LAB POSITIONS

We thank Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Department of Science and Technology (DST), The Procter and Gamble (P&G) Company, Cincinnati , Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) , European Union Framework Program 7 (EUFP7) , startup funds from Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (IC&SR), IIT-Madras and Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT-Madras for continued support.

Your MS or PhD

This is intended for students who would like to do their MS or PhD in Chemical Engineering at IIT-Madras in our lab.

• What do we work on?
  We are broadly interested in topics listed in Research Areas Section.
• How do I approach you?
  Write a short (300 word) summary of what interests you in the topics I work on and email me. Refer to journal articles in the following journals for writing a summary - Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Physics, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Materials Research Bulletin, Langmuir and Journal of Physical Chemistry A, B and C. You are welcome to pick interesting articles from other journals too, provided the ideas are interesting. I think good work is found in the list of journals that I ask you to read to write your summary.
• What background do I require?
  I have worked with people having background in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Materials. I am open to working with people who have demonstrated the interest and capability in Biology and Mathematics, provided you would like to learn new concepts.
• What are my expectations?
  • I expect you to be comfortable working in a lab. This primarily involves doing experiments. I expect you to be comfortable in designing and doing experiments and plotting data in spreadsheets. I expect you to pick up experimental skills such as designing a new piece of equipment and/or troubleshooting an existing equipment. I expect you to own your problems i.e., treat it as yours not mine. It is your MS and PhD, not mine. I am here to help you get to your thesis completion. Expect very little help from me after you spend more time in your research. This approach coupled with your progress will determine the course of your thesis.
  • Research productivity: The outside world views you as a function of (good) papers you have published, patents that you have, posters presented at internationally peer reviewed conferences and the breadth and depth of the knowledge you have. MS and PhD require contributions in at least two of the above (papers, patents, posters) with breadth & depth. It is a useful template. You will be responsible for conducting experiments and/or simulation and refining them as required, writing first drafts of paper(s) in consultation with me or independently. Do understand these requirements clearly and plan your time accordingly.
  • Getting started & finishing: I usually have a bunch of ideas and hypothesis. You can start with a simple experiment we design together to test it. We will discuss preliminary results and future work. For example, this could be doing a cyclic voltammogram of Pt in sulfuric acid or running a UV-Vis spectrum of a compound and interpreting the results. You will also be expected to learn experimental techniques, instrumentation and analysis. As you grow and mature to handle problems, I expect you to have a bunch of ideas and hypothesis, test them out and let me know what you've learned.
  • Communication skills: Doing research is one thing. Communicating your results is equally important. Niket has done an excellent job of putting together many aspects at his resources section

Project positions

If you are interested in Project positions, email me your resume with the subject Project Position Application and include the following details in the text of the email.

• What do we work on?
  We are broadly interested in topics listed in Research Areas Section.
• How do I approach you?
  Write a short (300 word) summary of what interests you in the topics I work on and email me. Refer to journal articles in the following journals for writing a summary - Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Physics, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Materials Research Bulletin, Langmuir and Journal of Physical Chemistry A, B and C. You are welcome to pick interesting articles from other journals too, provided the ideas are interesting. I think good work is found in the list of journals that I ask you to read to write your summary.

Your Dual Degree or M. Tech Project

This is intended for IIT-Madras students who would like to do their Dual Degree or M. Tech project in Chemical Engineering at IIT-Madras in our lab.

• What do we work on?
  We are broadly interested in topics listed in Research Areas Section.
• How do I approach you?
  Write a short (300 word) summary of what interests you in the topics I work on and email me. Refer to journal articles in the following journals for writing a summary - Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Physics, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Materials Research Bulletin, Langmuir and Journal of Physical Chemistry A, B and C. You are welcome to pick interesting articles from other journals too, provided the ideas are interesting. I think good work is found in the list of journals that I ask you to read to write your summary.
• If you took a class I taught - It helps me to know you and your capability to do research by your demonstrated problem solving skills in class. I suggest you look at my research website and send me a summary by email.
• What background do I require?
  I have worked with people having background in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Materials. I am open to working with people who have demonstrated the interest and capability in Biology and Mathematics, provided you would like to learn new concepts.
• What are my expectations?
  • I expect you to be comfortable working in a lab. This primarily involves doing experiments. I expect you to be comfortable in designing and doing experiments and plotting data in spreadsheets. I expect you to pick up experimental skills such as troubleshooting an existing equipment and collecting meaningful data from the same. I expect you to own your problems i.e., treat it as yours not mine. It is your Dual Degree and MTech, not mine. I am here to help you get to your thesis completion. This approach coupled with your progress will determine the course of your thesis.
  • Research productivity: The outside world views you as a function of (good) papers you have published, patents that you have, posters presented at internationally peer reviewed conferences and the breadth and depth of the knowledge you have. MS and PhD require contributions in at least two of the above (papers, patents, posters) with breadth & depth. It is a useful template. You will be responsible for conducting experiments and/or simulation and refining them as required, writing first drafts of paper(s) in consultation with me or independently. Do understand these requirements clearly and plan your time accordingly.
  • Getting started & finishing:I usually have a bunch of ideas and hypothesis. You can start with a simple experiment we design together to test it. We will discuss preliminary results and future work. For example, this could be doing a cyclic voltammogram of Pt in sulfuric acid or running a UV-Vis spectrum of a compound and interpreting the results. You will also be expected to learn experimental techniques, instrumentation and analysis.
  • Communication skills: Doing research is one thing. Communicating your results is equally important. Niket has done an excellent job of putting together many aspects at his resources section
  • The PG committee will keep you informed of other regulations.
  • Progress I expect each student to present their work twice in a semester. During this time, each of you will present results from your past work, next course of action and what you have learned. You will also be responsible for literature in the narrow and broad area of your work and expected to remain up to date. You will be asked to submit a report every month on what you have done that month and the plans for the next month to the PG committee, after my signature. These reports are due on the first working day of every month. These will be returned to you asap with comments. Your project report(s), reviews and final theses will be easier when you have documented the same. I also plan to have reading assignments outside your broad and narrow area of work in these meetings.
    Research productivity The outside world views you as a function of (good) papers you have published, patents that you have, posters presented at internationally peer reviewed conferences and the breadth and depth of the knowledge you have. I expect M. Tech and Dual Degree folk to try one idea that they thought of before finishing their degree. This idea could be a simple extension of the problem or a new idea. You will be responsible for conducting experiments and/or simulation and refining them as required, writing first drafts of your thesis in consultation with me or independently. Do understand these requirements clearly and plan your time accordingly.
  • DD and MTech reports and thesis Keep reports and thesis brief, to the point and say you did nothing; if you did nothing. Do not BS. Move on to be more frank and deal with consequences (usually a change to a lower grade and/or a resubmission) than waste time with excuses. Turn in soft copies atleast 48 hours ahead of the deadline (you are welcome to do it earlier). If its a Monday deadline, I would like to have the soft copy mailed to this ID by Thursday morning, Friday morning for a Tuesday deadline and so on. If you would like me to review your talk, give me 72 hours
  • Extension If you do not completer the work expected out of you, defined at the start of your DD or M. Tech, refined in your penultimate semester and finalized towards the end, you will stay back and not graduate with the majority of your batchmates.

