Nasreen Sultana, the founder of Project Tiktaalik, is a cartoonist and an educationalist. She began her journey in the arts as an illustrator for the renowned magazine, Unmad, while she was a student at University of Dhaka (DU). She completed her bachelor's and master's education in science at Institute of Education and Research, DU. She kept up her passion for drawing comics throughout the years.

Looking back on her career, Nasreen recalls that she was not great at drawing when she first started out. However, under the guidance and mentorship of renowned cartoonist Ahsan Habib, the editor of Unmad, she worked on her illustrations till her comics were worthy of being published. Though she harboured an interest in comic books and pictures, she never had any educational training in art.

Upon graduation, Nasreen held many teaching jobs at several institutions, including Rajshahi University and BRAC University before she decided to blend together her two different areas of interest, which resulted in Project Tiktaalik.

The project is an online and a print based series of comic books for children, specifically on topics related to science.  Additionally, the Project Tiktaalik website includes informative and attractive features, such as ideas for school science projects, science quizzes and fun facts.

It is no secret that science is perceived as a difficult, challenging and often times, scary subject for children.  Soon after the early days of kindergarten, it is only by exception that a child looks forward to their science classes. Nasreen wants to break this notion through her comic books.

She feels that children who may have latent curiosities towards science are often discouraged through no fault of their own, to view science as a recreational, stimulating and imaginative practice. Just as they might play video games or enjoy listening to stories, children are likely to be enthralled by science experiments like building their own water turbine and observing the greenhouse effect.

So far, Project Tiktaalik has published three comic books, including Jongol e Gondogol, which came out last year. Alongside printed comic books, their website is filled with small stories on a specific topic or science jokes. Project Tiktaalik also focuses on connecting with schools and children's programmes. They have organised science talks, science and cartoon workshops and special programmes across villages and towns outside Dhaka, with selected kids who are interested in science.

Nasreen does not like to plan too far out ahead in the future. She believes in trusting her instincts and working on the content that she feels most attracted towards in the moment. Right now, Project Tiktaalik is a full-time job for her. Before she started publishing comics, Nasreen realised that there are many issues in society that are yet to be solved. She was inspired to take a different and more creative approach to tackle the issue of education. Feeling that the quality of education in our country is dipping with an abundance of degrees and a dearth of knowledge, Nasreen took matters into her own hands to help our future generations through Project Tiktaalik.

It is inspiring to see that she has brought together art and science, two academic areas that are popularly considered the polar opposites of each other, to produce something that can increase the breadth of topics and ideas that children can explore and learn more about.