I am an independent Simons-NCBS Career Development Fellow at NCBS hosted by Mukund Thattai. I am interested in theoretical ecology and population dynamics. I am currently working on questions of how organisms and populations can adapt to changing and heterogeneous environments. I am also working with the lab of Deepa Agashe in trying to explain the behavior of Tribolium castaneum, red flour beetles in different, and heterogeneous media.
Previously, I was doing my PhD in physics at the University of Pennsylvania in the group of Randall Kamien. For this, I explored splay-twist, splay-bend and twist-bend phases that some nematic liquid crystals can make. Before that I was a Masters student in physics at the Bonn-Cologne Graduate School, in the group of Johannes Berg. For my Masters thesis, I studied the process of dorsal-ventral patterning in the Oncopeltus fasciatus embryo. I was an undergraduate student in physics at the University of Delhi.
You can reach me at cnandita@ncbs.res.in
Here is some of my work:
Geometry, Anisotropy and Heterogeneity — a Study of Modulated Nematics, Ecology and Evolution, 2020
Gnomonious projections for bend-free textures: thoughts on the splay-twist phase, 2020
Modelling Dorsal-Ventral Patterning in the Oncopeltus fasciatus Embryo, 2015