Adhiraj Patel: 2026 Early Career Award recipient

BSIE ’15
CEO, GD Waldner India

An industrial engineer whose leadership and corporate vision support scientific discovery in wide-ranging industries across the globe.

Adhiraj Patel likes to joke that he was not smart enough to be a scientist, so he settled for building the rooms they work in.

“My contribution to science is to give researchers environments that are conducive to breakthrough innovation,” he says.

Patel is the managing director and CEO of GD Waldner India, a fourth-generation business. The company is a leading industry player that designs and builds laboratories and controlled environments: the furniture and fume hoods that researchers touch, and the controlled environments and engineering systems behind the walls that most people never notice until something goes wrong.

After earning his degree at UW-Madison, Patel worked for Creative Solutions USA before returning home to join the family business. He served as executive director from 2018 to 2021, then was named CEO of the expanded venture. Under his leadership, the company has extended its reach to more than 20 countries and has become a key player at the forefront of India’s fast-growing science and technology sector.

“Pharmaceutical discovery, chemical discovery and the newer-age sectors: battery technology, solar, space, alternative energy,” he says. “India, and the world, is going to do serious science this century. Playing a small part in making that possible is the only achievement I would hope to claim.”

Which engineering professors made the greatest impact on you?

Professor Laura Albert and Terry Mann. Both were brilliant, both were relentlessly hands-on and practical, and what I took from them had almost nothing to do with the coursework. They taught me second-order thinking. Not just what happens, but what happens next, and what happens because of that. Watching how they broke a problem apart was the lesson. I use it every day, and it is the most valuable thing I carried out of Madison.

What advice would you give to today’s students?

I don’t know if I am qualified to give advice just yet, but passing on two pieces of advice, generic as they may be, that have stayed with me: First, embrace difficulty. Second, delay gratification. Everything around us is engineered for instant gratification, so most people step away at the first sign of discomfort. I have had several hard moments in this business. Each one felt existential at the time. Each one looks small now, because I got through it and because I know I will get through the next one. You do not get that from anything easy.

Which do you prefer?

Winter or summer in Madison?
Summer, especially at the Terrace.

Camp Randall Stadium or the Kohl Center or the UW Field House?
Camp Randall.

State Street or the Lakeshore Path?
State Street, though I doubt the places I used to go are still there.

Favorite Babcock ice cream flavor?
Mint chocolate chip.

Favorite campus experience?
Game days, honestly. Nothing else was close.