Our Vision
Cogito137 is a multilingual web-based science communication platform hosted on the IISER Kolkata web domain. The Oxford dictionary defines the word ‘cogito’ (latin: ‘I think’) as the principle, establishing the existence of a being, from the fact of its thinking or awareness.
Cogito137 aims to contribute to the development of scientific temper and awareness among the intelligentsia and the masses. We welcome content contributions in text/image/video format, from anyone and everyone who wants to communicate science.
Despite unbelievable scientific progress in the last few decades, there are reasons to believe that our society is yet to develop a basic scientific temper. The proof lies not only in the rampant abuse of nature and natural resources, but also in the pervasiveness of pseudoscience, myths and superstitions. So, it is indeed a challenging time for science in India and an exciting time to be a scientist.
Cogito is our effort to ensure that the science we do should not be locked behind laboratory doors or restricted to the reach of the scientific community. We believe it to be of utmost importance to be able to communicate science, effectively, to the masses.
Also, since research is public-funded, the scientific community should enable public benefit from research. Such enablement commands scientists to engage with the society, as communicators of the fruit of their work. People need to know why they should care about research, how it can affect their lives, and that science is a way of life. We hope that Cogito will be one such medium, to realise this goal.
Cogito is solely web-based at present. However, it is available as a wall magazine in the IISER Kolkata campus on poster boards located - in front of the research complex (RC), inside the teaching and research complex (TRC), inside the lecture hall complex (LHC), in front of the NSCB canteen and at the library entrance. You can read our published pieces on the website or at the wall magazine locations. Our wall magazine includes a QR code, scanning which will directly take you to our website.
We accept content submission perennially and perpetually. We welcome anything and everything that communicates science - articles, news, opinion pieces, artwork, photographs, sci-toons, book-reviews, interviews, videos.
Check out our Submit section for guidelines, allowed languages and the submission portal. Engage with our editors and audience through science and society discussions, scicomm ideas, pitches, on our Forum. Follow our social media handles for regular updates: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Write to us with your feedback, suggestions and queries at scicomm@iiserkol.ac.in
Team
Chief Editor
Arunita Banerjee (she/her)
Arunita is a rebel and does not shy away from that identity. She joined IISER Kolkata in 2015 as an Integrated-PhD student. For the last five years, she has anchored, organised and coordinated various institute-level events and participated in other extra-curricular activities, alongside her coursework. In 2017, she decided to make science communication her primary objective and started freelancing at Research Matters, IndiaBioScience, Mongabay India, and Live Wire. She eventually co-founded Cogito137 and works as our current Chief Editor.
She always has too much on her plate due to her varied interests in science, art, music, travel, animals, film direction, politics, and activism. You can find her running around the campus, interacting with the Director, faculty, students, and staff. On rare occasions, you would find her at her work-desk (which she calls a mess), discerning the behavioral patterns of free-ranging dogs at the Dog Lab.
Managing Editors
Srujana Mohanty (she/her,they/them)
Srujana is currently a student of science in the 18MS batch of IISER Kolkata and was possibly a cat (we have reasons to believe so) in her previous life (if anything such exists). She has been with us since the beginning and has been our ever-efficient Managing Editor. A perpetually confused person, she wants to major in Chemistry and plans to research in the field of medicinal chemistry.
Besides managing the team, she really enjoys reading, singing, and cooking. Above all, she likes traveling and being by herself. She just wants to be happy.
Sanskruti Biswal (she/her)
Sanskruti Biswal is an IISER Kolkata alumnus who completed her integrated BS-MS degree majoring in biological sciences in 2021. Currently a student of Science and Health Communication at the University of Manchester in UK, Sanskruti wants to work full-time as a science communicator in future. With a keen interest in neuroscience, behaviour and ecology, she now wishes to combine her scientific training with her love for writing and talking about science, working in the field of science communication. She loves to dabble in anything sci-comm – talking about the field in Youtube videos, working as an science explainer in events, creating and editing written content for Cogito among other things. Indoors drives her crazy, and if not seen mindlessly scrolling through her phone, she can be found dancing, cooking, playing sports, or on walks.
