Harshavardhan Murali is a third-year physics Ph.D. student from Chennai, India. He graduated from Indian Institute of Technology Madras with a B.S. in engineering physics. He says he chose to attend Georgia Tech because of the strong research and excellent facilities available here.

Harshavardhan conducts research under Phillip First, professor in the School of Physics. He works on experimental solid-state physics, using scanning tunnelling microscopy as the primary tool. 

Harshavardhan likes to listen to ScienceMatters while he prepares his meals. "The podcast is a very good initiative that gives opportunities for non-experts, like me, to listen to researchers explain their work in a fun and engaging manner," he says.

The quiz question for episode 7 was: What particle is made up of an electron and an electron hole?

The correct answer is exciton.

This announcement is late because Harshavadhan was not the first name in the random sequence of correct submissions after the deadline for quiz 7 closed. The first person in the random sequence could not claim the prize in time. So we chose the next name in the sequence, which was Harshavadhan's.