A group called Queer and Straight Allies at IISc is working to support LGBTQ+ students “I had read about IISc having a queer group before I came here,” says Anwesha, an MTech student. “I was excited to meet people whom I could relate to as I didn’t have any queer friends before that.” […]
Category: Campus Chronicles
Food For Thought
Owners, students and faculty share their stories of IISc’s eateries Anindo Roy stood aghast as the excavator pulled down Prakruthi Veg, considered by many an iconic canteen in the campus. “It didn’t feel good. It was like the main building suddenly disappeared,” the PhD student of Materials Engineering says. “All the alumni I speak […]
Making Safety a Priority
The Office of Laboratory Safety and Environmental Health (OLSEH) at IISc, barely three years old, is on a mission to bring the 111-year-old Institute’s safety practices up to global standards. CONNECT caught up with the Chair of OLSEH, Sushobhan Avasthi, Associate Professor at the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering, who spoke about the setting […]
What IISc Needs to Become World-Class: Interview with Anurag Kumar
In July 2020, Anurag Kumar completed his tenure as the Director of IISc. He began his journey in engineering with a bachelor’s degree from IIT Kanpur and a PhD from Cornell University, and then worked at Bell Labs, New Jersey, USA, before joining IISc in 1988. After serving as the Chair, Department of Electrical Communication […]
‘I No Longer Call IISc Tata Institute, but Thaatha Mane’
When AV Leelavathi joined IISc in 1964, her entry to the Institute was quite unplanned. While studying at a friend’s house one day, the friend received a visit from someone who had gone to IISc to pick up an application form for the post of Stenographer for his sister. He had been given three […]
‘The fact that my patients needed me kept me motivated’
Healthcare professionals across the world have been working relentlessly during the pandemic. With dozens of cases reported from IISc, Connect spoke to doctors at the Institute’s Health Centre about their experiences during these challenging times. What changes did the Health Centre have to make, in order to deal with the pandemic? Dr R Nirmala: […]
Meet NSF’s New Director
An IISc alumnus, Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan, was appointed as the 15th Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), USA. Before being chosen to head NSF, he was at Arizona State University (ASU), where he founded the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing (CUbiC) which is focused on designing technologies and devices for assisting individuals with […]
Homecoming: Biochemistry Alumni who Returned to the Institute
PB Seshagiri, Sandhya S Visweswariah and Varsha Singh talk about their academic journeys There is no doubt that IISc attracts some of the best students in the country. But a few of them have come full circle, returning to the Institute – some even to the same building – where they took their baby […]
The Pandemic and Mental Health at IISc
A look at some of the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown have affected the IISc community Abhishek Aggarwal arrived in Denver, Colorado, on 1 March to attend the American Physical Society March Meeting 2020 – an annual physics hub that sees around 10,000 delegates from all over the world attending scientific […]
Understanding COVID-19 Through the Lens of the Social Sciences
COVID-19 has brought upon us an extraordinary situation, throwing our lives into tumult. While the crisis is largely being reported and understood from the biological and epidemiological viewpoints, we tend to sideline the fact that it is essentially a watershed moment in human history. Connect spoke to scholars from the social sciences and humanities about […]