My personal blog

I was part of the Humanities Collective and Pride Club of IISER Thiruvananthapuram, and I have participated in and organized many debates and programs. I had a very good experience listening to Dr. Sundar Sarukai who is a professor of philosophy at the National Institute of Advanced Studies. His talk at IISER on the philosophy of science was really interesting as it gave me a lot of perspectives on my questions about the objective and subjective nature of the approach to learning science. One particular evening when we had our research group’s tea meeting with Prof. Carlton M Caves and Prof. Anil Shaji, where he answered my question about the paths of pursuing science for contributing physically to the world and pursuing science to answer questions in search of an objective truth was really insightful. His answer on the human fundamental subjective nature was shocking yet beautiful. I am really thankful to have a lot of mentors in my life, I have learned a lot of critical thinking from my uncle Dr. Purush Purushothaman who is a professor of Law. My talks with him on ontology, epistemology, and the methodology of research helped me a lot in my own academic journey. I really like conversions and I tend to do them a lot, I feel like this particular skill has helped in academics and also in building my own philosophy. 

My interest in science escalated from high school, but I never knew then that I would pursue research, I was inclined to science, be it the Biology of microbes to the behavior of wildlife, the physics of a dying star, or building robots, I found something that was so intriguing about all these that glued me to infographics shows and had me sketching them, maybe as a way to understand them. Over the years my understanding refined with experience and I was able to understand what in this discipline excited me, and it was only during my undergraduate days that I realized why I joined IISER and why I love doing research in physics. I feel that the foundational principles that govern the world are like the piece of code that tells how the program should run like how physics makes sense of how everything simple to complex runs in this world. In a sense, physics feels more like the programming language that the world compiles for our sensory perception. And like learning to code finding those exact language snippets will teach how to view and influence the world. I want to learn this language. Since finding more clarity in what I want, I have found more clarity in my work as well as why it makes a difference for me to be on this path. 

The rich exposure to academic and cultural events at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram (IISER TVM) allowed me to develop important networking and leadership skills. I coordinated the 23rd NCAMP conference school on Atomic and Molecular Physics and Quantum Technology in IISER TVM organized by Prof. Anil Shaji in IISER TVM. I have also organized and volunteered for debates and discussions as part of the Humanities collective of IISER TVM. I am also one of the student mentors and during my time being a black belt of Shotokan style Karate, I taught students karate. Coming to cultural events, I have been actively working in different aspects of the Ishya Cultural Fest of IISER TVM, I was the design coordinator of Ishya 2022. I am also a member of the Inter IISER Cultural Meet (IICM) and the college fashion show (Rawaaz). Right now I am also carrying out a project in collaboration with Cloud Cuckoo Land on developing an Intent Recognition Chatbot Platform for Mental Health Applications, that is aimed at understanding the user’s emotional experience by making use of a statistical system of emotion parameters making it possible for the platform to predict the emotional compulsiveness of the user. This work is a collaboration with a medical agency to create an open platform making mental health awareness available to all.