Archives: Meet Our India Fulbrighters

Subhankar Mukherjee

Dr. Subhankar Mukherjee is Assistant Professor at the Department of Industrial & Management Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He joined IIT Kanpur in 2019, after completing his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata with specialization in economics. Dr. Mukherjee obtained his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and worked in the corporate sector for nearly 10 years before joining his Ph.D..

Dr. Mukherjee’s research interests are in the areas of economics of development and applied microeconomics. His research has been published in journals, such as The European Journal of Development Research, Applied Economics, Indian Growth and Development Review, and Economic & Political Weekly. He has also written articles for media outlets, such as The Hindu, Business Line and Ideas for India.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship, Dr. Mukherjee is analyzing the factors behind low utilization of crop insurance products among Indian farmers. Specifically, he is focusing on the role of awareness-building programs in improving the utilization rate of these products, and the differential impact of such programs on various caste-based groups and their take-up decisions.

Deboshree Mukherjee

Dr. Deboshree Mukherjee is Dr. D. S. Kothari Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Chemistry, University of Burdwan, West Bengal. Earlier, she worked as Research Associate atthe Center of Excellence in Advance Materials, NIT Durgapur, West Bengal. She completed her Ph.D. from CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad in 2019. Her doctoral research was in the area of heterogeneous catalysis.

Dr. Mukherjee’s research interest lies in the design and development of novel nanomaterials for catalytic oxidation-reduction processes for environmental remediation, biodiesel and other fine chemicals production, photocatalytic advanced oxidation processes, and nanozyme applications. She has published several research articles in high impact international journals, review articles, popular journal articles, and book chapters during her Ph.D. and post-doctoral work. She was awarded the junior research fellowship (JRF) by the Government of India after she qualified the CSIR-UGC NET examination and the prestigious Dr. D. S. Kothari Post-Doctoral research fellowship by the UGC, Government of India.

During her Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship, Dr. Mukherjee is focusing on the design and development of metal organic framework supported single atom catalyst (SAC) for preferential oxidation of carbon monoxide in hydrogen rich stream for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell application. In SAC, all catalytically active metal centers are atomically dispersed on a stable support. The SACs are superior to metal or metal oxide nanocatalysts in terms of high metal atom utilization efficiency, unique electronic properties and special size quantum effects, resulting in improved catalytic performance.

Pradeep Kodimana Ramakrishnan

Dr. Pradeep Kodimana Ramakrishnan is a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Gerd Bacher at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany since 2021. He obtained his integrated B.Sc., B.Ed., and M.Sc. in physics from the Regional Institute of Education, University of Mysore in 2014. He then received his Ph.D. in 2021, under the supervision of Prof. Ranjani Viswanatha, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru. Dr. Ramakrishnan’s doctoral work focuses on the design of quantum dots for optoelectronic applications.

Dr. Ramakrishnan received a fellowship under the Walter-Benjamin Program from the German Research Foundation. His research grant focuses on magneto-optical spectroscopy of single perovskite nanocrystals. He has published several research articles in reputed international journals. He is the winner of Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Awards (GYTI 2020) in the field of nanoscience and engineering. He qualified the GATE examination 2015, with an all-India rank of 74, and secured first rank in the country in the national entrance examination conducted by NCERT in 2008. His other scientific recognitions include the “Best ePoster Content and Discussion” award at the 2020 online conference Light Emission in Organic and Hybrid materials (LightEm) organized by nanoGe, and another best poster award at an In-House symposium 2018, JNCASR. He is also a winner of the Sony World Photography Awards, 2023.

Inorganic lead halide perovskite nanocrystals are in high favor among recent energy materials. However, the necessary inclusion of lead, a toxic element, raises a critical concern for future commercial development. Dr. Ramakrishnan is addressing this issue during his Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship. He is designing and synthesizing doped lead-free double perovskites and studying their spin dynamics using ultrafast magneto-optical spectroscopy. This project provides a promising avenue for lead free perovskite nanocrystals for use in high performance photophysical applications.

Neha Khatri

Dr. Neha Khatri is Principal Scientist at the Department of Manufacturing Science & Instrumentation, CSIR-CSIO, Chandigarh. She is a young researcher working in the area of ultra precision machining and optical metrology techniques for smart manufacturing.

