Category: Faculty & Staff Spotlight

Dr Suresh Govindapuram, Assistant Professor of Economics, IFMR GSB, Krea University has completed  an online course on the Fundamentals of Case Teaching by Harvard Business Publishing (HBS). 

Case study pedagogy in Business Schools places students in real-world decision-making roles, enhancing analytical skills, critical thinking, creativity, and communication. Effective faculty approaches are crucial, and MBA/BBA students benefit from mastering management concepts through case studies for informed decision-making. 

About the Paper

In this article, the authors investigate a simple coupled system of amyloid-beta (Ab) aggregation and inflammation relevant in Alzheimer disease (AD) and demonstrate its complex and rich dynamics ranging from overdamped kinetics to sustained oscillations in dependence of various aggregation- and neuroinflammation-related parameters. They suggest that sustained oscillations in inflammatory response to Ab aggregation and its resultant exhaustion of the immune system can lead to a transition to a more progressive phase of amyloid pathology in AD brains. Accordingly, oscillations in aggregation and/or inflammation levels can serve as potential biomarkers in early diagnosis of AD. The authors also propose that the relative ease of triggering oscillatory dynamics in coupled aggregation-neuroinflammation systems should be taken into consideration in clinical trials related to anti-AD drug development.

Read the article here. 

Dr Swarnamalya Ganesh, Assistant Professor of Practice at SIAS, Krea University, and the Festival Director of the Culture Festival Textures of Traditions (ToT), is excited to announce the second edition of this festival, produced by Ranga Mandira Academy, set to take place in early 2025.

As a special prelude to this event, the ToT 2025 Festival Team is releasing and screening a documentary film made by students from the L V Prasad College of Media Studies. This documentary captures the moods, ethos, and movements of ToT, showcasing the festival’s many layers of meaning as an inclusive cultural celebration in Namma Chennai.

The release and screening of Textures of Traditions – A Documentary Film is scheduled for Saturday, August 3, 2024, at the Tagore Film Center, NFDC in R A Puram, at 10:30 am. The film will be released by Dr Thamizhachi Thangapandian, Hon’ble Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha.

Dr Annu Jalais, Associate Professor of Anthropology, SIAS, Krea University has shared her expert insights on tiger conservation in a recent Deccan Herald article, titled A better way to save tigers?. Her perspective on the vital role of local communities in preserving ecosystems underscores the need for inclusive conservation strategies. 

Author of the critically acclaimed anthropological account Forest of Tigers – People, Politics and Environment in the Sundarbans, Dr Annu Jalais has also appeared as an expert guest on the podcast titled The Story of Sundarbans. Along with the author and photographer Arati Kumar-Rao and the local entrepreneur Rajesh Kumar Shaw, she speaks about the forces that shape the unique socio-ecological system of the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest. This video is a production of InHERIT by Ashoka, an initiative by Ashoka University supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, dedicated to rediscovering and exploring the natural and culinary heritage of India. 

Read the article here. 

Watch The Story of Sundarbans

Dr Rama Koteswara Rao Kamineni, Associate Professor of Physics, SIAS, Krea University has co-authored a paper titled Vector detection of ac magnetic fields by nitrogen vacancy centers of single orientation in diamond, published in the journal Physical Review B. The paper, selected as an ‘Editor’s Suggestion’, was co-authored with Pooja Lamba (Bennett University), Akshat Rana (Bennett University), Sougata Halder (IIT Jodhpur), Dr Siddharth Dhomkar (IIT Madras) and Professor Dieter Suter (Dortmund University). 

About the paper: Nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have useful properties for detecting both ac and dc magnetic fields with high sensitivity at nanoscale resolution. The vector detection of ac magnetic fields can be achieved by using NV centers having three different orientations. In this paper, the authors propose a method to achieve this by using NV centers of single orientation. In this method, a static magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the NV axis, leading to strong mixing of the mₛ = −1 and 1 electron spin states. As a result, all three electron spin transitions of the triplet ground state have nonzero dipole moments, with each transition coupling to a single component of the magnetic field. This can be used to measure both the strength and orientation of the applied ac field. To validate the technique, the authors perform a proof-of-principle experiment using a subset of ensemble NV centers in diamond, all having the same orientation. This method is equally applicable to single NV centers.

Access the paper here. 

Read the full publication here.

Dr R S Sathya Saminadan, Associate Professor of Practice & Area Chair – Marketing, IFMR GSB, Krea University has successfully completed the Post Graduation Program in Digital Marketing from Purdue University.