I am a PhD Research Fellow at the Department of Mathematics, University of Oslo, where I work on statistical and generative models for precipitation. My research sits at the intersection of statistics and machine learning, and I am due to complete my PhD in August 2027.
I came to Oslo from India, having studied mathematics and then gone on to work in machine learning and natural language processing before finding my way into statistical climatology. That somewhat winding path across different fields and countries has been genuinely useful: it means I can usually find some common ground with researchers working in areas quite different from my own, whether that is language technology, AI, applied statistics, or something else entirely. I also have a long-standing interest in communicating ideas from statistics and AI to general audiences, and I write public-facing articles quite regularly. Being someone who arrived in Norway not long ago and is still building their community here, I have a fairly immediate sense of how much it matters to have a good network of people around you, and how much effort it takes to build one.
That is probably the most honest way to explain what motivates me as council leader. My primary goal is to help PhD students feel more connected to each other and to the broader NORA-Tech community. Large-scale events are valuable and I want to continue supporting them, but I also believe there is a lot of room for something smaller and more regular. Think of a few PhD students gathering over tea and coffee to get some writing done together, the kind of setting where you might ask a colleague to look over your abstract and get a useful answer. Or a themed meetup where researchers working in areas like ML, language technology, statistics, or AI each take five to ten minutes to pitch their current project and find potential collaborators. These kinds of informal, low-pressure interactions are often where the most useful conversations happen.
One idea I am particularly keen to explore is organising these gatherings at a chapter or city level, so that attending does not require anyone to travel. If you are in Oslo, you meet people in Oslo. If you are in Bergen or Tromsø, the same principle applies. For those who want to join a gathering in another city, a virtual option would always be available. Nothing about this is fixed yet, and I am genuinely interested in hearing what would be useful to people before making any firm plans.
I also want to make sure that every NORA-Tech member has a genuine way to be heard. Students should be able to reach their nearest council member easily, raise suggestions or concerns with full anonymity if they prefer, and know that their feedback actually goes somewhere. Representing the student body on the NORA board is a responsibility I take seriously, and I hope to be a real and consistent voice for what PhD researchers need.
I am looking forward to getting started, and I would love to hear from as many of you as possible.
Best Regards, Kushagri Tandon