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 columnTNIE 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 Proma Raychaudhury, Assistant Professor of Politics, SIAS has published a peer-reviewed article titled, Gendering Loyalty in Indian Electoral Democracy: The Trinamool Congress and Its Construction of a Female Constituency in West Bengal in Economic and Political Weekly (Vol 59, Issue 48, pp.87-95) as part of a Special Issue on General Elections 2024.
Through a consistent surge in their salience and distinguished by their autonomy, female voters have become an indispensable constituency in Indian electoral democracy in recent decades. Through a constructivist approach to populist political representation, this paper studies the conceptual terrain of the relationship between voter loyalty and populist democracy in the context of female voting and partisan support in contemporary West Bengal. This paper explores how the leadership of the All India Trinamool Congress in the state constructed a “loyalist” constituency of female voters who are beneficiaries of state-sponsored welfare schemes while exercising the logic of “othering” to exclude female critics and dissidents of the regime from such a constituency. Through interviews with grassroots workers of the AITC, this paper also analyses the gendered expectations that underscore the populist constituency of the “loyal female voter” in West Bengal.
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
Aarthi Venkatesh, a second-year Psychology student at SIAS, has been selected to present her research at the South Asian Forum on the Acquisition and Processing of Language (SAFAL) – 2024, one of the more prestigious and competitive cognitive science and psycholinguistics conferences organised by the Association of Cognitive Science at IIT Bombay.
Aarthi will be presenting her research on generational differences in abstract knowledge and motor association in natural language verbs.
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 organize 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 specialized organ composed of billions of specialized 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.
Organised by the SIAS Sports Club, 16 members of the SIAS football team showcased their skills at a football tournament in Puzhal on 16 November 2024, securing an impressive 4th place.
Organised by the SIAS Sports Club, 20 students from the SIAS volleyball team participated in a practice match against the junior team from RSN Boys on 20 November 2024. The 5-set match was aimed at helping them gain valuable experience.
Sparsh Makharia, pursuing a double major in Data Science and Computer Science at SIAS, has been selected as a LINC (Centre for Large-scale Imaging of Neural Circuits) Fellow for 2024-25. LINC is a multi-institutional consortium funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Brain Initiative CONNECTS program to collect and analyse imaging data that will allow us to probe connections in the human and non-human primate brain at unprecedented resolutions. As part of this training program, Sparsh will participate in weekly meetings and undertake project work in data and machine learning under the supervision of professors from renowned institutions such as Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), MIT, UCL, etc. Additionally, Sparsh will gain access to advanced computing resources to support their research.
