Don't let PhD interfere with your research

A famous quotation of Mark Twain is "Don't let school interfere with your
education". The message is that formalities and visible ceremonies of
research should not interfere with your innate curiosity which is the true
driving force of research.

Using some examples from the history of radioactivity and subatomic
particles I look forward to generating a discussion on issues such as the
connection between deductive and empirical research, relevance,
collaboration, funding, and intellectual property; last but not the least,
the need to continuously retrain and reinvent yourself if you want to make
research a lifelong activity.

About the Speaker:
Prof. U.A. Yajnik is currently professor in the department of Physics and
Dean Student Affairs at IIT Bombay. He occupied various posts at different
levels since he joined IIT Bombay as a faculty in 1989. He was a Dean
Academic Programmes and Dean Student Affairs, IIT Gandhinagar, On
deputation from July 2008 - December 2009.

His research interests are Grand Unification; Supersymmetry Cosmology
applications of Grand Unification - Cosmic strings, Baryogenesis
Quantization of Gravity and Superstring Theory. He has published numerous
papers in reputed journals and presented his work at various national and
international conferences.