International Students at UAlbany on the RISE

Two students stand at the front of a college classroom and present a slide with the title Competitor Analysis.
MBA students Miriam Boudjelkha, left, and Saloni Agrawal present their work developing a business strategy for the Office of Strategic Initiatives’ chatbot, GrantsMate, as part of UAlbany’s RISE program. (Photo Credit: Brett Orzechowski)

More than 25 University at Albany students — many of whom are international students — will participate in the University's collaborative entrepreneurship program this fall.

The UAlbany Innovation Center's Research and Innovators Startup Exchange (RISE) program is a collaborative entrepreneurship program that takes research from concept to commercialization, while building a business development team. RISE matches researchers and students to create entrepreneurship teams that bring research-driven innovations to the commercial market. 

RISE is run by the Office of Economic Development, Entrepreneurship, and Industry Partnerships in collaboration with International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS), the Center for International Education & Global Strategy (CIEGS) and the Massry School of Business. The program is supported by a Strategic Allocation of Resources (StAR) grant.

Researchers and students receive support from the four UAlbany units involved in the program, including:

  • Guidance on business basics, like financials and licensing strategies
  • Help navigating legal, intellectual property and immigration pathway guidance
  • Assistance creating documents that can lead to funding and business incorporation
  • Access to customer discovery through UAlbany's National Science Foundation I-Corps program

A total of 26 researchers and 79 students, including those involved in the Fall 2025 cohort, have participated in RISE since it launched in early 2025. 

Here are three examples of how international students have partnered with researchers:

  • Jahnavi Cherukuru, a master's student from India who is studying information science, partnered with Joseph Doane, who is pursuing a Chemistry PhD, to advance the use of a meta-stable diboride formulated with low flash point hydrocarbons as a solid-state fuel for ramjet engines. The team is now exploring more customer discovery avenues, licensing opportunities, and business incorporation.
  • MBA students Saloni Agrawal and Miriam Boudjelkha partnered with UAlbany's Office of Strategic Initiatives to develop a business strategy for the GrantsMate chatbot. GrantsMate uses artificial intelligence and large language models to provide faculty members with recommendations on funding opportunities tailored to their research interests and experience. Agrawal is from India and Boudjelkha is from the United States.
  • Master's students Jyotsana Parkhedkar, who is studying computer science, and Sruthi Swaminathan, who is studying business analytics, supported UAlbany startup DirectSeq Biosciences, Inc. and its founder, Associate Chemistry Professor Shenglong Zhang. The company is revolutionizing RNA analysis with its proprietary mass spectrometry-based sequencing platform, offering the first technology capable of directly decoding full RNA sequences and quantitatively detecting over 170 modifications in a single, unbiased run. Both Parkhedkar and Swaminathan are from India.

Thanks goes out to UAlbany's President Havidán Rodríguez and Provost Carol H. Kim for making these international students' achievements possible by awarding $500,000 in grant funding to 17 campus programs this academic year. Learn more about the 2025-2026 StAR Grant awards and RISE program.