Biology | Our Past Through Biomolecules

Kalyan Sekhar Chakraborty specializes in Biomolecular Archaeology and Archaeological Geochemistry. His research interest is in reconstructing ancient animal herding practices. His research explores the role of domesticated animals and the inter-relationship between humans-animals-environment in the development and dispersal of complex societies in South Asia, especially in India. His current research interest is in reconstruction of traditional indigenous diets and the effects of European Expansion on traditional food practices in Southern Ontario, Canada. Kalyan completed his PhD in Anthropological Archaeology from the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Canada, in 2019. He has held postdoctoral and research positions at the University of Toronto and McMaster University. He has excavated and supervised excavations at many archaeological sites in India, Canada, and Hungary. Apart from teaching at Ashoka University, he is pursuing Postdoctoral research at the Max-Planck Institute for the Science of Human History as an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow. In addition, he is collaborating on a Social Science and Humanities Research Council Canada (SSHRC)-funded project that aims to reconstruct the traditional indigenous diet of the Six Nation population of Southern Ontario using ceramic residues.

Alok Bhattacharya is Professor of Biology. He is the recipient of Robert McNamara Fellowship (World Bank), Rockefeller Biotechnology Career Development Award, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize and JC Bose Fellowship, and is a fellow of Indian National Science Academy and Indian Academy of Sciences. He also served as one of the Vice Presidents of INSA. Following his Ph.D. at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, he trained at the National Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, USA. He spent a large part of his independent career at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where his scientific interests were in the area of infectious diseases, biology of parasitic pathogens and genomics. He is credited with helping to set up one of the first teaching and research programs on Bioinformatics and Computation Biology in India. His current research interests are rare diseases, computational genomics and biology of pathogenic parasites.