International Graduate Students and Postdocs Job Search Summit

This event prepares international graduate students and postdocs for their transition to the professional working world outside of academia. Participants will learn about employment visas and immigration options from Immigration Attorney Jason Finkelman, practice communication skills essential to building career connections, and engage with a panel of former UT international graduate students now working as professionals in various sectors.

This event is a wonderful opportunity to create a supportive community with other international students who also are on the job search journey.

Dress Style: Business Casual

Register: https://utexas.12twenty.com/events/30006101380652

Schedule:

3:00 – “Employment Visas & Immigration Options After Graduation” - Immigration Attorney Jason Finkelman
U.S. employers are ramping up hiring of international students after graduation. In particular, many U.S. companies will be seeking to sponsor foreign students for U.S. work visas. Join Immigration Attorney Jason Finkelman for a discussion on navigating the U.S. employment-immigration system after graduation. Jason will discuss the H-1B work visa lottery and unique strategies for overcoming immigration obstacles.

4:00 - Networking: Building Career Connections, Hor d’oeuvres and Drinks
Following a short presentation on networking, attendees will participate in a "meet and greet" activity, simulating a social networking environment. Practice starting and ending short, casual conversations in a low-stakes environment with other international students and some of the panelists.

5:00 - From Graduate School to the Professional Work World: Former International Students Share Their Experiences and Advice
This is a moderator-led panel discussion about the job search process and professional work life from the perspective of former international students. The second portion of the panel session will feature a question-and-answer segment in which audience members engage with the panel members.

Panelists:

Ishita Chitturi is a Product Designer working at the intersection of visual communication, strategy, and systems thinking, with a focus on designing for complex, multi-stakeholder digital products. With a background in Visual Communication and an M.S. in Information Studies (HCI) from UT Austin, she's designed for fintech and healthcare platforms, including athenahealth and VSP Vision, translating intricate workflows into experiences that are human-centered. Dimitris Gkoulimaris is a lecturer in ethnomusicology at the Butler School of Music, and an adjunct professor at Austin Community College. He completed his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at The University of Texas in Austin in the Spring of 2026. He received his bachelor’s degree in music composition and popular music studies from Northwestern University, where he graduated summa cum laude. He researches and performs music from Greece, Türkiye, and the Eastern Mediterranean, with a secondary focus on the music of Latin America. He has presented his research at conferences in the US, Mexico and Romania. During his graduate studies at UT Austin, he served as a teaching assistant from 2021 to 2024, and as an assistant instructor during the 2024-2025 academic year, when he led his own courses in popular music. Marcus Golding is a historian specializing in Venezuelan oil history, foreign investment and economic development. Most recently, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at The University of Texas at Austin, while also supporting ClioVis, a UT-developed digital learning and visualization platform, through the end of summer 2026. He holds a PhD in History from UT Austin, and his first book, Foreign Petroleum Companies and National Development in Venezuela, 1936–76, was published by Bloomsbury Academic in October 2026. Rithvika Iyer is a System Design Engineer at NVIDIA, where she works on large-scale AI infrastructure, GPU performance, and the systems that power the training and deployment of large language models. Her work focuses on improving the speed, efficiency, and reliability of the computing systems behind modern AI. She holds an M.S. in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin. Her previous experience includes AI and software engineering roles at Intel, MathWorks, and Reliance Jio. Rithvika’s work and academic contributions have been recognized through the Google Women Techmakers Scholarship and the Narotam Sekhsaria Best Engineer Fellowship. Shubham Singh received the B.Tech. degree in mechanical engineering from Delhi Technological University, Delhi, India, in 2014, a M.S. degree in aerospace engineering from Purdue University in 2016, and a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, in 2023, where his research focused on analytical derivatives of rigid-body dynamics for optimization-based planning and control of legged robots. He is currently a Software Engineer for Humanoid Controls at Apptronik, where he works on whole-body model predictive control for locomotion and manipulation on the Apollo humanoid robot. Moderator:

Mimi Ghosh is the Assistant Director for International Student Advising Services at The University of Texas at Austin, where she has served since February 2021.