I am an Assistant Professor at the Dept of Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering at IIT Madras. I work in the area of complex systems engineering where I study systems made up of many interacting entities or agents that exhibit collective phenomena.  During my PhD at IITM, I studied how droplets behave in 2D microchannels — from forming complex shaped arrangements to exhibiting avalanches of coalescence events that destabilised the system. And during my INSPIRE tenure at IISc, I diversified from looking at purely material systems and started exploring a range of different biological collectives. I have worked with cells, where the movement depends on both activity and hydrodynamics, social-animals, where motion is primarily behavioural, and humans, where the agents are capable of high levels of cognition. I collaborate with a wide variety of researchers from Biological sciences to Civil engineering. I also collaborate with industry — some of the work I do find applications in healthcare and diagnostics research. In general, I love studying collectives and group phenomena. Whenever I see an army of ants I like to perturb them to see how they respond or sometimes I just like to stare at the flow of vehicular traffic and observe the peculiarities of Indian traffic. I am also very much interested in music. I am a pianist by training, and have completed my grade 8 in Piano from ABRSM (Royal school of music) and some music-theory. Also, I have been a choir conductor in my church for more than a decade. As a complex systems guy, conducting a choir is a fascinating thing to do — since a choir is a collective. There are lot of interesting phenomena that happen as the choristers sing in a choir (check out my blog article "collective nature of choral singing"). Finally, I am someone who enjoyed my time during my PhD. God gave me a good set of friends with whom I could have meaningful and honest conversations on both research and about life and reality in general. I have often had my principles and world-views challenged which helped me become a better version of myself. Hence, I truly wish that every student who enters the IIT system gets a fulfilling experience (through the ups and downs) that shapes them into a fine individual, who is full of life, always aiming high, both in work and in behaviour.