The person behind the questions
I started in computer science, wandered into classrooms, and never quite left. Along the way one question kept bugging me: what does it really mean to understand something?
I’m Shahistha Tabbasum (most people call me Shaya), an AI and STEM education specialist based in Bangalore. I studied computer science engineering, then teacher education and advanced teaching. Years of working with students and teachers in India and the Gulf taught me that technology education is about much more than handing out new gadgets.
A student can learn every step and still miss the point. A project can look amazing while the thinking behind it is thin. An AI can sound very sure of itself and still be wrong. Those moments shape everything I bring to curriculum design, research and writing.
You might also see my name spelled Shaista Tabbassum or Shahistha Tabbassum. Same person, same love of good questions!
These days I work on AI and computational thinking curriculum, STEM and robotics learning, teacher resources, quality checks and educational product work. My most recent role is Senior AI Curriculum SME at Bhanzu. On the side (well, a fairly big side), I’m researching Quantum-Inspired Pedagogy for my PhD and developing Q-STEM, a proposed question-led framework. I describe employer work at role level only, so you won’t find any company material here.
The format keeps changing: a curriculum unit, a teacher guide, a research question, a children’s story. The goal doesn’t: helping learners make sense of ideas instead of just repeating answers.
Engineering taught me that a solution is good if it works. Teaching taught me a harder test: does the learner know why it works, when it might break, and what else they could try?
That matters even more now that AI can produce explanations, code and very confident answers in seconds. Children need practice questioning those answers, connecting ideas, testing assumptions and making their own decisions. My work is about making room for that kind of thinking.
Getting it to work isn’t the finish line. It’s where the better questions start.
I’ve worked in schools, teacher training and curriculum teams across India and the Gulf. Here’s the short version.
Computer science engineering, teacher education and advanced teaching, with a PhD in progress on Quantum-Inspired Pedagogy for K–12 STEM, AI and robotics education.
| PhD in Education | In progress, European International University, Paris |
|---|---|
| MA in Advanced Teaching | European International University, Paris |
| B.Ed in Computer Science | Singhania University |
| B.E. in Computer Science | Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) |
Research asks what might be possible. Curriculum design asks how to turn that into a real lesson. Writing asks how to make it stick. I hop between all three because, to me, they’re one job: helping people think more deeply about the world they’re growing up to shape.
Like any good maths teacher, I believe in showing your working. For my independent projects, I share the learning problem, goals, decisions, prototypes, review criteria and changes. If something hasn’t been piloted yet, I say so. If I built it for an employer, I describe my role and keep their materials private.
Dig into the research, have a look at the Q-STEM Framework, or just say hello.
