College of Engineering and Applied Science alum finds meaning in giving

Narendar and Rashmi Sahgal. Photo/Provided.

The notion of Dāna, or selfless giving, is a fundamental tenet of the Hindu religion has always been important to Narendar Sahgal, MS, CEAS '83. He's received much in life, he says, for which he's always wanted to give back - and since retiring in 2016 from Intel in Portland, Oregon, where he worked for 33 years, he has been doing just that.

In 2025 Sahgal set up a scholarship to fund the tuition for an undergraduate student at his alma mater, Osmania University, in Hyderabad, India. He set up a laptop scholarship while teaching at Portland State University, for students who he observed didn't have their own. And earlier this year, he created a scholarship to fund tuition for a graduate student in electrical engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

"I wanted to do something for the alma mater that enabled me to have such a wonderful career as a way to pay it forward," Sahgal says. "If I could help one student out, ease their financial burden, that would be meaningful to me."

Sahgal contacted Rashmi Jha, PhD, a professor in electrical engineering and computer science at UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science, to help develop his idea. Together, they created the Narendar and Rashmi Sahgal Scholarship (Sahgal's late wife was also named Rashmi) to cover tuition and fees for a highly motivated and academically strong student studying with Jha and interested in pursuing research.

Sydney Corum, CEAS '27. Photo/Provided.

Covering the recipient's tuition costs was very important to Sahgal: "I have friends who, well into their mid-career, are still paying off their student loans," he says.

In 1981, when he came to UC from India for his master's degree in electrical and computer engineering, Sahgal received no financial support for his first two quarters of study. Ronald Reagan had just become president of the U.S., he says, and the country was in economic turmoil. "In those days, less than 50% of graduate students received funding," Sahgal says. "I was not one of them, I paid for my own tuition." This was particularly tough for an international student coming from India and only allowed to work 20 hours a week for a paltry income.

With tuition costs as exorbitant as they are today, it becomes even harder for students to find a balance between their classes, their research and any jobs they have to take on to sustain themselves. That's exactly the reason why Sydney Corum, a graduate student in electrical engineering, applied for the Narendar and Rashmi Sahgal scholarship as soon as she saw it advertised.

Corum, who graduated in 2025 from the University of Louisville, had applied to several graduate schools but was hesitant about committing to a two-year master's program given the cost. She was swayed, though, by an open house she attended at UC: "I met great people, great professors, and it really made me think that I could have a good future in Cincinnati," she says. She will graduate from UC in 2027.

That the university is not far from her job at GE Aerospace was also a plus, as is the fact that, unlike other graduate students, she has a full-time job to support her. She received a graduate stipend that helped with some of her fees, but things were still expensive for Corum, so she was elated to receive the Sahgal scholarship.

"I'm very grateful to have it - it's a generous amount of money and it really does help me with tuition," she says.

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