About the EMU team
These are the people who brought you this amazing quiz while they carry out their work from around the world.
Paul Pop
He will be your main quizsetter and chief-of-trivia. He is a wildlife biologist, specializing in the field of studying extant winged dinosaurs (a.k.a. birds) with an affinity for avian populations in biodiverse mountainous habitats of Western Ghats and Western Himalayas. His primary interests are birding, lepping (a cool term he uses for watching butterflies and moths; do NOT look up Urban Dictionary), quizzing, running, and arguing with strangers in the internet about science and animal rights.
Rakesh Kumar G
He will be the chief-of-tech, handling the technical aspects of the quiz, behind the scenes. He is a generalist who has graduated in Computer Science and Engineering, is an ex-DevOps engineer, and has co-founded a vegan ice-cream startup. His interests and work are highly heterogenous - stock trading, calisthenics, parkour, skateboarding, off-road biking, blogging, content creation in YouTube, singing, playing guitar, screenwriting and DIY projects.
Anupriya Dalmia
She is a human geneticist (a geneticist who studies human genetics; not implying that there are alien geneticists) at University College London (UK), specifically studying next generation sequencing data to understand the genetics of neurodegenerative diseases. One of our question-setters, she runs two animal rescues in Delhi, India - one focuses on adoptions while the other focuses on running large scale immunization and sterilisation drives for community animals (to which we are making the donation). She is very enthusiastic about dismantling anthropocentric ideas.
Ishan Rathore
Another question-setter, he is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the NIH in the USA, trained as a structural biologist specializing in X-ray crystallography and Cryo-Electron Microscopy. His work involves solving the atomic structure of proteins and other biological molecules to better comprehend their functions and structures. He has a penchant for outdoor activities such as hiking, biking, and swimming. Additionally, he maintains a keen interest in emerging technologies and a wide array of automobiles.
Manick V
A hardcore computer nerd, he is currently pursuing dual Master's Degrees (in Computer Science and Internet of Things (IoT) at the University of Southampton (UK) and (remotely) at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA), and will be a question-setter for the league. He has experience working as a Software Developer and a Machine Learning Engineer. He likes to spend his free time on his personal fitness, making or mixing music as a DJ, and playing video games.
Shankha Banerjee
He is yet another one of our overly-qualified question-setters. He is a theoretical physicist by training and profession, and presently a fellow at the CERN research facility in Geneva, Switzerland. His primary work has been on deciphering the properties of the Higgs boson, which was discovered in 2012, and in understanding various aspects of physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, like understanding the nature of dark matter, and more. He is an animal rights and environmental activist who is trying to make institutions and organisations aware of their negative contributions towards the climate crisis. His hobbies include music, hiking, photography, and reading up on environmental studies.
Siddharth Sabharwal
A brilliant mathematician in our question-setting squad, he is currently doing a PhD in… (you guessed it) Mathematics, at the Texas A&M University, USA. His area of research is Partial Differential Equations. His hobbies include photography and ballroom dancing.