Syed Tahmid Mahbub

About Syed Tahmid Mahbub

Tahmid Mahbub was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he experienced scorching summers with frequent power outages, often up to twelve hours a day. Due to the political turmoil in Bangladesh, it was not unusual for Tahmid to stay home when school was abruptly cancelled, immersing himself in books on circuits and microprocessors. At 16, he built a rudimentary working power inverter for his home using the limited components he could find, igniting his passion for power electronics.

At 18, Tahmid moved to the United States after receiving a full-ride financial aid package to pursue a major in electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University. He worked on several projects with Professor Bruce Land, whose videos he had watched to learn about microcontrollers in high school. Tahmid received the Tsuhan Chen Outstanding Undergraduate TA Award and the William S Einwechter Award for his distinguished record of service, and graduated summa cum laude.

Tahmid then spent six years designing high-performance safety-critical computing hardware at Apple. In 2023, he left Apple to pursue a PhD in electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley. His current research in Professor Robert Pilawa’s group addresses practical challenges in power electronics to help accelerate the adoption of renewable energy and electric transportation, and to reduce power consumption in data centers. His work has been recognized with best paper, best demo and best showcase awards at IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy) conferences.

During his first year of graduate school, Tahmid worked remotely as a visiting lecturer at Cornell University to develop an open-source embedded systems course focused on a low cost of entry. He continues to post technical articles in electrical engineering on his blog, which has received over four million views, to help students and engineers navigate resource scarcity like he did when first learning electronics. Having experienced soul-crushing summers in Dhaka and devastating wildfires in California, Tahmid is committed to applying his engineering expertise towards the climate crisis solution.