MEET THE MENTORS
Think Unique And Be Innovative.
Make A Difference With us
Dr. Sujit Bhattacharya
(PhD ME BE PGDOM SMIEEE FIETE)
Founder & Mentor
Dr. Sujit Bhattacharya, a passionate educator, is the co-founder of the CERC along with his wife Cllr. Dr. Shrobona Bhattacharya and has been the mentor since the inception of the club. At present, Sujit is professionally working as a Principal Engineer at Evonetix involved in the design and development of a large array of control-intensive digital electronics for a novel approach to the synthesis of DNA. Previously, he worked as a Radar Systems Design Authority for advanced radar systems at Blighter Surveillance Systems. He has been active in mentoring students for various research projects and conducting science and engineering related activities in and around Cambridge. Sujit was Senior Scientist/ Engineer at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for more than 16 years and Project Manager for the design of satellite sub-systems for ISRO’s RISAT-II satellite.
After completing his PhD in Electronics Engineering from the University of Edinburgh, he was also involved in Engineering research both at Queen’s University Belfast and Imperial College London. During his tenure at Imperial College London, he designed sub-systems for the Magnetometer payload of European Space Agency’s (ESA) SolarOrbiter satellite.
Sujit is a trustee of the education charity STEM Team East, Senior Member of IEEE, US and Fellow of IETE, India, Mentor for Form the Future, STEM Ambassador, Mentor for Nuffield Research, School Governor. Full profile at LinkedIn-Sujit
Vijay Acharya
IT Engineer
An IT engineer by profession and a Team Coach for FLL (IET FIRST® LEGO® League) competitions. Coached the club’s kids to first ever FLL Championship in 2019. He is also joint editor of CERC Ignite magazine and continues to support in the club’s various activities
Venkat Kommi
Marine Systems Analyst
Venkat Kommi is Marine Systems Analyst working in Cambridge since 2001 straight after finishing his Engineering degree as Naval Architect in India.
Involved as CERC Coach for FLL 2021 and 2022, ESA Astro Pi, PA Consulting, Raspberry PI Competition and Whirlpool Purposeful Innovation Competition. He is the editor of the CERC Ignite magazine where children write all science articles.
He particularly enjoys listening to children’s innovative ideas and working with them. Apart from these he enjoys gardening, cycling, running and badminton and long countryside walks
Andy Fell
Principal Electronics Engineer at TTP
Andy Fell is a principal electronics engineer at TTP, specialising mainly in Radio Frequency engineering across a broad range of communications technologies, but in particular satellite communications across a wide range of services and types from ‘Broadband from space’ to the ‘Internet of Things’. He has been involved in managing and designing lots of other electronics projects, including designing the electronics in the recent Covid-19 ventilator that has been on the news and promoted by Dyson.
Andy has been a CERC mentor on a few projects, since the group started: Namely the CERC Team Piwars entry, known as ‘CERCBot’, where the children used a Raspberry Pi to programme the home built robot around various courses and challenges. Also, he has been mentoring the CERC junior Lego team (the CERC Master Builders), where the children have learnt all about engineering, working in a team and different aspects of structures and design.
During his spare time, he has a private pilot’s license and like to fly his microlight. He is also a Cub Scout leader for 2nd Cambourne Scout Group.
Dr Parthiban Vijayarangakannan is an entrepreneur, and the CEO/founder of Svastia Genetics (formerly Cambridgene) that develops the Svastia.ai digital platform for cancer diagnostics and biopharmaceutical research, enabling the rapid adoption of genetics-aided personalised medicine.
He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge (UK). As part of academic research projects involving dozen of NHS hospitals, he and his team developed technologies for genome-based diagnostics for a range of rare diseases. He has a PhD (Bioinformatics) from the International Max Planck Research School, Cologne, Germany.
During his leisure time, he volunteers for regional charities like Power2Inspire, CamCare-UK, and coaches at Cambridge Electronics and Robotics Club (CERC), a children’s STEM club in Cambridge.
Christian serve as the Head of Corporate Development at the Royal Society of Chemistry. Before this, my journey in the professional realm traversed various commercial roles within life science companies and diagnostic organizations. Additionally, I proudly wear the hat of a co-founder at a startup in Italy, where our focus lies on AI-driven recommender systems.
On the academic front, my pursuits have been equally diverse. I hold a PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry and drug design, where my research centered on developing drug carriers for sepsis and inflammatory bowel disease. Furthermore, I pursued a second PhD in business management, specializing in industrial marketing management. Complementing these, I obtained a master’s degree in psychology, delving into the intricacies of decision-making processes related to foresight management.
Beyond my professional and academic pursuits, I’m a proud father of two boys. I’m deeply committed to the transformative power of STEM education, actively supporting organizations like CERC and CamCare UK. In these roles, I coordinate engaging STEM activities such as Chemistry workshops, First Lego League events, and STEM Science Festivals. Additionally, I lead creative art design initiatives for these charitable organizations.