Nitya Nand Gosvami

Dr. Nitya Nand Gosvami completed his BTech with honors in Metallurgical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology – Banaras Hindu University (IITBHU), India, in 2003 and completed his PhD at the National University of Singapore in 2008. In 2008, he joined the Leibniz Institute for New Materials (Saarbrücken, Germany) as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow. In 2010, he joined University College London (London, United Kingdom) as a Research Associate, jointly working with the London Center for Nanotechnology. In 2012, he moved to the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Pennsylvania (United States) as a Research Project Manager. In 2016, he joined the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (New Delhi, India), where he works as an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Dr. Gosvami’s research is focused on the study of mechanical and tribological behavior of engineering materials, disordered systems, and bioinspired nanopatterned surfaces at the nanoscale, where his group is investigating fundamental mechanisms of friction and wear, lubrication, and tribochemical processes in sliding contacts at the liquid-solid interfaces.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Gosvami is aiming to develop atomic-scale insights into how nanoparticles, when incorporated into industrial lubricants, reduce friction and wear between sliding contacts of mechanical components, including internal combustion engine components, electric vehicle transmissions, and wind turbine bearings. The goal is to establish a scientific basis for developing next-generation environment-friendly and energy-efficient lubricant formulations, enabling the adoption of green technologies by addressing major reliability issues in electric vehicles and wind turbines.

Neha Sardana

Dr. Neha Sardana is an Associate Professor in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering (MME) at IIT Ropar. She received her BTech in MME from the IIT Roorkee in 2009, master’s in materials and manufacturing engineering from Technical University of Denmark in 2011 and a PhD in plasmonics from the International Max Planck Research Schools for Science and Technology of Nanostructures, IMPRS-MLU, Halle, Germany in 2015. After working for more than three years as a scientist at Institute of Nano Science and Technology, Mohali, Punjab and a short stint as an Assistant Professor at IIT Jodhpur, she joined IIT Ropar in 2018. Currently, she is the group leader of Nano Scale Engineering and Devices Lab at IIT Ropar. She is a member of Indian National Young Academy of Sciences (2021-26), young engineer awardee from Institute of Engineers India 2022 and young associate of Indian National Academy of Engineering 2023. She has more than 50 publications, eight book chapters, eight Indian patents and a startup on optical sensing to her credit.

During her Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence fellowship, Dr Sardana is focusing primarily on creating optical substrates for accurate monitoring of organochlorine agrochemicals. She will be exploring the use of MXenes to improve optical sensors when coupled with conventional plasmonic materials in an optical SPR-based sensing platform. The proposed study can be instrumental to the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology between India and the United States.

Aarthi Kannan

Dr. Aarthi Kannan is currently an Ingenieur de recherche (research engineer) at the Laboratoire de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Paris, Sorbonne Université, France, since December 2024. She got her PhD degree from SASTRA Deemed University, Tamil Nadu, in August 2024. Aarthi earned her MTech in medical nanotechnology (integrated) from the same institution in May 2019.

Dr. Kannan’s research primarily focuses on nanotechnology, particularly in materials science (hybrid and 2D nanomaterials) and electrochemical nanosensors for environment and health applications. She has published 10 research articles in reputed scientific Q1 journals and holds two Indian patents. She is also the co-founder and innovator of SENSOIL, a start-up incubated at ABLEST-TBI, SASTRA.

Dr. Kannan was awarded the UGC-Savitribai Jyotirao Phule Fellowship for Single Girl Child to pursue her PhD. Also, she was awarded the prestigious Mitacs-SICI Globalink research (Indo-Canadian) grant to pursue her research internship at McMaster’s University, Ontario, Canada. She has actively participated in national and international conferences, delivering both oral and poster presentations.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Kansas State University, Dr. Kannan is working with Dr. Suprem R. Das in the Micro/Nano Materials and Device Manufacturing Group. During this fellowship, her research will focus on developing two-dimensional, atomically thin nanoscale materials to fabricate innovative dual-selective phosphate electrochemical sensors for soil and water analysis in neutral pH conditions.