Chotalia Aarsh Amitbhai

Webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/aarshchotalia

Email: aarshchotalia@iitb.ac.in (Professional); aarshchotalia@gmail.com (Personal)

Research scholar under Prof. Punit Parmananda,

Dept. of Physics,

IIT Bombay, India

Research Interest

I am interested in exploring the physics of the brain by guided modification of brainwaves. Specifically, I use phenomena of non-linear dynamics such as entrainment, stochastic resonance and synchronization to unravel the inner workings of the brain.

Education

• PhD: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay           [2021-Present] 

CPI: 9.71 (overall) ; 10.00 (four 6-credit courses)

• BS-MS (Research) (Physics Major): Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore   [2016-2021]

CGPA: 8.1 

• Higher Secondary: CVM HSEC, Anand, Gujarat Higher Secondary Education Board             [2016]

Percentage: 92.00% ;            Percentile: 99.92 %

• Secondary: Eklavya Public School, Junagadh, Gujarat Secondary Education Board                 [2014]

Percentage:95.83% ;      Percentile: 99.99 %  

Notable Achievements

• Prime Minister's Research Fellowship (2022-2026) by Ministry of Education, GoI

• GATE 2020: AIR 12

• Recipient of KVPY Fellowship (Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana) (2015)

• JEE Advanced 2016: AIR 845

• JEE Mains 2016: Obtained 225/360 marks

• Selected in INAO (Indian National Astronomy Olympiad – National level) in 2015 & 2016

• Selected in INMO (Indian National Mathematics Olympiad – National level) in 2016 [conducted by HBCSE, GoI]

Projects conducted:

• Master’s (MS) Thesis (2021): Effects of Higher Levels and Frequency Crowding in Tunable iSWAP Gate with Fixed Frequency Superconducting Qubits under Prof. Baladitya Suri, IISc Bangalore.

• Bachelor’s (BS) Thesis (2020): Towards Time Domain Simulations in Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics under Prof. Baladitya Suri, IISc Bangalore.

• Summer Project (2019): Simulation of the Ising Model Using the Wolff Algorithm under Prof. Prasad Hegde, IISc Bangalore.

• Summer Project (2018): Analysis of Wave Propagation in Periodic Transmission Lines Using ABCD Matrices and Mathieu’s Differential Equation under Prof. Atanu Mohanty, IISc Bangalore.

• Summer Project (2017): General relativity and Oppenheimer-Snyder Collapse to a black hole under Prof. Pankaj Joshi, TIFR Mumbai.

• Notable Term papers: 

  • Stochastic and Coherence Resonance in Climate Change under Prof. Amitabha Nandi, IIT Bombay

  • Brainwave Entrainment and Echo in a Network of Kuramoto Oscillators under Prof. Punit Parmananda, IIT Bombay

  • Wrote a review on Brainwave Entrainment under Prof. Mithun Mitra, IIT Bombay

  • Learning To Learn by Gradient Descent By Gradient Descent under Prof. Ambedkar Dukkipati, IISc Bangalore

• Several Gujarati articles such as Artificial Neural Networks: Akkal ni Nakal in the magazine “Pragaami tarang” (Vol IX 2019), published by Indian Association of Physics Teachers, IAPT [ISSN 2347 2782]

Conferences/Schools Attended:

• Conference on Nonlinear Systems and Dynamics (CNSD) 2023 held at IISER Pune [15 to 18 December 2022]

...Won 3rd best poster award sponsored by EPL.

• Spring college on Physics of Complex Systems held at ICTP (International Center Theoretical Physics), Trieste, Italy  [20 February to 18 March 2023] 

• Completed an online course “Fundamentals of Neuroscience I” on EdX organized by Harvard University 

Teaching 

• TAship: PH 567 Nonlinear Dynamics by Prof. Punit Parmananda, Dept. of Physics, IIT Bombay           [Autumn 2022]

• NPTEL course tutorials on Classical Mechanics [Autum 2023]

• NPTEL course tutorials on Scientific Computing Using Python  [Autum 2024]

• Taught Quantum and Statistical Physics Lab at Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management and Engineering, Mumbai [Spring 2023]

• TAship: PH 441 General Physics Lab, IIT Bombay [Spring 2023]

• TAship: PH 567 Nonlinear Dynamics by Prof. Amitabha Nandi, Dept. of Physics, IIT Bombay           [Autumn 2022]

PUBLICATIONS

📜 Blink it to sync it: Experimental evidence of synchronization of human brainwaves subjected to common photic forcing." Aarsh Chotalia, Sapna Yadav, Richa Phogat,  P Parmananda, Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science 35.6 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0276609

📜 Brainwaves and their entrainment influence the processing speeds of in-congruent stimuli Richa Phogat, Sandhya Basu, Aarsh Chotalia, Bidisha Banerjee, P Parmananda, Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 196 (2025) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chaos.2025.116410

📜 Run-and-tumble like motion of a camphor-infused Marangoni swimmer Pampa Dey, Abhishek Thakur, Aarsh Chotalia, Amitabha Nandi, P Parmananda, Soft Matter 21.12 (2025): 2291-2299. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SM01363H

📜 Pathway Selection by Active Droplets,  Shiva Dixit, Aarsh Chotalia, Shantanu Shukla, Tanushree Roy and Punit Parmananda,  Soft Matter 19.35 (2023): 6844-6850. https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SM00610G

📜 A memory-based approach to Model Glorious Uncertainties of Love,  Aarsh Chotalia*, Shiva Dixit* and Punit Parmananda,  Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science 33.11 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0179140

📜 Surface tension gradient invoked path selection,  Anjuman Ara Khatun*, Aarsh Chotalia*, Kalpita Das, Shiva Dixit and P. Parmananda,  Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (2024) https://doi.org/10.1039/D4CP01832J