Nikhil Pandey

Just arrived in Warsaw, a week ago. My professor asked me to relax as much as I could. No pressure, no interference with personal life. You will hardly find in India, as they from the 1st day will think how to make free labour in the name of science. #phd #academia

@iam_anubhav Proud of you 👏

Day 300 of daily running! 🏃

@subimal_ghosh @dubey_nivi @UniLeipzig @vikram_chandel_ @iitbombay @ClimateIITB @EnggHead Congratulations @dubey_nivi 👏🎉

Congratulations @dubey_nivi for the prestigious Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship. She will work with Dr Ana Bastos of @UniLeipzig . In the last round, @vikram_chandel_ got the same fellowship from our group. Our students make us proud of them. @iitbombay @ClimateIITB @EnggHead

Very well organised and hosted us like anything. Other states need to learn a lesson from here. It was such a great event and the fellowship provided would really help us. Kudos to @MpcstBhopal

Instead of grindmaxxing, PhD students should be funmaxxing. It’s so easy to tell when someone is exploring things for the heck of it. The outcome will be outsized, even if slow. I’ve seen nothing but misery in labs with mandatory hours and micromanagement.

An amazing film for people wondering or reminiscing about the experience of doing a PhD in physics. Ekaterina Eremenko is currently finishing a documentary on Felix Klein, I and was happy to see she was also the one behind this great film!

Expert chemists, biologists mathematicians, physicists, engineers, accountants, lawyers, doctors and others should especially use AI. The more of an expert you are, the more you can benefit from it using your expert knowledge. It’s the opposite of what people seem to believe.

I look at these posts and sometimes regret being an academic. I finished my B. Tech from NIT and instead of taking up the job I got through campus placements, I started an MS in Physics at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research for a scholarship of 10,000INR per month. I saved up enough money to pay for GRE and TOEFL and US grad school applications and landed a few PhD admits in the US and one in Germany. I, then moved to Germany, and was on a 1600$ salary in the prime years of my life (25-29), during my PhD. It covered my rent, my food, a couple of short vacations per year, and around a few hundred dollars of savings at the end of the year. I finished my PhD and continued as a scientific employee and my in-hand salary went up to 2700$. I look at these posts and wonder what if I had taken up my Bangalore job? What if I had optimised my life for different things? I don't regret anything. I got to work on an insane problem: what are magnetic fields on stars other than the Sun like? This connects to the larger question of "Are we alone in the Universe (strong stellar magnetic activity tend to wipe away planetary atmospheres)"? Stuff I had dreamt of since I was a kid. I used to devour pop astro books by Stephen Hawking when I was in the 5th/6th standard and the only thing I could think of doing in life was working on the deepest darkest secrets of the universe. But it makes me wonder. I see my classmates, who went on to do MBAs, or joined MS programs and have now accumulated a fair bit of capital. And capital allows you freedom. People often ask me if they should be an academic. My answer is "Yes, but only if you cannot imagine being anything else." And for a long time I couldn't imagine being anything else. I believed work that pushes you intellectually is only done in research labs. And 10 years ago sitting in Kolkata, India, I probably wasn't very wrong in believing that.

Valentine's Day physics pairs who stayed happily married until the end: Niels and Margarethe Bohr; Subrahmanyan and Lalitha Chandrasekhar; John and Janette Wheeler.

@anvita_gauri Keep Shining 💫🌟

IISc researchers & collaborators show how toxic perchlorate in Martian soil can slow bacterial growth while boosting "space brick" formation. This opens up construction strategies for extraterrestrial missions. @aalokelab @IiscMechanical @gagan_shux 🔗: iisc.ac.in/events/how-bri…

@sshukla15 Insightful video, Sir. Thanks for sharing!

How did these stone pillars form—and what can they teach us about patience and strong foundations? 🌏 In this new episode from the Pinnacles Desert, Western Australia, I reflect on how slow natural processes create enduring structures—and why this lesson matters for engineering, learning, and life. @CGIPerth #LearningWithDrShukla #EngineeringFromNature #PinnaclesDesert #StrongFoundations #LifelongLearning youtu.be/XyLcRXBlZRg

Starting something new, how far we can go 😀🤝 🌿 Welcome to the Fault Lines open.substack.com/pub/granularpa…

Academia is so compromised and suffers from favouritism. You can only hope for travel grants/funds if you know someone who is the session convener/organiser or has big boots to clutch upon. Your merit/record/vision/efforts don't matter. It's all connections which underplay

On his death anniversary, Albert Camus reminds us that the human condition is defined not by meaning found, but by meaning confronted. Like Sisyphus, condemned to push his stone endlessly, Camus urges us to imagine him happy, as dignity arises in accepting the absurd

At most IITs, we talk about promoting interdisciplinary research. However, when it comes to faculty recruitment, candidates with interdisciplinary backgrounds often face outright rejection almost at all IITs. Is this trend only specific to Civil (Water Resources)?

Your postdoc is trying to start a family. Your PhD student just lost a friend. Your staff scientist sends money home every month. You spend years with these people. You know their research inside out. You know nothing about what they're carrying. Ask how they're actually doing. It matters more than you think.

you'll never regret studying

@payal_jos Wishing you a happy birthday Ma'am, keep us updated with your itenaries 😅😊