Monalisa

Always an ardent lover of logic and promoter of analytical reasoning, Monalisa likes to challenge her own thinking in a constant pursuit to question commonplace human behavior, relationships, and social practices in an effort to simplify human life. With an academic background in Sciences (Physics and Computer Science) followed by a rewarding professional experience with IBM Corporation in Poughkeepsie, New York, provided her an opportunity to develop and demonstrate her technical and leadership skills during the early phase of her life’s journey. While career prospects at IBM seemed enticing, her personal priorities inspired her to move to India with her husband to explore other passions.

During these years, she pursued several of her interests like travelling, reading, writing, and other artistic and philosophical inquisitions. The most important and constant activity throughout this period was 'thinking' which she believes is the premise of the human brain and existence in this world. She always nurtured her interest in conducting cross disciplinary research so that she could use her background in Computer Science to ignite her personal affinity for topics like Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, and specifically Cognitive Sciences that she believes play pivotal roles in understanding human behavior. For the last few years, she had had an opportunity to research numerous articles and books on brain, human cognition, and neuroethics and have developed immense interest in the workings of the 'beautiful mind'.

Her interactions with people from all over the world in various spheres has made her wonder how human beings from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds demonstrate similar behavior concerning major decisions governing their lives. This has further motivated her to try and understand the factors influencing the human decision-making process and to explore ways that can work towards building simpler and more ethical societies.

It’s her personal commitment to ethics, integrity, and a constant desire to promote ethical decision making that has been the strongest motivator behind her deep interest in analyzing human behavior as an optimized outcome of their individual motivations (including rewards and penalties), knowledge bases (including personal belief structures) and cognitive architectures

Her constant thinking and the inner desire to bring about a positive change in the society, as well as her quest to explore the human mind, continuously urges her to share her thoughts and realizations through writings and other creative means.

Books

We Are, Therefore We Need To Think, iUniverse Inc, ISBN: 978-0-595-44992-7 (2008).
Smile with Knowledge, iUniverse Inc, ISBN: 978-1475989366 (2013).

Academic and Professional Journey

1990:B.S., Physics, Utkal University, India.
1993:B.S., Computer Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.

1996:M.S., Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA.
1998:Masters Certificate, Project Management, The George Washington University, USA.
1996-2002:IBM Corporation, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA.

Patents

1. "Method and structure for providing optimal design of toleranced parts in manufacturing" (with M. Levanoni and G.R. Parija) – Patent No. 7,979,242 (Granted by USPTO on July 12, 2011).

2. "Accepting bids under uncertain future demands" (with Jayant R. Kalagnanam and G.R. Parija) – Patent No. 7,774,226 (Granted by USPTO on August 10, 2010).