A landmark paper in Nano Letters, senior membership of the Optical Society (OSA), and DST’s Swarnajayanti Fellowship: the year 2018 turned out to be remarkable for Dr. G.V. Pavan Kumar. Working in the areas of plasmonics and nanophotonics, his research group is trying to understand how light interacts with nanostructures and molecules. In this conversation …
In a new partnership that was formalised on November 19, 2018, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune and Tata Technologies will come together to train school teachers towards improving the quality of science and mathematics education in schools, with a key focus on children from lower income groups. Under this partnership, teachers …
Dr. G.V. Pavan Kumar, Associate Professor in Physics at IISER Pune, has been selected for the Swarnajayanti Fellowship in the area of Physical Sciences for the year 2017-2018. Awarded by the Govt. of India’s Department of Science and Technology to a selected number of young scientists, the Swarnajayanti Fellowship supports basic research in frontier areas of science …
In a collaborative effort from research groups at IISER Pune (R. Vaidhyanathan, Partha Hazra) and IIT Bombay (Dinesh Kabra), a covalent organic framework (COF) material has been synthesized, which can be used for the coating of white-Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) as an alternative for commercially used metallic white-phosphors. Depending on the concentration of this COF …
Dr Thomas Pucadyil, Associate Professor in Biology at IISER Pune, has been selected for CSIR’s Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in the area of Biological Sciences for the year 2018. Named after founder Director of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) India, the prize recognizes outstanding contributions to science and technology. The Bhatnagar Prize …
BS MS student Kartik Nirbhavne chats here with Prof. Satish Ogale whose collaborative work on novel solar devices has recently been awarded the International Newton Prize. The Newton Prize recognizes innovators from around the world who contribute to reducing poverty and aim for developments that will generate lasting benefits for the people of their nation. …
This article is contributed by Aakrati Agarwal and Mythri S., who were participants at a science writing workshop conducted by Vigyan Prasar at IISER Pune during October 2017. In 2015, the Mathematics Cosmetic Committee of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Pune threw a challenge to mathematicians, artists and everyone in the …
Dr. Arvind Natu (Chemistry, IISER Pune) has been honoured by the German Government with the prestigious ‘Cross of Merit’. Cross of Merit is one of the highest tributes paid to a foreign national by the Government of Germany and is a part of the Order of Merit. It is given to German or foreign nationals …
From being a bachelor student in physics to a researcher in climate science, Dr. Neena Joseph Mani’s career story takes us through the vagaries of the weather and the means to understanding the same. At IISER Pune’s Earth and Climate Science discipline that investigates systems with timescales as varied as hundreds and thousands of years …
Dr. Rejish Nath and his team at IISER Pune involving his students Yashwant Chougale and Sagarika Basak have recently reported their work on quantum dynamics in the journal Physical Review Letters. Here, the team describes their main findings from this work.The movements of classical objects are easy to visualize, and also highly controllable. On the other hand, the …
One of the main improvements required in the field of Lithium ion batteries is to make them safer, more compact and more stable. However, the current generation batteries are made with flammable organic medium which could result in explosion and fire, and damage the battery compartment. Additionally battery function could be affected at extreme temperatures. …
Dr. Murari Mohan Jana is a rose specialist and is IISER Pune’s very own horticulturist, a doctor and nurturer to the ever increasing vegetation covering the sprawling 98 acre campus. BS MS student Lokahith Agasthya sat down with him for tete-a-tete to learn about Dr. Jana’s career and work, horticulture, plants and life. Here’s an …
Researchers at IISER Pune have developed a covalent organic framework, a new porous material that can boost storage capacity of a Li-ion battery to nearly twice that of commercially available ones. Lithium-ion batteries are used in devices such as cell phones and laptops. They last long and are rechargeable. “If one can pack more power …
Researchers at IISER Pune have developed a novel way to analyze heart dynamics that could potentially be used in the diagnosis of abnormalities of the heart. The analysis is based on the mathematical concept of fractals, which are repeating patterns that are similar at any scale. Fractals are commonly observed in nature, as in the …
