Dr Sairam Moturi, Assistant Professor of Finance, Accounting and Quantitative Finance, IFMR GSB presented his paper titled ‘Auditor Familiarity and Audit Quality in Business Groups’, co-authored with Professors Vijaya Bhaskar Marisetty and Sanjay Kallapur, at India Management Research Conference 2024. The conference was organised by the Centre for Sustainability and Corporate Governance Research at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and took place from 7 to 9 December 2024.
Dr Vivek Radhakrishnan, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, SIAS was invited to participate in a symposium on ‘Why Read Kant Now?’ organised by the Goethe-Institut Mumbai and the German Department of Mumbai University on 29 and 30 November, 2024. Dr Radhakrishnan gave a talk titled, ‘How ‘Humean’ was Kant?’ at the symposium. He also moderated the inaugural keynote by Professor Rajendra Dengle (Retired Professor of German, JNU) and the special lecture by Professor Heiner Klemme (Professor of Philosophy, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle).
Dr R S Sathya Saminadan, Associate Professor of Practice, IFMR GSB presented his paper, ‘Marketing to Aliens’, at the NGSC – 2024 Conference at IIM Jammu on 22 and 23 November, 2024. The paper explores strategies for effective intergalactic marketing, combining creativity with established principles of marketing. It underscores the importance of adaptability and ethical considerations in marketing to diverse and unfamiliar segments, a concept that resonates with contemporary challenges in business strategy.
Dr Venkata Srinu Bhadram, Assistant Professor of Physics, SIAS was invited to give a talk at the International Conference on Advanced Ceramics for Sustainability (Cera4S-2024), held at IIT Madras from 28 – 30 November 2024. In his talk titled, ‘Extreme Pressure as a Route to Discover New Metastable Materials’, he discussed the pivotal role of high-pressure techniques in discovering new metastable phases of ceramic materials, such as transition metal nitrides, oxides and high-entropy complex oxides. He highlighted how combining high-pressure experimental methods with machine learning approaches has the potential to drive transformative advancements, offering sustainable solutions for materials-based technologies.
Professor Anil Srinivasan, Visiting Professor of Practice, Literature & the Arts, SIAS penned a piece for The New Indian Express (TNIE) titled, Till we respect the environment, December will be season of sorrow for Chennai. In this column TNIE invites prominent citizens to pen their experiences and suggestions that can help mitigate the impact of rain. The article straddles experiences of environmental changes with an imperative need to respect the environment with absolute and unfettered dedication.
Dr Madhavilatha Maganti, Associate Professor of Psychology, SIAS and Dr Sayantan Mandal, Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, SIAS will be presenting research papers at SAFAL-2024, one of the more prestigious and competitive cognitive science and psycholinguistics conferences organised by the Association of Cognitive Science at IIT Bombay. Also presenting at the conference is second year SIAS student, Aarthi Venkatesh. Four papers from the Psychology research lab have been selected for this prestigious conference.
Dr Maganti, and Mandal recently presented their latest research findings on anti-local linear search-algorithms as neurocomputational models for vowel harmony in natural language at the 2024 WECOL conference in Fresno, California. A paper-length treatment of the same is to be published by WECOL in February, 2025.
Dr Maganti was also invited as a guest speaker by Allahabad University on 20 November, 2024 where she spoke on infant cognition.
Dr Maganti also presented a talk on ‘Multi-vulnerability assessment of young children and caregivers in Indian cities’ on 25 September 2024 at the India Habitat Center, New Delhi, at the launch workshop of Nurturing Neighbourhoods 2.0 program conducted by the Van Leer Foundation and World Resources Institute. The Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge is an initiative aimed at piloting and scaling strategies to enhance urban living for infants, toddlers, and caregivers.
Dr Maganti at the launch of the workshop of Nurturing Neighbourhoods 2.0 program
Nickhil Sharma, Visiting Faculty at SIAS, recently appeared on BBC Norfolk Radio to talk about his research on smart meters in Great Britain. On 11 November 2024 he participated in an interview with BBC Norfolk Radio, where they explored the rollout of smart meters in Great Britain. Despite being one of the most expensive government-initiated programs in British history, these internet-enabled energy meters have faced criticism for failing to meet targets and not performing as expected. During the interview, Nickhil shared insights from his doctoral research on why the meters might not work, how to identify potential issues, and discussed his research on how overly optimistic narratives that present technologies as quick fixes for complex problems—like optimising household energy use—often fall short. He emphasised the importance of researchers, citizens, policymakers, and technology developers being cautious about perpetuating such narratives.
Turzo Nicholas Mondal, Doctoral student in Anthropology, SIAS and Dr Annu Jalais, Associate Professor of Anthropology, SIAS presented their paper at the International Symposium on ‘ Precarious Water Futures and End(s) of World(s)- an Integrative Dialogue Across Disciplines and Societies’ organised by Käte Hamburger Center for Apocalyptic and Post Apocalyptic Studies (CAPAS), Heidelberg University, Germany. The conference was held at the India International Centre, New Delhi. They also participated in a stimulating round-table discussion on the Sundarbans with other Sundarbans experts.
Sayantan Datta, Assistant Professor of Practice, Centre for Writing and Pedagogy, Krea University delivered the 85th Popular Science Lecture at the Anna Centenary Library, Chennai on 23 November 2024.
Earlier this month, scientists from New York University showed that human embryonic kidney cells – disembodied and cultured for generations in the laboratory – could show canonical features of memory. Last month, Kolkata-based researchers engineered bacteria that could organise into artificial neural network-like architectures, and compute abstract mathematical problems. Memory and computing abstract problems are two processes that are typically thought to be the forte of the brain, a specialised organ composed of billions of specialised cells. But if cultured kidney cells can remember, and bacteria can be made to do (some) mathematics, what does this mean for us, and what we understand as intelligence? In this lecture, Sayantan summarised recent scientific studies that report ‘intelligent behavior’ in ‘brainless’ organisms: learning and memory in non-neuronal cells, and problem-solving in slime molds. In doing so, Sayantan dwelled on the possibilities and opportunities offered by these findings – for science and for humanity.
The Popular Science Lectures is part of the Tamil Nadu Science Forum’s (TNSF’s) efforts to popularise science to the general public and students who are pursuing science as their career.
Dr Vasupradha Srikrishna,Assistant Professor of Communications, IFMR GSB, Krea University recently presented her research at various global events.
Dr Srikrishna presented research titled, Unleashing South Asian Voices: Mobilizing Mobile Technology for Women’s Leadership in Community Radio and Women’s Empowerment, at the Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, held between 30 October-3 November, 2024. This research focused on how mobile technology empowers women through community radio.
On 13 September, 2024, a collaborative research on, Help-Seeking Tendency and Domestic Violence, was shared at the International Conference on Navigating Inequality, Development, and Sustainability in the Global South (ICNIDS 2024), organised by the Vellore Institute of Technology-Andhra Pradesh (VIT-AP) University. She also presented and discussed the work titled, Deity, Ritual, and Digital Mediation: Exploring the Bedanayaka Indigenous Tribe’s Cultural Landscape, at the International Media Readings in Moscow, “Mass Media and Communications-2024” between 24-25, October, 2024. This research was part of a joint ICSSR major project.
A book chapter titled, Pixels and Pedagogy: A Case Study of Experiential Learning by Media Students in Tamil Nadu During the Covid-19 Pandemic in the book Digital Inequalities in Media Education in South Asia: Context and Consequences of the Covid-19 Pandemic – A Routledge Publication, by Dr Srikrishna will also be available from December 2024, onwards.