Shaan Desai

Biography

Shaan Desai is a senior at Harvard College where he is pursuing an A.B. in Physics and an S.M. in Computational Science. His research interests broadly lie in condensed matter physics and his most recent work in the Kaxiras Group at Harvard focuses on using machine learning to discover novel materials for renewable technology. Shaan also served as President of the Harvard Africa Business and Investment Club and as a Director of the Philips Brooks House Association Recent Immigrant Term Enrichment Program. He has previously interned in the Investment Research Division at Goldman Sachs in New York and at Rankin Engineering Consultants in Lusaka. Shaan is deeply passionate about bringing Africa to the innovation frontier and aspires to promote and improve science education on the continent. To this end, he hopes to pursue a DPhil in Physics at Oxford. Shaan also holds a 'Top in The World' Award in IGCSE Mathematics and a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award. His non-academic interests include running, soccer, and poetry.