Host City India: St. Louis

Suddhasatwa Basu

Prof. Suddhasatwa Basu completed PhD in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He is Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry (FIPI) Chair Professor on Clean Energy at IIT Delhi. He was the Director of CSIR-Institute of Minerals & Materials Technology, Bhubaneswar and the Director of Central Institute of Mining & Fuel Research, Dhanbad. He has vast work experience on development of materials for energy conversion and storage devices – green H2 generation & fuel cell technologies and Na/Zn ion battery, electro-synthesis, and waste-to-wealth technologies for a circular economy. He has published more than 280 articles in high-impact journals with H-index 53, applied for 16 patents of which 10 were granted and transferred to technologies. He is a Fellow of National Academy of Science of India, Indian National Academy of Engineering, Royal Society of Chemistry UK. He has received many awards. He has been editor, associate editor and editorial board member of several international journals.

During the fellowship at Washington University in St Louis, Prof Basu is working on development of technology for conversion of biomass/stubble-derived chemicals to hydrogen and furan dicarboxylic acid (FDCA) using an electrolyzer. The simultaneous production of FDCA alongside hydrogen in an electrolyzer will not only help to establish hydrogen economy but disrupt the polymer industry by producing monomers of bioplastics. The electrolyzer stack development envisaged will be operated under ambient conditions, making it environment-friendly and less energy-intensive by utilizing electrical power from solar photovoltaic resources.

Ankita Nandi

Ms. Ankita Nandi is a Ph.D. scholar at the NeuRonICS Lab, Department of Electronic Systems engineering (DESE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. She is interested in designing low power VLSI circuits using digital, analog and mixed signal techniques for error resilient applications. She takes keen interest in computations in the probabilistic domain and is developing circuits which accommodate them. Apart from these, she is also interested in approximate computing, image processing applications and error correction decoders. She has communicated and published her work in prestigious international journals and conferences.

Ms. Nandi has been the 5th rank holder in her pre-university board examinations. She received her B.Tech. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Meghalaya with the President Gold Medal and the Institute Gold Medal. She completed her M.Tech. from the Electrical Engineering Department of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar. She has also been selected as the Prime Minister’s Research Fellow (PMRF) in August 2021 and is availing this scholarship instead of the institutional fellowship.

Ms. Nandi wants to design a low power Analog Neuromorphic Probabilistic Processor for real-time deployment in portable and hand-held products during her tenure of Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship.

Additionally, Nandi is an avid orator and holds a diploma in painting. Being a food lover, Nandi also enjoys cooking different cuisines and loves listening to music.

Navinya Dilip Chimurkar

Mr. Navinya Dilip Chimurkar is a research scholar in climate studies at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai. He is working with Prof. Harish C. Phuleria and Prof. Chandra Venkataraman to understand the climate impact of highly overlooked non-cooking residential activities in India. He has conducted surveys and emission measurement campaigns to characterize the carbonaceous aerosol emissions from biomass and kerosene burning for water heating, space heating, and kerosene lighting.

Mr. Chimurkar has completed his master’s in climate science and technology from the Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, Odhisha and his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Rajiv Gandhi College of Engineering, Research and Technology, Chandrapur. He has published various articles, a policy brief and a book chapter on air quality. Apart from research, Mr. Chimurkar is a Hindi poet and has participated in many poetic events. He represented his master’s institute at Inter-IIT Cultural Meet for poetry. He is also a yoga enthusiast and has won a district-level competition.

During his Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellowship, Mr. Chimurkar is quantifying the climate impact of brown carbon particles from various sources using the state-of-the-science multi-wavelength spectrophotometer and Mie-theory modeling. The outcome of this research will improve climate assessment and aid in preparing a regional mitigation plan for India.