Welcome to my (Sharbat’s i.e. Sharbatanu Chatterjee’s) homepage! I am a PhD student (doctorant) at the Laboratoire Jean Perrin, a laboratory that puts me at the interface of biology and physics. I’m enrolled at the Sorbonne Université under the doctoral school (école doctorale) in physics, called EDPIF, i.e. l’École doctorale physique en Île-de-France.

What do I do?

I broadly work in the field of neuroscience - to try and figure out how brains lead to behaviour. At the moment, I study the control of posture or balance, with the help of the model animal - zebrafish. I record the behaviour and brain-wide activity of zebrafish while moving them around on a roller coaster rotating light-sheet microscope.

I have previously worked on rodent behaviour (at the SWC, UCL), computational neuroscience (during my master’s at EPFL), computer science, (during my bachelor’s at IIT Kanpur), etc. My current research uses various techniques from my previous work!

What else do I do?

I am interested in languages, travel, history, political theory, science communication, & immigration. I blog on languages & linguistics, travel, & history. I co-organise a reading group on political theory. I regularly participate in communicating science to the wider public, & highlight the role of immigration & immigrants in science.

Where do I come from?

I was born in the banlieues (suburban areas) of the city of Calcutta (West Bengal, India). I spent my first 18 years there, and subsequently moved to Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh, India), Lausanne (Vaud, Switzerland), and London (United Kingdom), before moving to Paris (France) where I currently live. I don’t know where I exactly come from anymore.