Your B. Tech Project

This is intended for IIT-Madras students who would like to do their B. Tech project in Chemical Engineering at IIT-Madras in our lab.

• What do we work on?
  We are broadly interested in topics listed in Research Areas Section.
• How do I approach you?
  Write a short (300 word) summary of what interests you in the topics I work on and email me. Refer to journal articles in the following journals for writing a summary - Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Physics, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Materials Research Bulletin, Langmuir and Journal of Physical Chemistry A, B and C. You are welcome to pick interesting articles from other journals too, provided the ideas are interesting. I think good work is found in the list of journals that I ask you to read to write your summary.
• If you took a class I taught - It helps me to know you and your capability to do research by your demonstrated problem solving skills in class. I suggest you look at my research website and send me a summary by email.
• What background do I require?
  I have worked with people having background in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Materials. I am open to working with people who have demonstrated the interest and capability in Biology and Mathematics, provided you would like to learn new concepts.
• What are my expectations?
  • I expect you to be comfortable working in a lab. This primarily involves doing experiments. I expect you to be comfortable in designing and doing experiments and plotting data in spreadsheets. I expect you to pick up experimental skills such as collecting meaningful data from the from an existing equipment. I expect you to own your problems i.e., treat it as yours not mine. It is your B. Tech, not mine. I am here to help you get to your thesis completion. This approach coupled with your progress will determine the course of your thesis
  • Getting started & finishing I usually have a bunch of ideas and hypothesis. You can start with a simple experiment we design together to test it. We will discuss preliminary results and future work. For example, this could be doing a cyclic voltammogram of Pt in sulfuric acid or running a UV-Vis spectrum of a compound and interpreting the results. You will also be expected to learn experimental techniques, instrumentation and analysis
  • Communication skills: Doing research is one thing. Communicating your results is equally important. Niket has done an excellent job of putting together many aspects at his resources section
  • The UG committee will keep you informed of other regulations.
  • Progress I expect each student to present their work twice in the 8th semester. During this time, each of you will present results from your past work, next course of action and what you have learned. You will also be responsible for literature in the narrow and broad area of your work and expected to remain up to date.
  • Research productivity The outside world views you as a function of (good) papers you have published, patents that you have, posters presented at internationally peer reviewed conferences and the breadth and depth of the knowledge you have. You will be responsible for conducting experiments and/or simulation and refining them as required, writing first drafts of your thesis in consultation with me or independently. Do understand these requirements clearly and plan your time accordingly.
  • BTech reports and thesis Keep reports and thesis brief, to the point and say you did nothing; if you did nothing. Do not BS. Move on to be more frank and deal with consequences (usually a change to a lower grade and/or a resubmission) than waste time with excuses. Turn in soft copies atleast 48 hours ahead of the deadline (you are welcome to do it earlier). If it's a Monday deadline, I would like to have the soft copy mailed to this ID by Thursday morning, Friday morning for a Tuesday deadline and so on. If you would like me to review your talk, give me 72 hours.
  • Extension If you do not completer the work expected out of you, defined at the start of your B. Tech, you will stay back and not graduate with the majority of your batchmates

A Summer or December Project request from undergraduate students outside IIT-Madras

I really appreciate your interest in doing research in the summer. I usually get many emails around February/March and October/November every year. These are mass emails, sent to most faculty or copy/paste jobs from websites. I usually get repeated emails and phone calls from folks based in Chennai or have a relative in Chennai. These emails suggest that you folks are not serious about doing research work here and you want an IITM stamp on your resume.

If you are serious about research, please send me a very short two paragraph summary of one of the recent research papers (timescale 2000-2009) on a topic of picked from the work I do in my research page. Please look to the following journals for writing a summary -Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Physics, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Materials Research Bulletin, Langmuir and Journal of Physical Chemistry A, B and C.

I would like you to read http://unrulednotebook.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/i-am-not-interested-in-you/ and pass on your comments in the same email. I will reply if I am interested in you after reading your email.