Kripa Gowrishankar

Areas of Interest & Expertise

  • Physics of Biological Systems
  • Statistical Mechanics and Phase Transitions

Biography

Kripa has a Bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Madras and a Master’s degree from IIT, Madras. She did her PhD at Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, broadly in the growing interdisciplinary area of physics in biology, and specifically on mathematical modelling of physical forces on the eukaryotic cell surface. She particularly enjoys the collaborative nature of work in this area and learned a lot about biology and experimentation from her peers. During her post doctoral work at University of California in Davis, she worked on self organization of spindles during cell division. She is interested in undergraduate teaching and research, because she believes that students of that age are highly enthusiastic, sharp and observant, but are not given enough opportunities in the prevailing education system. She would like to develop classroom demonstrations and involve students in simple research projects that are both highly educational and that could contribute to scientific research. Her research interests are broadly in the area of Physics in Biology, Statistical Mechanics and Physics Education.

Courses