Sunil Mehta grew up in Bombay, India (now Mumbai) and earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering from IIT-Bombay. He moved to the United States in 1980 for graduate studies, receiving advanced engineering degrees from Pennsylvania State University and MIT. His career began at Intel in 1984, marking the start of a 40-year journey in the semiconductor industry that continues today in his role as a Silicon Valley startup executive. A prolific innovator, he holds 92 US patents and has authored 18 technical publications.

Sunil’s creative pursuits are as expansive as his professional ones. A dedicated cultural curator, he created the website sunilslists.com, an expansive digital archive documenting his diverse interests in cinema, music, literature, and comic books. He is a frequent commentator on current affairs, and his opinion pieces have appeared in the San Jose Mercury News and on Medium.com.

Sunil lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he remains active in both the tech and cultural communities. The Compass is his debut novel, born from a career spent at the intersection of science, history, and the human stories behind innovation.