Ep. 40 : Conversation with Suresh Govindarajan - The IIT Physics Professor who runs Marathons

Suresh joins me from the Zanzibar (Africa) campus of IIT Madras ! Suresh Govindarajan is a theoretical physicist and a professor in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. https://physics.iitm.ac.in/~suresh/index.html He specializes in String Theory, and his research interests include conformal field theory, black holes, statistical physics, combinatorics, and mathematical physics. Suresh is also an avid long-distance runner who runs marathons and other long-distance events. In this 'free-running' conversation, we discuss his biographical journey. His trials and tribulations in constructing a career as an academic, his wonderful story of how he overcame barriers during his PhD and postdoc, and how and why he took up a new challenge when he was around 40: marathon running. Listen, as we humanize science. References : “Suresh Govindarajan DLM (@modularform) / X.” 2024. X (Formerly Twitter). February 4, 2024. https://twitter.com/modularform. “Personal - Suresh Govindarajan.” n.d. Accessed January 31, 2024. http://sgovindarajan.wikidot.com/personal. “IIT Madras Zanzibar Campus | Empower Your Future with IIT.” n.d. Accessed January 31, 2024. https://zanzibar.iitm.ac.in/. “Prof. Suresh Govindarajan | Faculty | IIT Madras Zanzibar.” n.d. Accessed January 31, 2024. https://zanzibar.iitm.ac.in/schools/engineering-and-science/faculty/prof-suresh-govindarajan. “Refined Counting of Higher-Dimensional Partitions - Boltzmann.” n.d. Accessed January 31, 2024. http://boltzmann.wikidot.com/refined-counting. “Suresh Govindarajan.” n.d. Accessed December 28, 2023. https://physics.iitm.ac.in/~suresh/. “‪Suresh Govindarajan‬ - ‪Google Scholar‬.” n.d. Accessed December 28, 2023. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=s6In0_oAAAAJ&hl=en. “Suresh Govindarajan’s Other Home Page - Suresh Govindarajan.” n.d. Accessed December 28, 2023. http://sgovindarajan.wikidot.com/. “The Partitions Project - Boltzmann.” n.d. Accessed January 31, 2024. http://boltzmann.wikidot.com/the-partitions-project. “Zanzibar.” 2024. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zanzibar&oldid=1199920039.