-reduction software.

Verma said his interest in manufacturing began in high school in Western India and cited his father’s background as a professor of mechanical engineering. Verma has held internships with GM and Tata Technologies, was awarded a National Science Foundation Innovation-Corps national and mini grant, is a recipient of the Diefenderfer Graduate Fellowship in Entrepreneurship and, most recently, was recognized by SME as one of the 2023 “30 Under 30” honorees.