Hari Parthasarathy is a sophomore at the Haas School of Business, studying Bioengineering and Business through the Management, Entrepreneurship, and Technology (MET) program on campus. A local, having grown up in San Jose, he chose Berkeley due to the rich, vibrant community, and the inspiring work around entrepreneurship and biotechnology.

Hari’s work in the intersection of biotechnology and entrepreneurship has led him to be involved in the cutting edge of research at UC Berkeley. Hari co-authored a paper for NASA titled “More Than a Feeling”, investigating the effects of space flight on epidermal cells. His work has been published to the National Institute of Health and has even been submitted to Nature! When asked about his work, Hari shared, “I personally think my curiosity is something that matches Berkeley’s vibrant and inquisitive culture. I find myself applying my curiosities in technology towards benefiting the Berkeley community– I am currently working on projects to better the entrepreneurship ecosystem on campus alongside Professor Chaudhuri, and conducting my own research into genomics and proteomics from a biotech perspective.”

To Hari, business culture is essential to UC Berkeley, even beyond the Haas School of Business. He claims that it extends into every aspect of campus life, from tabling on Sproul requiring students to employ their marketing skills, to club recruitment season requiring students and clubs alike to gain experience in what it’s like to manage a labor market. Being at Cal has given Hari the opportunity to flush out his lifelong passions, including founding a new club on campus, “VTOL at Berkeley”. The goal of the club is to study, launch, and make vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft on UC Berkeley campus. As COO of the organization, Hari shared that the club has the ambitious goal of hosting a manned flight of a proprietary VTOL by 2026. Certainly an exciting addition to Berkeley’s unique campus culture.

Beyond his work, Hari places strong value on how his Berkeley experience shapes him as an individual. “I think my values, coupled with my extroversion, really help me be me. Coming into Berkeley, I feel like the sense of excitement that there is so much on this campus, can often lead people astray from their goals. However, for me, having that strong sense of direction to fall back on, especially during the latter part of freshman year, really helped me to stay on track towards fulfilling my goals. I think, as much as business is about what you know and how well you communicate it, it is also about the networks and the connections you build. I would tell others to really use this time at Haas and in business to explore passions, build new ideas, and really make those moonshot dreams a reality; as a student, you really don’t have much to lose in chasing these big ideas.”

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