Student Experience
Keysight Technologies partnership gives capstone students hands-on experience
A new unique capstone project involves both undergraduate and graduate students.
Members of the 2025 Keysight capstone team, left to right: HCI alumna Sanaz Khanali, HCI students Hribhav Panchal, Maaya George, and Victoria Lam, and Keysight software engineer Maxim Pletner.
Jeff Dralla, a director of software go-to-market at Keysight Technologies, first became connected to engineers at UC Santa Cruz through a shared interest in open-source technology. In the years since, he has hosted several cohorts of capstone students at the company’s Silicon Valley office, offering rewarding hands-on opportunities and launching a unique project that involves students from both undergraduate and graduate programs.
Capstone projects give students valuable opportunities to apply the skills learned in the classroom to the needs of a real company, and students in many of the undergraduate and graduate programs at the Baskin School of Engineering complete one as part of their education. They are a key element of the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) MS program, which is based at the UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Campus. Spanning the last two quarters of the program, the capstone project gives students real-world experience with user experience and design.
“The idea is that these projects are things they can feature in their portfolio when they go into market, and the projects they do are real projects that affect product development and have impact there,” said Norman Makoto Su, associate professor of computational media and vice chair of the HCI program.
Keysight Technologies, a company that produces equipment and software that helps other engineers develop, test, and optimize their work, is now in its third year as an HCI capstone partner.
“Keysight has a special sauce, or a secret recipe for making the ideal experience for the students,” Su said. “They really try to integrate the student team into the company culture.”
Keysight has an office in Santa Clara that neighbors the UCSC Silicon Valley Campus, where the HCI program is based, meaning students have quick access to office space and get a meaningful look at the region’s technology industry. Project teams are often high performing and motivated, and Dralla’s mentorship helps students stay engaged and succeed in the fast-paced culture.
“He stays very hands-on, especially when it comes to critical milestones, and I think that’s another reason for success,” said Yassi Moghaddam, executive director of the HCI program.
Students take on projects stemming from the real user experience (UX) needs of the complex Keysight products, contributing valuable work that has helped elevate UX as a priority at the company.
“It’s helping our team see the value of UX work at a fundamental level,” Dralla said. “It’s bringing a lot more visibility to the impact it has, and I think it’s giving very meaningful work to the students while they’re engaged in it here.”
Dralla appreciates that the capstone project gives students insight into the test and measurement industry, and gives them a chance to see if the students might be a good fit for the company long term. This was the case for Sanaz Khanali, a HCI graduate who completed her capstone with Keysight and is now in an ongoing contacter role there.
“It’s a really great experience and very rewarding; I’m able to stay connected with the school, and it feels really good that I can give back,” Khanali said.
She’s now helping to manage a new project that is bringing together HCI students with undergraduate students from the computer science and engineering program. In this multi-campus collaborative approach, reflective of a real-world project team, the undergraduates are tackling the backend software aspects, and then passing the project off to the HCI students to work on front-end UX needs.
Overall, this business-minded approach is one that the HCI leadership is bringing into the curriculum. Capstone companies also serve as HCI industry advisors, helping ensure the program stays up-to-date with the ongoing needs of Silicon Valley and beyond.
“This emulates cross functional teams, which is more typical in the real world environment,” Su said. “Keysight is really pushing us forward in terms of what we’d like capstone projects to look like.”
Visit the Baskin Engineering website and the HCI website to learn more about corporate sponsorship opportunities.