Chief Executive
Shreyash Pramod Borkar (he/him)
Shreyash is a fourth-year undergraduate student at IISER Kolkata who joined the Cogito family in July 2020 as a highly silent and naive designer who has become the definition of multitasking with his involvement in design, publicity and management. He quickly transitioned from creating magazines in MS word to Adobe Indesign as a quick learner. He designed 05 issues and over 60 posters while heading the design team for a year before being promoted to be our first Chief Executive in July 2021. Simultaneously he has been managing our LinkedIn handle since Sep 2020 and has recently taken responsibility as the social media manager. Outside Cogito137, Shreyash finds peace in playing kho-kho, watching comedy series, sketching and has recently started creating animated videos as well. He is interested in synthetic biology and was part of Gold winning iGEM 2021 team of IISER Kolkata.
Editors
Debanuj Chatterjee (he/him)
A science enthusiast, Debanuj finds himself studying optics and quantum mechanics after many rolls and knocks over the billiard board of life. He obtained a BS-MS degree in Physics from IISER Kolkata in 2017 and a PhD from the Paris-Saclay University in 2021. He recently joined our editorial team to cultivate his passion for science communication.
He also takes fancy in playing the Indian bamboo flute (bansuri), writing short stories, creating mathematical art (visual and auditory), and playing football. As a physicist, he believes in conservation.
Alekhya (she/her/they/them)
Alekhya is currently an editor in Cogito. She joined the team in the November of 2020 and dabbled her hands into various departments, including outreach, social media, etc. She tortures fishes for a living (not literally). She is a student of the 20IP batch.
Hrishika Dekate (she/her)
A second-year undergraduate at IISER kolkata, Hrishika is an ambivert who loves exploring new things, her most favourite leisure activity includes surfing the internet and binge watching series/anime. Besides being interested in biology she loves to travel, read and play sports.
Tanishqa Ajay Chaubal (she/her)
Tanishqa is a second year student who loves to write. Her other hobbies include drawing, painting and singing. Ever since she decided to start living a healthier lifestyle, she has become a total fitness freak. She loves working out at the gym and loves playing sports with her friends as well. She is also the one of the current office bearers of the Literary Club. In her free time, she loves to research unusual psychological diseases which is why her favourite movie genre is psychological thriller.
Monish Majumdar
Monish is a first-year BS-MS student at IISER Kolkata. He is passionate about biology and quizzing.
Guest Editors
Saptarshi Maji (he/him, they/them)
Saptarshi is currently a PhD student in the Department of Biological Sciences at IISER Kolkata. He was previously a BS-MS student at the institute.
He works as our guest editor, editing Bengali articles. Apart from science, he has an interest in literature and art.
Manish Pathak
Manish Pathak is a senior PhD student in the Ant Lab, IISER Kolkata, where he studies collective behaviour of these insect societies. His varied interests include science communication, especially in vernacular languages and thus he has agreed to be our guest editor for Hindi content. Manish comes up with the most brilliant ideas, passes them on to the team and then refuses to take credit for them. (Too much modesty) Manish hasn't begun work yet, because we have received no Hindi submissions yet, but we are soon about to undertake a huge project targeted towards school children, and it's his brainchild!
Video Editor
Abhishek Jangid
Abhishek is Cogito137's video editor, who is also an 18MS student at the institute. He joined our team in November 2020.
Apart from editing interviews, talks, and seminars by scientists, he sometimes creates videos, teasers, and promos from scratch. Mostly working under extremely short deadlines, he feels that it has a different thrill. He usually leaves informal comic content in videos because he believes that something too formal fails to appeal to today's generation. He wishes that our editors come to terms with this point soon and stop calling his videos "too flashy sometimes".
Design Head
Arunima Vadlamannati (she/her)
Arunima is a final year BS-MS student at IISER Kolkata, who has a passion for both science and art. To get the best of both worlds she decided to join the two and that ended up with her landing in our design team.
She's smart and funny (something only she agrees upon, :P), and not normal (this everyone agrees with). In her free time, you would find her painting, playing sports, reading books, or drinking an extensive amount of tea.
Designers
Aishwarya
Aiswarya is a 4th year BS-MS student at IISER kolkata. This is 24/7 entertainment we are talking about. Although her interests are in genetics and painting, her non-stop talks know no boundaries as such. She joined our design team in April 2021. She's a perfectionist and never attains it according to her. So, if you need some work done, give a deadline!! Tea and audiobooks calms her, so that's when you'll get a chance to talk XD.
