Archives: Meet Our India Fulbrighters

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.

Rajkumar Dhakar

Dr. Rajkumar Dhakar obtained his B.Sc. in agriculture from the College of Agriculture Dhule, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth Rahuri, Maharashtra in 2008. He obtained his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in 2010 and 2020, respectively, from the Division of Agricultural Physics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. Currently, he is a faculty member at IARI. In his doctoral research, Dr. Dhakar focused on developing a novel spatial field scale wheat yield forecasting system through integration of satellite remote sensing derived leaf area index into agroecosystem model along with weather forecast. He has published about 30 research papers in journals of national and international repute. Currently, he is working on projects such as mapping tillage patterns in rice-wheat cropping systems using satellite data, crop yield forecasting, and precision nitrogen management in wheat using smartphone and satellite data.

Dr. Dhakar is a recipient of the ICAR JRF Fellowship (2008), IARI Merit Medal for M.Sc. (2011), CSIR-UGC JRF Fellowship (2010), DST-INSPIRE fellowship (2011), Best M.Sc. thesis award from the Association of Agrometeorologist (2011), IARI Merit Medal for Ph.D. (2021), Best PhD thesis award from the Association of Agrometeorologist (2021), Best Oral Presentation awards from ISRS (2016) and from the Association of Agrometeorologist (2014).

During his Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship, Dr. Dhakar is assessing general epidemiological models of airborne fungal infections for the prediction of diseases in apples; mapping and detecting diseases through small unmanned aerial system using artificial intelligence techniques; and evaluating economic feasibility of precision fungicide applicators over conventional ones.

Anilkumar Chandrappa

Dr. Anilkumar Chandrappa is a scientist at the ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, who is focused on genetic gains in rice breeding. He graduated from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru. While pursuing his Ph.D., Dr. Chandrappa studied classical genetic studies in chilli, which earned him a university gold medal for outstanding research in 2019. He was a recipient of a national fellowship to support his Ph.D. from the University Grants Commission (UGC), Government of India. His research interests include incorporating novel breeding approaches into traditional breeding methods in order to increase genetic gain in a limited amount of time. He is also interested in understanding the basis of complex traits with quantitative genetic approaches. Currently, he is working on genomics assisted rice breeding for stress resilience and grain traits, which includes utilization of genomic predictions and haplotype-based breeding along with classical breeding approaches.

Dr. Chandrappa’s research during his Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship is aimed at investigating the impact of targeted recombinations over random recombinations in maximizing genetic gain in crop improvement. In this project, he is tackling significant corollary queries, including: firstly, how targeted recombinations are superior to modulated recombination frequencies across the genome in maximizing genetic gain; and secondly, how the varied number of chromosomes with targeted recombination impact the genetic gain against altered recombination frequencies across the entire genome.

Sandeep Bose

Dr. Sandeep Bose is a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University, Montreal. He obtained his B.Sc. from Gangadhar Meher University, Sambalpur, Odisha in 2011 and his master’s from the School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad in 2014. He then received his Ph.D. in 2021 under the supervision of Prof. T. Pradeep at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

Dr. Bose’s research work focuses on the synthesis of functional nanomaterials using electrospray deposition technique and their various applications. Dr. Bose has published several research articles in reputed international journals and has been granted one patent in the field of sustainable nanomaterials. He has qualified the CSIR-UGC NET and GATE examinations. His other scientific recognitions include the Best Poster Award at the 21st National Symposium in Chemistry conducted by the Chemical Research Society of India (CRSI), Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Hyderabad in 2017. He also received an International Travel Support Award at IIT Madras from the Government of India to attend the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Clusters and Nanostructures, Les Diablerets, Switzerland in 2019.

Squamous cell carcinoma of the skin is a common form of skin cancer that develops in the squamous cells that make up the middle and outer layers of the skin. Untreated, squamous cell carcinoma of the skin can grow large or spread to other parts of the body, causing serious complications. However, it can be treated successfully if detected early. During his Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship, Dr. Bose is addressing this issue by developing early detection strategies for squamous cell carcinoma by using a combination of photography, mass spectrometry and machine learning.