Voices from Oxford starts the New Year 2021 with a sparkling interview with a graduate student who works on the brain in a group based in the Pharmacology Department, and has published an article asking whether mathematics could recreate humans.
Atreyi Chakrabarty is from Calcutta, India, and studied Natural Sciences with a mix of physical and biological sciences at Cambridge University before becoming a research student at Oxford. She shares her positive view of the student experience in Oxford and how she has valued the friendships she has formed. She also values the interdisciplinary culture of the University.
Her interest in the brain was sparked by discoveries made many years ago of the plasticity of the brain which forms the basis of the way in which we learn new things. She discusses how, over a dinner with a friend, she discovered scientists in the university working on the mathematical modelling of the human body.
This led to her publishing an article in TechTribe called “In Pursuit of our Virtual Twin: Can Maths recreate Humans?”
Atreyi Chakrabarty gives a fascinating insight into student experience at Oxford University and shows the excitement of doing research in the University. Students from around the world considering applying to Oxford will find her experience a valuable guide to what to expect at Oxford.
Click on this link to Atreyi’s article: https://oxford.techtribe.co/in-pursuit-of-our-virtual-twin-can-maths-recreate-humans/
The interview was conducted by Denis Noble, FRS, who was one of the founders of The Physiome Project, which constructs models of the human body.