Achal Rajratna
Achal is a second year BS-MS student at IISER Kolkata. This is her interest in editing which leads her to this club. she is also interest in genetics as well as in sketching. she loves to try some new experiments in editing a poster. she also love reading book and writing some poetries for her own interest. she loves to see the world in different perspectives and analyzing conditons, like how everything can be right and wrong at the same time.
Prithiv Raj
Prithiv Raj is a PhD student at IISER Kolkata. He has joined cogito 137 team in Jan 2022. He is involved in designing.
Website Head
Rahul Bordoloi (he/him)
Rahul is a socially awkward third-year Mathematics student at IISER Kolkata who joined the Cogito team in July 2020. He is our website manager and likes to mess around with computers and technology, though he claims that he is not good with them.
He loves sharing his web-development experience with other people, and he believes that everyone in the world should know how to code. He runs a coding and designing club in the institute called Slashdot. It has collaborated with Cogito and plans to transform our website soon (keep an eye).
Website Managers
Sai Kishore N (he/him)
Sai Kishore is currently a student pursuing a BS-MS degree (2020 batch) at IISER Kolkata. He joined the website managing team in April 2020.
Rohit Verma (he/him)
Rohit Verma is a BS-MS Student at IISER Kolkata (2020 batch). He joined Cogito137 during his first year of under-graduation and works here as a website manager. He has keen interest in physics, applied mathematics, and environmental and evolutionary science. He loves reading books, and playing classical guitar. Science, according to him, is among the most basic things necessary for human survival, and he wants everyone to have a glimpse of its beauty.
PR Manager
Isha Paresh Bhagwat (she/her)
Isha is a second-year undergraduate student at IISER Kolkata. Apart from her academic interests in Physics and Chemistry, she is fond of expressing herself through sketching, writing, and dance. She is the current PR Manager of Cogito137.
She works very efficiently and is sometimes a life-saver, with her confidence levels always peaking. Recently, we collaborated with the Science Club of the Institute for a series of talks called Nobel in Focus, which she managed wonderfully. With her witty sense of humor, she also keeps amusing us with her creative posts on the Instagram handle.
YouTube Manager/Publiciser
Aniket Sabar
Aniket Sabar is a BS-MS Student at IISER Kolkata 20MS batch. He joined Cogito in his First year as the YouTube Manager. He is interested in learning more about the world of biological Sciences. He loves listening music, watching movies, playing keyboard and is always ready for some table tennis sessions. He is interested in travelling and visiting different places and is always willing to try out different activities. He edits videos and music for fun and wishes to learn more about them.
Publicisers
Shireen Sultana (she/her)
Shireen is an 18MS student at IISER Kolkata who manages our Twitter handle since September 2020. She loves everything in biology, especially topics like developmental disorders and organ regeneration, and has been passionate about including people with disabilities in STEM. She believes that science communication engages a diverse population towards understanding the world and solving its problems. She also believes that for science to escape research labs and jargon-filled papers, we should make it more fun and accessible. She is a really kind person, and you should check her Twitter @LifeisinDNA :)
Abhisek Sarkar
Abhisek Sarkar is currently pursuing BS-MS from IISER Kolkata (20MS Batch). He is in the cogito team since August 2021. He is in the Publicity team, and he manages Instagram. He is highly enthusiastic about Astronomy and Cosmology. Apart from studies, he is very interested in football, reading comics, manga and musical performance.
Active Advisory/Alumni
Prajwal Padmanabha (he/him)
Prajwal is an MS-graduate of IISER Kolkata and a former member of Cogito137. He co-founded Cogito and joined the team for a few months as a designer and web manager. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD in Physics, studying statistical mechanics and theoretical ecology. Prajwal has been very persistent about wanting to "retire" from the team, since july 2020 but has been denied the luxury till date.
Alumni
Rituparno Chowdhury (he/him)
Rituparno is a final-year student at IISER Kolkata who joined our publicity team in September 2020. He, too, helps manage our Twitter handle. He believes that the public can become scientifically aware without misinterpreting anything only when science students communicate their science. He says this while looking at the mainstream media houses!
While he works on the physics and chemistry of complicated organic crystals, he also loves swimming and badminton. He recommends that you follow our Twitter handle to keep yourself up-to-date on all things Cogito! Recently Rituparno has managed to amaze us all by landing PhD positions in Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford among others. We wish him a happy and successful PhD life at Cavendish, Cambridge University.