In this series, IISER Pune students bring us glimpses of various facets of the institute such as teaching, research, administration, and campus planning through their interviews with people behind the scenes. INTERVIEW BY Meenakshi Pardasani and Soumya Bhattacharyya “I am a botanist at heart. I just love plants,” says Dr. Sagar Pandit, new faculty member in …
Understanding cancer: Role of DNA-dependent protein kinase in transformation of normal cells to cancer cells Work from Dr. Mayurika Lahiri’s group from IISER Pune has shown that a cellular enzyme—DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK)—is a key player in making cells tumorigenic following exposure to alkylating agents. This finding offers a new handle in cancer treatment through …
Improving TB Diagnostics through Synthetic Biology A team of seven undergraduates who competed in the “olympics” of synthetic biology, the international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) contest, have won a silver medal at the GiantJamboree that took place from 9-13 November 2017 in Boston, USA. Over a period of six months, 310 teams with students from 44 countries participated in …
IISER Pune-IDeaS Scholarship awardees for Fall 2018 are now announced. The selected students include 10 BS MS students, 4 Integrated PhD students, and 5 PhD students. Congratulations to all the awardees! The selection was based on grades during the first two semesters at IISER Pune and the award will offer a full tuition waiver for … Continue reading
Abhijit Gupta and Shubham Singh, both from IISER Pune, have won the first prize at the ‘Python Innovation Day Hackathon’. Kicked off in June 2018 and the first of its kind in India, the online Python Hack fury (Hackathon) was organized by Intel, IISER Pune and Amazon Web services with an aim to motivate and … Continue reading
Three IISER Pune members have been selected as Fulbright-Nehru Fellows for the year 2018-19. Congratulations to all three! Mr. Prabhat Prakash, a PhD student with Dr. Arun Venkatnathan has been selected for a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship. Using modeling and simulations, his work explores material properties required for efficient energy conversion. Prabhat will be working … Continue reading
PhD student Swapna Joshi has just completed a short project as a Sahapedia-UNESCO Fellow on pyaavs (drinking water fountains) of Mumbai. Swapna’s study traces the history of pyaavs from their inception in colonial Bombay to the recent efforts to restore and conserve the pyaavs. Swapna documented her observations through articles, interviews, photo essay and a … Continue reading
IISER Pune has received an endowment fund of Rs. 5.0 lakhs from Integrated Decisions and Systems (India) Private Limited (IDeaS), an information technology company at Cyber City, Pune. The fund has been given under their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programme and will be used to give scholarships to meritorious IISER Pune students who have achieved … Continue reading
The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) has announced election of 62 life scientists from across 24 countries to its membership. Prof. L.S. Shashidhara of IISER Pune has been elected an EMBO Associate Member, making him the third scientist from India to join a group of about 1800 researchers from Europe and around the world. EMBO members are … Continue reading
Dr Mousomi Bhakta, Assistant Professor in Mathematics at IISER Pune, has won the ‘Young Scientist Medal’ of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), New Delhi. The INSA, a body of Indian scientists created in 1935 for promotion of scientific knowledge in the country, awards the Young Scientist Medal each year. It is a prestigious and … Continue reading
Dr Sujit Ghosh, Associate Professor in Chemistry at IISER Pune, has won the AVRA Young Scientist Award for 2017. The award, constituted by the A V Rama Rao Research Foundation, promotes and encourages excellence in science & technology and comes with a cash prize and memento. The parent concern of the Foundation is a Hyderabad-based … Continue reading
Xytel India Private Limited has given a one-time endowment of Rupees Thirty lakh ten thousand to IISER Pune, to be used for giving awards to the best PhD and Masters theses every year. Xytel India, a premier project and process engineering organisation, has given this endowment under the aegis of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) … Continue reading