Dr. Khatri earned her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering in 2010 from the University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Kanpur and her master’s in advanced instrumentation engineering in 2012 from the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Chennai. She then joined as a scientist at CSIR-CSIO, Chandigarh in November, 2012. She received her Ph.D. in 2019 in opto-mechanical instrumentation from AcSIR, Chennai. She made significant contributions to advanced manufacturing techniques using ultra precision machining protocol for the development of various techniques and products for societal and strategic applications. Her research findings and investigations have received recognition through high impact publications, international collaborations, as well as transfer of technologies. Dr. Khatri’s scientific recognitions include Raman Research Fellowship 2021-22, SERB Women Excellence Award 2022, INAE Young Engineer Award 2021, and IEI Young Engineer Award 2022 for her notable contribution in the area of ultra-precision machining. She has received many best paper awards in various international conferences. She was inducted in the second BRICS Young Scientist Conclave to represent India at Hangzhou, China in 2017.

The key hurdle in high throughput precision freeform optics fabrication is quality control. As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research postdoctoral research fellow, Dr. Khatri is working at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Her research focuses on developing on-machine metrology for precision fabrication of freeform optics with fast measurements and analyses for closed loop control and optimization.

Nutanben Himmatlal Bhingaradiya

Dr. Nutanben Himmatlal Bhingaradiya is JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Graduate school of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama University, Okayama, where she is mentored by Prof. Takuya Matsumoto. Dr. Bhingaradiya earned her master’s degree in pharmaceutics in 2015. In 2021, she received her Ph.D. in chemical sciences from the CSIR Central Salt and Marine Chemical Research Institute, Bhavnagar, Gujarat. Her doctoral thesis was supported by a CSIR GATE JRF fellowship and explored the topic of “Synthesis of Biodegradable Amphiphilic Copolymers and Conetworks by Sequential Nucleophilic Substitution”.. After her Ph.D., she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai under the supervision of Prof. Rohit Srivastava and late Prof. Rinti Banerjee.

During her Ph.D., Dr. Bhingaradiya published several research articles, book chapters, reviews, and patents, garnering 292 citations and an h-index of seven. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the FY2022 JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research in Japan (Standard); Institute Post-Doctoral Fellowships from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai; CSIR Senior Research Fellowship (SRF) – GATE, HRDG-CSIR, Government of India; CSIR Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) – GATE, HRDG-CSIR, Govternment of India;, AICTE Post Graduate (PG- GATE/GPAT) Scholarship, AICTE India.

During her Fulbright_Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship, Dr. Bhingaradiya is undertaking an interdisciplinary project that employs a number of novel and innovative techniques, which are anticipated to advance both the practical and the theoretical applications of biomolecule chemistry, material science, and imaging. The purpose of her project is to create a library of compounds with enhanced therapeutic activity using a reliable synthesis method.

Rubia Hassan

Dr. Rubia Hassan is Project Scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. She pursued her bachelor’s in metallurgical engineering from National Institute of Technology, Srinagar and her master’s and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur). During her Ph.D., in 2018, she received Prime Minister Research Fellowship, to continue her work under the joint supervision of Prof. Kantesh Balani and Prof. Shobit Omar at IIT Kanpur. Her doctoral research was based on the study of Zirconium di-boride based ultra-high temperature ceramic composites for thermal protection system in hypersonic re-entry vehicles. Dr. Hassan has published several research articles in reputed international journals and has co-edited one book.

The ongoing search for new materials for desired future capabilities related to hypersonic re-entry flight, rocket propulsion, and lightweight armor has led to considerable attention to ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) for their potential use in extreme environments based on their superior properties. In this context, during her Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship, Dr. Hassan is focusing on the development of boride and carbide based high entropy ultra-high temperature ceramics.

Saikatul Haque

Dr. Saikatul Haque is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad since 2021. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2021, under the supervision of Prof. Sandeep Kunnath, at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research – Centre for Applicable Mathematics (TIFR-CAM), Bengaluru. He earned his master’s in 2016 from TIFR-CAM after completing his bachelor’s in 2014 at R K Mission Vidyamandira, University of Calcutta, Kolkata.

