Junior Moulishka Sawant is working towards a degree in computer science. Additionally, Sawant has other passions she pursues as well. This semester, she picked up both a digital marketing minor and a computer security and digital forensics certificate. Sawant is all about variety throughout her personal and professional life, which is shown through her accomplishments.
Sawant has a knack for content creation and public speaking. She was offered the opportunity to become one of Temple’s social media ambassadors because of a Temple Story Takeover she did over the past summer. Ever since, she has been excited to share her voice on campus, relating to others about navigating college life, specifically life in Philadelphia and America for the first time. Sawant is from Mumbai, India, and arriving at Temple University in 2023 for her freshman year was her first experience living in America.
“I’ve always lived in a city, and not living in a city scares me because I absolutely despise trees,” Sawant said. “I don’t like trees. So I chose Philly because I liked that the campus was close to the city.”
This past summer, Sawant took on another city of Dallas, Texas, during an invite-only STARS AI Computing Corps conference. During her time there, she helped present the research she had been doing on two Alaskan glaciers. While there, she and her team won 1st place in both the people’s choice and judges’ choice poster awards.
Moulishka’s role in this glacier research is to use AI and software systems to take apart photos from satellites. She goes through a process of detaching the different layers of the images, such as removing the clouds to then make different layers and code files. She has been processing images back from 1984 up to 2025, putting them into a more feasible and digestible format to compare the differences of the Grewingk–Yalik Glacier Complex and the Sargent Icefield in the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska.
“It is giving me a different experience because I had never imagined myself in a research field, let alone really enjoying it. Since it’s an environmental-based research, it’s an issue that isn’t highly researched or talked about. Alaska is such an important area to understand that global warming has such a vast impact across the globe,” said Sawant.
Another highlight of Sawant’s college journey was serving as the organizer-elect of Temple University’s TEDxTempleUniversity – Discover Takes Flight. This TEDx Talk was hosted through the Innovation Nest on the Dentistry campus and aimed to inspire students to take flight with their ideas.
For Sawant, being a coordinator, point of contact, and decision maker has allowed her to learn a lot about herself personally and professionally. Despite only being a junior, she was managing and directing people older than her, which encouraged Sawant to step up to the plate and thrive in leadership. She felt honored to have important people, such as the President of Temple University, John Fry, introducing her and seeing that her voice mattered.
“I hope to continue creating impact by bridging innovation with storytelling,” Sawant said. “I believe that I can do everything or at least try my best at everything. My main goal is to be remembered by people as an impactful person in life, and when I inevitably leave Temple University.”