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Nikhil Mande

    • About Me:

      Most of my schooling was done in India, where I also did my undergrad, master’s and PhD degrees. After this I spent 2 years doing postdoctoral research in Washington DC, 2 more years doing postdoctoral research in Amsterdam (in the same place where the famous programming language Python was developed)

      I’ve been in Liverpool since early 2023. I’m a computer scientist by day. In my spare time I love speedsolving the Rubik’s cube and related puzzles (see my speedcubing profile)

      I also love playing PC games and making memes when I can. Here’s a favourite meme that I made when a colleague told me he hated my monitors being apart at my workplace.

      Monitors apart vs. together

    • Read more

      I have been associated with the World Cube Association as a member of the WCA Regulations Committee, and earlier as the senior delegate for South East Asia and India. An achievement I’m particularly proud of is being the first Indian to officially solve a Rubik’s cube blindfolded in under a minute (including memorization time). I’ve held several national records in the past in the events of solving 3×3 blindfolded, 4×4 blindfolded, 5×5 blindfolded, multiple 3×3’s blindfolded, and fewest moves challenge.

      See my personal website if you want to learn about me!

      P.S. Check out the background colour on my website’s page. Can you figure out why I chose it?

    • My pronouns are:

      My pronouns are he/him. You can also call me by my first name, Nikhil.

    • My Work:

      My main research focus is driven by the following question: iven a limited amount of resources, what tasks can a computer solve? I also study this question for *quantum* computers.

    • Read more

      Say a computer is given some data and its goal is to figure out some property of it (e.g., given data about names of people, it may want to check if there is someone called “Alex” in the database) by accessing the data as little as possible. I study what properties can be figured out with these constraints.

    • My Typical Day:

      I wake up at around 730, get ready, eat a quick breakfast (usually bread and peanut butter) and head to work around 9am. I spend most of my time at my desk pondering about my research problems (my research is completely theoretical, so its all doable using a pen and paper!). I occasionally teach courses on algorithms, for which I have no control over the schedule. I eat lunch with my colleagues, get back to my desk to ponder more all the way until 5pm, after which I head home (unless its a Friday, in which case I go to the pub with my colleagues :))

    • What I'd do with the prize money:

      I’d buy robots to use as demonstrations in our outreach events. Our current robots are old and clunky. The candidate robots I have in mind are here, and I already own one of these.

    CV

    • Education:

      During middle school I went to a school in India (Chandigarh), I then did my secondary schooling+college also in India (Hyderabad).

      For my undergrad, I got a Bachelors in Maths in 2010 from the Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, India.

      For my masters, I got a MSc in Applications of Maths in 2013 from the Chennai Mathematical Institute, Chennai, India.

      I got a PhD in computer science in 2018 from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai India.

      At this point I’d spent lots of time all around India, so I next did 2 years of postdoctoral research in Georgetown University, Washington DC from 2018-2020.

      Two more years of postdoctoral research in CWI Amsterdam from 2020-2022.

      I’ve been a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool since Jan 2023.

    • Qualifications:

      See my education section

    • Work History:

      I had my mind set on education and academia since I was a kid, so I really had no other jobs throughout my career.

      However, I haven’t had to pay any tuition fees at all for my education: all degrees that I studied offered scholarships to all students to all enroled students (clearing the entrance exams and interviews was of course not super easy). So basically I’ve been doing what I love since I was 18, and not having to pay for it (in fact I’ve been paid throughout).

    • Current Job:

      Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool. I do research, teach courses on algorithms and computer science communication, and also organise outreach events where schools visit our department and we showcase our research and convince you that CS is an exciting subject to pursue higher education in.

    • Employer:

      University of Liverpool

    • My Interview

      • What did you want to be after you left school?

        A mathematician

        Were you ever in trouble at school?

        Lots

        If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?

        An esports professional

        Who is your favourite singer or band?

        No particular favourite

        What's your favourite food?

        No favourites, I'm not picky at all

        If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

        1) A healthy life:life beyond 30 years old is painful :(, 2) peace, and 3) not having to deal with any form of bureaucracy

        Tell us a joke.

        Why did the computer catch a cold? Cause it left its Windows open! (I use Linux at home, so my computer's all good)

Questions answered by Nikhil

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