“My spouse, Erin Tevonian, and I both achieved our PhDs in biological engineering last week, a program we commenced together upon our arrival at MIT in the fall of 2019. By then, we had already been in a relationship for three years, having connected as classmates in the bioengineering course at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2015. We traversed college together — attending classes, enjoying vacations with friends, and biking across the country, all in tandem — so we were fortunate to continue this journey by enrolling in Course 20 at MIT together. It was during our graduate studies at MIT that we became engaged (spring 2022) and wed (last September), a milestone we celebrated with the wonderful friends we made at MIT.

First-year students in the MIT Biological Engineering PhD program explore various labs of interest before selecting where to finish their doctorates, and we navigated our way to research groups by January 2020, just prior to the Covid-19 pandemic disrupting on-campus research and imposing social distancing. Erin completed her PhD in the labs of Doug Lauffenburger and Linda Griffith, during which she utilized computational and experimental models to investigate human insulin resistance and developed superior liver tissue models for simulating disease pathology. I obtained my PhD in Anders Hansen’s lab, focusing on how DNA folds in three-dimensional space to influence gene regulation by creating and employing a novel method for mapping DNA architecture at higher resolutions than previously achievable. The years sped by as we immersed ourselves in our research projects, and we defended our PhDs just a week apart back in April.

Erin and I were positioned at Commencement with the Class of 2025 when this photo was taken, beaming as we listened to MIT’s school anthem. Graduation is a poignant milestone as it signifies the conclusion of an extraordinary journey for us, one that made the campus feel like home. I must confess that I was uncertain about my feelings entering graduation week. However, this moment seemed like a fitting conclusion to our time at MIT, and I was filled with appreciation for the countless memories, opportunities, and adventures shared with Erin throughout graduate school. I also graduated from the MIT Sloan School of Management/School of Engineering’s Leaders for Global Operations program (hence the stole), which led me to reflect on the many individuals I’ve encountered across campus that contribute to MIT’s exceptional character and how meaningful it is to be part of a community that makes it so challenging to say farewell.”

—Viraat Goel MBA ’25, PhD ’25

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