KVPY Summer Science Camp

A national level summer science camp for KVPY scholars was organized at IISER Mohali during May 31, 2010 to June 05, 2010. About 150 young scholars from around the country participated in the camp. The camp comprised of talks (using a novel lecture/demo format) by eminent scientists from other institutions as well as by faculty from IISER Mohali. The list of speakers included: Prof. N. Sathyamurthy (Director,IISER Mohali), Prof. Ashok Sahni (PU Chandigarh), Prof. R. Shankar (IMSc Chennai), Dr. Sanjay Wategaonkar (TIFR), Dr. Lalit Bhardwaj (CSIO Chandigarh), Dr. R.K. Kohli (PU Chandigarh), Dr. S. Sahajpal (PU Chandigarh), Prof. Kapil Paranjape (IISER Mohali), Dr. R. Mehrotra (NPL New Delhi), Dr. S. Mukhopadhyay (IISER Mohali), Prof. I. B. S. Passi (IISER Mohali), Dr. A. Ramakrishna (IITK), Dr. K. S. Vishwanathan (IGCAR), Dr. N. G. Prasad (IISER Mohali) and Dr. Kavita Dorai (IISER Mohali). The camp was co-ordinated by Prof. Arvind with logistics help by IISER Mohali faculty: Prof. C. G. Mahajan, Dr. Jagdeep Singh, Dr. Sudip Mandal, Dr. Arunika Mukhopadhyay and Dr. Kaushik Chattopadhyay. A novel part of the camp was the setting up of laboratory experiments in chemistry, biology, physics and mathematics. The biology experiments were co-ordinated by Dr. Prasad and Dr. Lolitika Mandal, the chemistry experiments were co-ordinated by Dr. Vijay Anand and Dr. S. A. Babu, the physics experiments were co-ordinated by Dr. K. P. Singh, Dr. Rajeev Kapri and Dr. R. S. Johal, and the math demos were organized by Prof. Kapil Paranjape and Dr. Chanchal Kumar. A few PhD and undergraduate students from IISER Mohali also participated in this exercise. According to the feedback received, these experimental demonstrations seem to have fired the imagination of many participants. The national co-ordinator of KVPY camps, Prof Dipankar Bhattacharya from IISc Bangalore, also attended the camp at IISER Mohali and delivered a talk to the students. An evening interaction session on “Identity” was co-ordinated by Dr. Anu Sabhlok (IISER Mohali). On the last day of the camp, Dr. R. A. Mashelkar (Chairman Board of Governors IISER Mohali) gave an inspiring talk on the notion of creativity in science, which was appreciated by the students. Apart from talks and laboratory activities, KVPY scholars were given tours of the Central Analytical Facility at IISER Mohali (housing the NMR Research Facility, X-Ray lab and AFM/Laser Raman lab) in the new campus in Sector 81 facilitated by Dr. Sanjay Mandal, Dr. Kavita Dorai and Dr. Samrat Mukhopadhyay. Tours to nearby scientific institutions in Chandigarh such as Institute of Microbial Technology , Punjab University, Central Scientific Instruments Organization and National Institute of Pharmaceutics Education and Research were also organized.