Inspired by the Harry Potter stories and the Disney Channel show Wizards of Waverly Place, 7-year-old Sabrina Corsetti emphatically declared to her parents one afternoon that she was, in fact, a wizard.

“My dad turned to me and said that if I really wanted to be a wizard, then I should become a physicist. Physicists are the real wizards of the world,” she says.

That conversation stuck with Corsetti throughout her childhood, all the way up to her decision to double-major in physics and math in college, which set her on a path to MIT, where she’s now a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science.

While her work may not involve incantations or magic wands, Corsetti’s research centers on an area that often produces astonishing results: integrated photonics. A relatively young field, integrated photonics involves building computer chips that route light instead of electricity, enabling compact and scalable solutions for applications ranging from communications to sensing.

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