"
Team:IIT Madras/About us/Team
From 2011.igem.org
IIT Madras iGEM Team 2011
(Click on the names to find out more)
Chaitra: She’s got ‘em retro bell-bottom pants from the 80’s. Fancy. The one and only
matriarch of the team, she does a good job of taking care of the whole lot of us.
She frets, but we cheer her up. She works quietly, but Avaneesh makes sure she
makes some noise. She’s hella cool, but we don't tell her that. By the way, her
surname is Prabhakara and she’s from Bangalore so that’s a couple of +1’s on the
coolness scale.
Chaitra is a Senior in the Department of Biotechnology, and can be found
in the molecular biology lab. Look for the bell-bottoms if you want to find her.
Sri Teja Mullapudi: “Pinku” Mullapudi is your friendly team workaholic. He resembles a shaggy mountain goat, and sleeps like a dead mountain goat. He even bleats once in a while. Wake him up, and I assure you that you will gain the respect of the whole team (we’ve tried and failed numerous times, it’s impossible!). He’s always bristling with energy and enjoys cracking random PJs once in a while to make sure the team sighs in unison. He enjoys MCing and we think he would do well to identify and work on this talent of his. We enjoy his bleating, and we love placing wagers on who’s going to succeed in waking him up so he’s definitely an asset to our team. Great company, no kidding!
Teja is a Junior in the Department of Biotechnology. He’s currently working on molecular virology, and kills time playing Monster Dash and dreaming about MCing.
Vivek Parthasarathy: Paratha as he is known, he claims that he is NOT available at cafeterias. He’s fascinated by his own voice, and seems to be proud of the fact that he can get under people’s skins/cheer them up at will. Blah blahblahblah, blah blahblah- if you want to hear the full story hit him up at vivek.windwaker@gmail.com. Partha’s in charge of raking in the moolah for the team, and he aspires to handle PR as well (yeah, right!). He claims his midi-chlorian count is higher than yours.
Vivek is a Junior in the Department of Biotechnology. He splits his free time between cricket, bringing in funds, and trying to find his true calling in the biological sciences.
Varun Chokshi: He’s the chill dude of the team. Period. He doesn’t dance to his circadian rhythms, although he’s usually not that into dancing. When you hear a burst of hindi, usually curses at a dratted BlackBerry- you know it’s theChoksh (he’s Indian, so Varun works fine as well). With his level-headedness and an inability to lose hope, even in the face of an impending deadline, he sits around clicking away at his old Dell. Remember, don’t panic!
Varun is a Senior in the Department of Biotechnology, and spends time away from iGEM working on cardiovascular genetics (He claims it’s not as fancy as it sounds. Really?)
Avaneesh Thautam: Dommi. The man on a mission .The mission: To not cut his hair ever again. Progress: Considerable enough to make us flinch when we see his locks. Our plan: To shear his lovely locks off when he’s not looking. Wish us luck! If he’s not working tirelessly in the LF hood, he’s probably tired and asleep, curled up in a blanket in a corner of our lab. Either that or he’s getting into a heated discussion with Chaitra, so yeah. He’s perpetually spaced out, although he makes sure he gets his point across crystal clear. When he’s around, working becomes fun (at his expense!).
Avaneesh is (the last) Senior (on the team) in the Department of Biotechnology, and works in the vascular biology lab. Remember, look for the locks. May the force be with you.
Chetan Srinath: This bird-man is a Junior in the Department of Biotechnology. An inspirational high school teacher got him interested in biology and he hasn't looked back since. IBO fame apart, Chetan is a Bangalore loving dude who is usually found playing football, or immersed in fantasy books (GRRM ftw!). He intends to do a Master's and a PhD in the biological sciences although he hasn't decided on what he'd like to specialize in just yet.
Don't miss a chance to get candid with the bio-geek at chetan.srinath@gmail.com.
Vinay Lathi: He claims to waste a lot of times on his computer fixing “bugs”, but we all know what he means by that, right? (actually no, but we just like sounding like we’re a bunch of smart alecs). He didn't mind being called Nayan by mistake (mostly by Sonia), way too often. Vinay likes giving a deeper meaning to the things he does, and enjoys the recognition that comes with hard work. Fancy!
Vinay is a Junior in the Department of Biotechnology, and is currently looking to work on something that enables him to see the patterns in biology and make sense of them. Pester him at vinaylathi@gmail.com.
Sonia Chothani: The dancer girl/lab rat/Son. The team tries to take care of the Son. The rest of the team chose to foster her and let her labor away in the lab as a way of expressing her gratitude. NOT. She’s from Mumbai, and she claims she can drive- although we beg to differ. On a different note, she’s one of them team “juniors”, she won’t turn 21 until after iGEM so she’ll prolly have to make do with a good dance at Jillian’s. Which she will, considering the fact she’s a pro dancer. But yeah, we all think she’s awesome. She is. She really is.
Sonia is a Senior in the Department of Biotechnology. Sonia splits her free time between dancing and computational modeling/bioinformatics.
Nayan Jain: The Nyan Cat is his evil spawn. When Nayannyans, the Nyan Cat listens. In case you’re wondering what in the world a Nyan Cat is, find out here. Pop tarts and rainbow fart apart, say hello to the quietest member of the team. He’s all composed and stuff (but we think his demeanor is a big pile of mumbo-jumbo). He just turned 21, and all he craves for is a nice, frilly pink dress. The things people crave for when they realize they’re getting old- crazy! Interestingly enough, we intend to make him our mascot next year so feel free to mail in designs to nayanjain28@gmail.com. There’s a catch though- theyHAVE to be pink.
Nayan is a Junior in the Department of Biotechnology, and he hasn’t homed in on what he wants to work on yet. Remember- respect the SMRL!
Abhishek De: De. That is his surname and not a typo. Surprised much? Well, we’ve gotten used to it. The muscle man of the team, Abhi helps us with the circuitry and wiki-editing. We’ve pretty much convinced ourselves that he glorifies the process of connectingbatteries to LEDs, but the circuits do their job so we let him be. The day De’s lights go out, night will fall. Ominous, yes. His interest in neuroscience put him on path that eventually led him to us, and he’s been a welcome addition to the team ever since.
Abhishek is a Junior in the Department of Electrical Engineering, and has chosen to focus on network theory to help him understand neural networks better. Connect with him at abhishekde95@gmail.com.
Kousik Sundararajan: Cow-sick. That’s how you pronounce his name. What’s in a name, you ask? Well ask Kousik. We estimate that he’s spent roughly half his social life teaching people how to pronounce his name, so we hope you’ll get it right the first time. He’s our team man, and he moderates and mediates his way to glory. Oh and he went home for Diwali. We have no idea why we decided to throw that random piece of information at you but we did, so ha! He’s our team’s official source for manga references, with his Japan connect and all. Or so we think.
Kousik is a Senior in the Department of Biotechnology, and works on cancer biology when he isn’t helping people settle scores.
Govind Krishna Joshi: If you want to strike fear into this kid’s heart, utter but one word. Passport. It’s bound to bring him to his knees begging for forgiveness and mercy. But don’t put him through that, because he’s theguruji. He follows the way of the Ninja, and gets work done swooping in and out of the lab unseen, and unheard. You won’t be seeing him at the World Championship Jamboree this year but we assure you that the P word won’t scare him as much next year. If you feel like comforting him, go ahead and IM him at govindkrjoshi@gmail.com.
Govind is a Junior in the Department of Biotechnology. He uses his ninja skills to slip into the vascular biology lab under the cover of night to get some work done before his weekly reviews.
