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Harshvardhan Chunawala

Entrepreneur-in-Residence
AWS Startups Advisor
Advisory Board Member and Visiting Lecturer, ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ

Bio

Harshvardhan Chunawala is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, a visiting lecturer at ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ in the School of Computer Science and the College of Engineering, and an alumnus and advisory board member of ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ's Information Networking Institute (INI). As a CERT-SEI Certified Cyber Forensics and Incident Responder, he brings deep expertise in digital forensics, threat response, and secure-by-design architecture to both academia and industry.

A Solutions Architect on the AWS Startups team based in New York City, Harshvardhan is a trusted technical advisor to founders and executives building at the frontier of AI, cybersecurity, aerospace, healthcare, and fintech, designing the cloud security and infrastructure foundations on which they build, scale, and go to market. Prior to his current role, he served as a Cloud Infrastructure Architect and Technical Lead within AWS Professional Services team, trusted by enterprise leadership across financial services, aerospace, healthcare, and media to design and deliver cloud transformations representing over $40 million in projects and $120 million in incremental annual revenue. Harshvardhan is an AWS Golden Jacket awardee and an AWS Academy Authorized Educator with over a decade of experience in cloud security. At AWS, he serves as a subject matter expert across Security, Aerospace, AI/ML, Education/Research, and ISV, and leads cross-functional efforts across Amazon Leo, Amazon Security, and AWS Agentic AI to shape frontier capabilities in security, satellite communications, and trustworthy AI services. He authored the first satellite security incident response playbook for space operations and is an open source contributor at AWS.

As an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ, Harshvardhan mentors PhD, postdoc, and faculty founders on cloud architecture, security posture, AI/ML infrastructure, compliance readiness, and AWS go-to-market strategy, helping translate research breakthroughs into scalable, secure products. He welcomes collaboration with all ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ startups to build, scale, and secure on AWS across every stage of growth. He has advised founders and enterprise leaders across companies representing over $1 trillion in combined enterprise value, spanning cybersecurity, aerospace, fintech, healthcare, manufacturing, and AI. A recognized thought leader in cloud security, Harshvardhan actively publishes on the AWS Public Sector, Security, Aerospace, Startups, Web3, and Messaging blogs. His research publications, prescriptive guidance and security baselines serve as reference architectures adopted by engineering and security teams across startups and enterprises operating in regulated industries worldwide.

Harshvardhan founded Bite Group at age 17, comprising ventures in cybersecurity, web and application development, geographic information systems, AI/ML, and startup mentorship, gaining eight years of industry experience before arriving at Carnegie Mellon. In 2018, through Bite Security, his research led to the discovery of a critical security vulnerability in Rivet Networks' Killer wireless networking driver that affected millions of MSI and Alienware users around the world. He responsibly disclosed and remediated the issue in direct partnership with the company's executive leadership, receiving a Gold-Level recognition prior to their acquisition by Intel.

At Carnegie Mellon, Harshvardhan became the first person from INI to serve as a Mission Operator for the Iris Lunar Rover, commanding the rover over a lunar distance from Earth during Peregrine Mission One launched on January 8, 2024. It was part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program and the United States' first attempt to return to the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in 1972. As Space Mission Engineering Lead, he established the INI's first Space Practicum programs, integrating cybersecurity, cloud computing, and space systems into ongoing missions including the upcoming MoonRanger rover in 2029, part of NASA's Artemis program. He contributed to the early development of Carnegie Mellon Mission Control (CMMC), the university's mission operations facility for active and upcoming space programs. His expertise in secure cloud infrastructure extends to critical national energy systems. At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, operating under the U.S. Department of Energy, he designed the foundation architecture for the Transactive Energy Service System (TESS), ensuring the protection of critical energy data and transactions across the grid. TESS is now deployed in Maine, New Hampshire, and Colorado, supporting the modernization of the U.S. electric grid.