Host City India: Manhattan

Subhasish Basu Majumder

Dr. Subhasish Basu Majumder is a Professor in the Materials Science Center at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, West Bengal. In recent years, he has been actively involved in the development of lithium/sodium ion rechargeable batteries, battery/supercapacitor hybrid and semiconducting metal oxide chemiresistive gas sensors.

Dr. Basu Majumder received his Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. As a researcher he has worked in the USA and Germany before joining IIT Kharagpur as a faculty member in 2006. He is now working on several national missions funded by the Government of India. Dr. Basu Majumder is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for experienced researchers (2004-2005). He is currently serving as an editorial board member of Scientific Reports (Nature) and Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics (IOP Sciences). He is a Fellow of the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology and a recipient of the Materials Research Society of India medal.

The Lithium–Sulphur battery is far more environmentally friendly as it uses only scarce lithium, has significantly higher specific energy density than lithium-ion cells, and is easier to recycle.

Dr. Basu Majumder’s Fulbright–Kalam project aims to develop a facile one-step scalable process to increase the loading and conductivity of sulphur; retard long chain polysulphides shuttling, tackle volumetric fluctuation of active particles and inhibit the lithium anode corrosion together with its dendritic growth during discharge – charge cycles. The developed Li – S system would yield increased discharge capacity with excellent cycleability and rate performance.

Surjit Sahoo

Dr. Surjit Sahoo is currently working as a National Post doctoral Fellow at the School of Basic Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bhubaneswar, Odisha. He completed his PhD in Mechatronics Engineering from Jeju National University, South Korea. He joined as a PhD scholar in the Nanomaterials System lab in 2016 under the “Brain Korea Fellowship” scheme. His thesis work was focused on the electrochemical energy storage devices (supercapacitors), energy harvesting systems (nanogenerator), and the fabrication of self-powered devices for both energy conversion and storage using nanomaterials (transition metal oxides (TMOs), transition metal chalcogenides (TMCs), and 2D materials. The thesis topic was “Development of Nanostructured Electrode Materials for Self-Charging Supercapacitor Power Cell”.

He received his m aster’s degree in Electronics Science from Jadavpur University, Jadavpur, West Bengal, and b achelor’s degree in Electronics Science from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha . He worked as a junior research Fellow at IIT Bhubaneswar . He has published over 35 research articles as first author and co-author in leading international journals and attended about 40 conferences (both international and domestic) to demonstrate his research experiences. He has a total journal citation count of about 1500, with h-index and i10-index of 24 and 34, respectively.

Dr. Sahoo’s Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research focuses on the “development of flexible-stretchable micro-supercapacitors towards driving of portable and wearable electronics”. The outcome of this work is expected to provide insights into the fabrication of various types of micro-supercapacitors with high performance metrics.

Aasiya Nabi

Ms. Aasiya Nabi is a Ph.D. candidate at Sher-e- Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Srinagar. Using technologies like Crispr-cas9 to target pathogen effector genes and Transcriptomics, her doctoral thesis focuses on understanding how pathogens modulate the host functions during pathogenesis. She has publications in well reputed journals,and has participated and presented papers and abstracts at national and international conferences and webinars.

Ms. Nabi holds a bachelor’s degree in horticulture, and a master’s degree in plant pathology from SKUAST-Kashmir. She has been a meritorious student during her bachelors’ and masters’ degree. As a student of horticultural sciences, she likes to participate in farmer awareness programs. She is also a nature photographer who likes spending time in nature. She enjoys traveling and interacting with people from different cultures.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Ms. Nabi is exploring the Crispr-cas9, a genome editing tool, to delineate pathogenesis mechanism of plant pathogens. She is primarily working on understanding the host-pathogen interaction to devise viable and eco-friendly disease management strategies.

Ajay Biswas

Dr. Ajay Biswas is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Agartala, Tripura. He obtained his PhD in engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He has around thirty-four years of experience in the field, which includes teaching and research in engineering and the sciences. He is a life member of several professional societies including SESI, IEI (India), FOSET, ASME, and IIW. He was awarded as principal investigator of a prestigious project sponsored by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.

Dr. Biswas is interested in green energy, sustainable energy, climate change, and the development of advanced engineered materials and techniques.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research and Teaching) scholar at Kansas State University, KS, Dr. Biswas is developing an environment friendly recharge-free aluminum air battery and study its performance. Successful development and future modification of this battery will contribute to long collaborative research between the U.S. and India and will reduce carbon emissions, which is beneficial for the environment.