Dr. Haque’s research work focuses on the study of well-posedness and regularity for elliptic and time dependent partial differential equations. He has published several research articles in reputed international journals. He also qualified IIT JAM in 2014 and CSIR UGC NET held in December 2015. He has been selected for the INSPIRE faculty fellowships in 2023 by Department of Science & Technology, Government of India.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Haque is studying mainly three partial differential equations: the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLS), a modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) equation, and a related heat equation. The main focus of this project is to understand the global time behavior of the energy-critical focusing inhomogeneous fractional NLS. This includes research into local and global well-posedness, variational estimates for elliptic problems, linear profile decomposition, and rigidity. For the cubic NLS, mKdV and nonlinear heat equation, Dr. Haqueis investigating well-posedness and ill-posedness in modulation spaces.

Ansuman Halder

Dr. Ansuman Halder obtained his B.Sc. degree from Scottish Church College, University of Calcutta, in 2011 and then joined the M.Sc.-Ph.D. dual degree program at the Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai. He pursued his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Shaibal K. Sarkar and received his dual degree in 2020. His research work was focused on understanding the structural and opto-electronic properties of various hybrid halide perovskite materials for photovoltaic applications.

Besides publishing several research articles in reputed international journals, Dr. Halder filed a patent for development of perovskite based thermochromic photovoltaic devices during his Ph.D. He was awarded the prestigious Bhaskara Advanced Solar Energy (BASE) fellowship in 2017 for a 3 month internship at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Colorado. After finishing his Ph.D., Dr. Halder joined Bar-Ilan University, Israel in 2020 as a postdoctoral fellow and worked with Prof. David Cahen to understand the electrical and electronic properties of hybrid perovskite materials.

Use of solar power for energy generation is highly advantageous as it is abundant and pollution free. In recent times, perovskite based solar cells have emerged as one of the most promising technologies to provide solar generated electricity at lower costs. During his Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship, Dr. Halder is focusing on understanding the growth dynamics of the large-scale perovskite thin film formation that is essential for development of perovskite based solar cell technology.

Sujoy Ghosh

Dr. Sujoy Kumar Ghosh is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow at Laboratorio NEST, Istituto Nanoscienze-CNR, Pisa, Italy. Previously, he was Post doctoral Research Associate at UNIST, South Korea. Dr. Ghosh completed his Ph.D. in 2019, M.Sc. in 2012, and B.Sc. in 2010 from the Department of Physics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

Dr. Ghosh has published 45 scientific articles in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters, and he possesses h-index of 29 (Google scholar). He has won several awards and recognitions, such as Young Scientist Award in “International Virtual Conference on Advances in Functional Materials (AFM 2020)”, Newton Bhabha Fellow (2017), Best Poster Award in “Fourth International Symposium on Semiconductor Materials and Devices (ISSMD-4)” (2017), DST Award for 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, Germany (2016) among others. The design and experimental study on piezo-, pyro- and ferro-electric properties of synthetic and natural polymers as well as investigation of their resulting energy harvesting device towards the applications of self-powered healthcare monitoring are leitmotifs of his research.

In recent years, the integration between medicine and technology qualitatively extended new designs of implantable biomedical devices (IBDs), allowing competitive advantage for medical treatment of human body. However, nearly all classes of active IBDs rely on battery powers, which not only have limited lifespan, but also increase patient’s health risks and expanses. During his Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship, Dr. Ghosh is designing ultrasonic waves stimulated piezo-electrically-powered miniature wireless IBDs using biodegradable natural polymer materials in a non-invasive approach.

Rabindranath Garai

Dr. Rabindranath Garai is Research Associate at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, where he works on the fabrication of semi-transparent PSCs for building integration. He obtained his B.Sc. degree in 2014 from Midnapore College, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore and his M.Sc. degree in 2016 from the Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad. He then earned his Ph.D. in 2022 under the supervision of Dr. Parameswar K. Iyer at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. His research work focuses on the investigation of multifunctional molecules for efficient and durable polymer and perovskite solar cells (PSCs).

Dr. Garai has published several research articles in recognized international journals and filed three patents in solar cell technology. He also received the “Chemical Science Best Poster Presentation Prize” at ChemSci2021: Leaders in the Field Symposium organized by the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) Bangalore in association with the Chemical Science journal. His other scientific recognitions include the Award of Sakura Science Program-2019 held at Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan.

Dr. Garai is pursuing his Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship at the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department, Rice University. He is working under the mentorship of Dr. Aditya D. Mohite, who is recognized as one of the world’s leading scientists in the field of perovskite-based solar cell devices. Dr. Garai’s project aims to develop high-performance and durable PSCs through structural phase and interface engineering.