Welcome to my (Sharbat’s i.e. Sharbatanu Chatterjee’s) homepage! I am about to start as a postdoctoral researcher in Paris. I got my PhD (Docteur de Sorbonne Université) from the Laboratoire Jean Perrin of Sorbonne Université, Paris - a laboratory that puts me at the interface of biology and physics, under the supervision of Dr. Volker Bormuth. I was 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. For my PhD, I studied the control of posture or balance, with the help of the model animal - zebrafish. I recorded the behaviour and brain-wide activity of zebrafish while moving them around on a roller coaster rotating light-sheet microscope. My PhD thesis and publications will soon be available online!

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 got married in the ‘city’ of Groningen, the Netherlands. I don’t know where I exactly come from anymore. Je me sens chez moi nulle part (thanks, Saint Levant).