Dr Pinaki Talukdar, Associate Professor in Chemistry at IISER Pune, has won the ‘National Bioscience Award’ given by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India. The award consists of a cash prize, citation and a research contingency grant for a period of three years. It is given by the DBT in recognition of outstanding contributions … Continue reading
IISER Pune and Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), France have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a dual degree programme (DDP) in Solid Earth Science for students pursuing BS-MS at IISER Pune. This will be a part of the IPGP Master of Research programme. One to two students admitted per year … Continue reading
Dr G V Pavan Kumar’s group at IISER Pune, in collaboration with researchers at Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, USA, have experimentally shown for the first time, that Raman and fluorescence components of scattered light behave differently when confined to a plasmonic nano-cavity. This is a compact and cost-effective system that will enable … Continue reading
Techstars Startup Weekend (TGSW) is a global grassroots movement for entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It has held 2900+ events in 149+ countries around the world. Participants pitch an idea in a minute, form teams, and then build a prototype ready for the market. They also get to … Continue reading
Dr. Sudarshan Ananth, Associate Professor of Physics at IISER Pune, has won the B. M. Birla Science Prize in Physics for the year 2016. The Prize was instituted by the B. M. Birla Science Centre in Hyderabad in the year 1990 and is given for outstanding contributions by Indian scientists less than 40 years of age … Continue reading
IISER Pune has won the Clarivate Analytics India Research Excellence – Citation Award 2017 in the category ‘Institutions Established Within 15 Years’. The ceremony of the 6th edition of these awards took place in New Delhi on November 03, 2017, where IISER Pune was given one of the two overall institution-level awards. The awards are given … Continue reading
The multi-institutional DST-APEX-II project on solar energy, in which one of the partners is IISER Pune’s Prof. Satishchandra Ogale, has been awarded the prestigious Newton Prize for 2017. The project was initially run at CSIR-NCL in Phase-I and during the past two years at IISER Pune in Phase-II. Newton Fund was established in the UK … Continue reading
Prof Jayant B. Udgaonkar has assumed office as the Director of IISER Pune effective November 1, 2017. A biophysicist with over 30 years of research experience, Prof Udgaonkar was at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, prior to joining IISER Pune. In addition to leading a research group working on protein folding, he has served as the Dean of … Continue reading
From home appliances to automobiles, cell phones to satellites, modern life is unthinkable without a source of energy. With non-renewable sources of energy, such as oil, gas, and coal, fast getting depleted, race is on to develop clean sustainable sources of energy and the technologies to harness the same. Research in the area of materials … Continue reading
Shishir Sankhyayan, a PhD student in the Physics Programme at IISER Pune has been involved in two major astronomical discoveries that have received world-wide attention– the supercluster Saraswati, and 25 rare Giant Radio Galaxies. In this feature article, Harshini Tekur gives us a detailed breakdown of what these discoveries mean and how they add to … Continue reading
The glucose-insulin connection in type 2 diabetes mellitus is well established and the treatment regime is centered on lowering glucose levels through insulin. With the best available treatment being a combination of medication and changes in lifestyle, a cure for diabetes has been eluding us. Prof. Milind Watve’s group at IISER Pune has studied the … Continue reading
The CMS experiment is a general purpose detector which is used to study the results of high energy proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Analyzing the collision data gives particle physicists insight into the fundamental particles that make up our universe, and the interactions between them. The CMS detector consists of … Continue reading
IISER Pune has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) to jointly establish a Centre for Gravitational Physics and Astronomy (CGPA). This field has become a major active frontier of physical science and an attractive portal for young researchers to enter scientific research. The MoU between the two … Continue reading
Air pollution with carbon dioxide from industrial processes can be tackled in one of these ways: capture the greenhouse gas prior to combustion (separate carbon dioxide mixed with H2 to facilitate clean coal technology); or capture it from the smoking chimneys of power plants (post-combustion) before the gas escapes. In an effort to clean the … Continue reading
