Prior to joining the Innovation Partnerships at the University of Michigan, Ashwathi worked as a Principal R&D Engineer at TSMC Technology Inc., where she did computational materials research on next-generation logic and memory devices. She entered the field of technology transfer since she is interested in the intersection of industry and academic research, especially in emerging economies.

Ashwathi holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in Engineering Physics from Cornell University.