Hello! My name is Shivani Hariprasad, and I am a PhD student at the University of California San Diego, advised by Dr. Kimberly Claffy. My research interests focus broadly on internet measurements, with particular emphasis on understanding low Earth orbit networks and hosting infrastructure deployment across different countries.
After completing my bachelor's degree, I joined McAfee as a software engineer, where I was exposed to large-scale systems and gained valuable insights into enterprise security management. To deepen my understanding of systems, I pursued a Master's degree at the University of California San Diego and joined the CAIDA lab. There, I discovered the fascinating complexities of the internet ecosystem, which ultimately inspired me to pursue my PhD in this field.
I was excited to join IPinfo as it offered me the opportunity to discover how research functions in an industrial setting. It has been incredibly rewarding to see how research ideas are directly consumed by customers and translated into real-world applications.
What I’m Working On
More people now use their phones instead of computers to access the internet, which creates new challenges for tracking where internet traffic comes from. When you use your phone, it gets a specific internet address (called an IP address), but these addresses work differently than those from home WiFi or office networks.
At IPinfo, I'm working to identify and categorize different types of mobile network addresses around the world. This includes addresses from major cell phone companies, smaller carriers, international roaming (when you use your phone abroad), and newer eSIM technology. By better understanding these different types of mobile addresses, we can improve how accurately we can determine where internet users are located when they're using their phones.
My Day at Work
I usually start my day waking up at around 6 am to catch the sunrise and tend to my plants. I also enjoy the quiet in the morning before all the chaos starts with a cup of freshly brewed coffee. After that, I catch up with my emails and messages on Slack, which help me prioritize the tasks I will be working on for the day.
On this particular day, we held our monthly research and content team sync meeting, where we discussed how to effectively convey our work to a general audience. Our focus was on helping people understand how research directly impacts them and what it's like to work at IPinfo.
After the meeting concluded, I made my way to my workspace, conveniently located just a 5-minute train ride away. I dove into my development work, implementing a new mobile app feature designed to extract and display roaming and eSIM details for users. The implementation involved integrating with cellular network APIs to retrieve roaming status and eSIM configuration data and thorough testing to ensure accurate data extraction.
Shortly after it was time for lunch. I walked with my friends to the food court to grab some Mediterranean food and enjoy some fun conversations ranging from what they are working on or discussing recent tech news or which new food place to try this weekend.
After lunch, I began reading research papers relevant to my work at IPinfo. After summarizing the key contributions from each paper, I documented potential approaches we could implement or test within our current projects, planning to discuss these insights with my mentor during our next meeting. I then continued my ongoing analysis focused on identifying roaming IPs, building on the methodologies I had reviewed in the literature.
Finally, I wrap up my day by summarizing the completed tasks and documenting all work accomplished, while outlining near-term priorities that need to be addressed in the upcoming week. Afterward, I take a leisurely walk to the beach, pick up some boba tea, and unwind while watching the sunset.
Key Takeways
I've gained a deep appreciation for the vast datasets within the company and the extensive tagging systems being actively developed for internet data. This experience has exposed me to how companies handle and navigate the complexities of these datasets in sophisticated and strategic ways. I'm excited to be part of this journey and to contribute meaningfully while continuing to develop my own technical and analytical skills.
About the author
Meghan is the content strategist at IPinfo, where she develops and writes content for users to better understand the value of IP data and IPinfo products.
