Yu Gu is a PhD student at MIT who was a National Merit Scholar and received honors from Cornell University. He has worked as a research assistant using femtosecond lasers to fabricate waveguide devices. Through the Progetto Rocca fellowship, he plans to conduct research at the Politecnico using femtosecond lasers to fabricate integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometers and develop optical biosensing techniques. The fellowship will help him define his PhD research direction and develop skills for his future scientific career.