Samarpita Sen (she/her)
Samarpita has been a part of IISER Kolkata since 2015 and a part of our publicity team since late 2020. She manages our Facebook handle and keeps it up-to-date and polished! She believes that if students communicated science, they would change how the general audience perceives it - with Cogito acting as a milestone on that path for India. Outside Cogito, she works on copper trafficking in cells and loves reading fiction, especially science fiction novels.
Abhigyan Saha
Abhigyan Saha is a final year student at the Department of Mathematics and has been an editor of Cogito137 since its inception. He used to be decent at stuff; national debate champion, international Model UN champion/Judge, national gold medallist in Karate, etc. These days he's gone full nerd, hoping to pursue a PhD in Quantum Gravity ('hoping' being the operative word). A known THC activist and psychonaut.
Nandana Goswami (she/her)
An alumnus of IISER Kolkata, Nandana currently pursues her PhD at the University of South Carolina. While auditing a science communication course, she ideated about an IISERK-based science communication magazine and had co-founded Cogito137. Currently part of our editorial team, she believes that scientists should better their science communication so that people know how their funds get spent.
Outside Cogito, she works on the Petrology and Geochronology of rocks that have formed at high temperatures. She finds out about their birth and 'dates' them using isotopes. So much better at dating rocks than people! At other times, she travels (when not broke), snaps photographs, writes, sings, and paints. Mostly, she sits down with a fat tub of snacks and surfs Netflix. Ahem...ahem... Nandana rocks \m/
Subhayu Bagchi (he/him)
Subhayu is an alumnus of IISER Kolkata who initially used to be a writer for Cogito137 and joined our editorial team in June 2020. It has been a fun, learning, and adventurous journey for him, he says. He describes it as his first steps towards achieving widespread scientific literacy.
His research interests focus on performing simulations of strong-field interactions in Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Other than that, he likes strategy games (most of the board games), puzzles, and brain-teasers. He also has a penchant for languages and coding projects.
Shrestha Chowdhury
Shrestha joined IISER Kolkata in 2016 as an Integrated-PhD student in the Department of Chemical Sciences. She was a part of our editorial team since June 2020 to early Feb 2021.
She believes that effective communication can clear many misconceptions. Being introverted, she enjoys solitude and thrives upon reading books. She enjoys being with clever minds and desires that good work happens.
Dakshesh Vasan (he/him)
After tinkering with Inquivesta and being a part of the Ek Pehal initiative, Dakshesh felt the massive need to propagate and publicize science. He identified potential talents around him, collected them, and led the Cogito137 Publicity Team towards a remarkable reach, as the first PR Manager. Looking at the team's self-sufficiency, he had joined Ronak in Outreach. His ability to multitask by taking on multiple responsibilities as a Cultural Secretary of the Student Affairs Council, a Fest Coordinator for Revival, and whatnot while pursuing a Mathematics major scares us. He believes that scientific development will start only when the whole of society is into it.
Naman Agrawal (he/him, they/them)
Naman graduated from IISER Kolkata in 2020 and has planned to do his PhD in neuroscience at Cornell University. But the coronavirus pandemic postponed his plans by almost a year and with too much time on his hands, he joined our design team in August 2020 and has contributed a lot since. As a neuroscientist, he studies tiny fruit flies and how their brain works. Apart from that, he finds purpose on the stage as an actor, on Photoshop as a creator, and on the couch as a procrastinator.
Nirmitee Nitin Mulay (she/her)
Nirmitee is an illustrator/designer for the team and a part-time undergraduate at IISER Kolkata, majoring in biology. On rediscovering her passion for art during the pandemic, she decided to grace our design team in November 2020 and we feel honoured!
'Nirmitee' in Hindi means 'a beautiful creation' - it is truly the only word that comes to mind when we see her art, or what she calls 'dabbling with paints'. Enquire about her hobbies, and she'll say, "I usually just paint/sketch xD."
It might be hard to grapple with her artistic strokes, but when it comes to science, she also has an interest in behavioral neuroscience and is always on the lookout for new projects and interesting stuff to lay her hands on.
Aditya Dwarkesh (he/him)
Aditya is currently a second-year undergraduate student pursuing a BS-MS degree at IISER Kolkata. He is a 'gem of a kid and a child prodigy' (Arunita's words, not his) who joined our editorial team in June 2020 - yes, in his first year itself.
He has a long-standing interest in literature, philosophy, physics, and mathematics. He likes to write stories.
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