Chaitanya Gokhale

Hi Everyone!

I am quite excited to be a part of the CSSS 2010.

See you all in June!!

Regards, Chaitanya

(by the way anyone flying from Germany ?)

About Me

I am a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany. I am in the Evolutionary Dynamics group headed by Dr Arne Traulsen. Having my preliminary education in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology I moved on to Zoology/Biotechnology for my Bachelors and Bioinformatics for my Masters. Currently I am pursuing my PhD which requires me to draw on the knowledge which I might have retained of all the mentioned fields.

Apart from this I am more so of an outdoorsy person. Hiking is my passion and I hate it when the paths are marked. I have tried my hand at different adventure sports. I have some musical inclination and like classical music. I try to play the violin on and off.

You can drop me a line at gokhale@evolbio.mpg.de or visit my Homepage for more details.

Research

Interests

I am interested in and currently working on evolutionary game theory. Application of evolutionary game theory in analyzing behavioral traits (wildly famous problem of the evolution of cooperation) and developing the theory itself is quite exciting. The use of evolutionary dynamics theory and population genetics theory, together, for studying population dynamics is another field of application which I believe has a short history but tremendous potential. Interesting question about experimental evolution can be asked and hopefully answered by this. I have dabbled in this initially by constructing an abstract model motivated by retinoblastoma. I think cancer is a great candidate for the application of Evolutionary Dynamics as it can be modeled as an evolutionary process. Working closely with the Department of Evolutionary Ecology, I am also interested in Host-Pathogen interactions, the development of the Immune system and mate-choice and evolution of sex.

Expertise

I am comfortable with the basic math practices required for the study of dynamical systems. Hence usually I am happy using a sheet of paper and a pencil. I write quick and dirty simulations in C, C++ and sometimes Perl as and when the situation demands. I hope I can extend this. Somehow I have started using Mathematica a lot recently clearly explaining either I have become lazy or doing difficult calculation (I think the former suits better).

SFI Complex Systems Summer School

What I Hope to Gain from CSSS

The greatest thing about CSSS is the diversity it brings together. I hope to get some great new ideas and kick start some potentially interesting collaborations. It will be a great place to bounce off ideas to see which are the ones worth retaining and which ones need a thoughtover.

Project Ideas

I have some but they are still in the germ of an idea stage. Lets see how far they develop in the coming weeks and I will let you know!