Progress in Polymer Research for Biomedical, Energy and Specialty Applications

Prof. Anandhan Srinivasan holds BSc in Chemistry (Madura College, Madurai Kamaraj University, India, 1995), MSc in Applied Chemistry (Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai Kamaraj University, India, 1997), MTech in Polymer Technology (Cochin University of Science and Technology, India, 1999) and PhD in Polymer Science and Technology (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, 2004). He was a gold medallist in both BSc (first rank among 240 students) and MSc (first rank among 10 students).

He was invited as a Visiting Research Associate by the School of Materials Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales, Australia in 2002. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in Inha University, Korea (2004-2005) in the erstwhile Textile Engineering Department (currently Chemical Engineering). Subsequently, he served as an Assistant Professor in the department of Materials Science at AIMST University, Malaysia during 2005-2008. He joined his present organization (NITK-Surathkal) in 2009 as an Assistant Professor and rose in ranks as Associate Professor and Professor in 2012 and 2018, respectively, due to his diligence and hard work. He has been teaching courses in the areas of polymers, nanomaterials, materials characterization, and nanocomposites.

Under his mentorship, 8 students have earned their doctoral degrees so far and 4 more have been working towards their PhD. He has also guided 36 master's research projects in various areas related to polymers and nanotechnology. He has published 82 articles in peer reviewed international journals and his publications have so far received about 1400 citations. He has also published a patent; 3 books and 14 book chapters. His book titled 'Advances in Polymer Materials and Technology' was published in 2016 by Taylor and Francis, CRC press. He was the principal investigator of 2 sponsored research projects. He is currently a member of the teams that have secured highly competitive research grants from Department of Science & Technology (DST), India and National Science Foundation, USA. His strenuous efforts have resulted in the establishment of various research facilities in his institute, such as the advanced nanofiber lab, piezoelectric materials lab, and polymers & nanomaterials lab. He has been a referee for more than 50 international journals of repute. He has refereed about 30 doctoral dissertations from India and abroad.

Anandhan has been admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), UK in September 2021 for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of the chemical sciences through his research on Advanced Functional Nanofibers, Energy Materials, and Polymer Nanocomposites. He has won a number of awards and honors among which Doctoral Research Fellowship from DST-India, Australia-India Council Fellowship, Postdoctoral Fellowship from Inha University-Korea, ARCNN-ARNAM Fellowship from UNSW-Australia, Fast Track Award for young scientists from DST-India are some of the noteworthy ones. Earlier, he was Elected Fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India) and Indian Chemical Society in 2017 and 2019, respectively.

Prof. Selvakumar Murugesan is an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. Prior to joining NITK, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Chair of Biomaterials, University of Bayreuth, Germany through the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Fellowship. Earlier, he had a couple of stints as a Postdoctoral Fellow at École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada, and Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea. He earned his doctoral degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in 2016. He has a Master's degree in Materials Engineering from NITK and Bachelor degree in Polymer Technology from Anna University. Selvakumar has won the Gandhian Young Technology Innovation award in 2016 for his doctoral research. He is an interdisciplinary researcher who focuses on functional polymers for biomedical applications. He has published 30 full length articles in refereed journals and 4 book chapters. His research aims at understanding the mechanical and biological behaviour of biopolymers, copolymers, spider silk protein, nanostructured polymers, and their hybrids for regenerative medicine including 3D printing approaches. Currently he has been co-guiding a couple of PhD students and three master's students have completed their research projects under his supervision.

Prof. Arunjunai Raj Mahendran received his bachelor's degree in Polymer technology with university rank and gold medal from Madurai Kamaraj University, India. He was awarded master's and Ph.D. in Polymer Engineering and Science from the Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria. He is currently working as Project Manager/Key Researcher at Kompetenzzentrum Holz GmbH, Austria since 2007. He works with researchers and scholars from different disciplines in a research team called "Green Composites" majorly dealing with renewable materials and composites. He carried out several research and development projects with small and medium size industries funded by the Austrian Research Promoting Agency and also received the JEC innovation award, Innovation and Research award from Carinthian province (Austria). The notable projects he worked on along with industry partners are: small wind turbine blades from natural fibre reinforced composites, development of bio-based thermoset matrix resins for automotive parts.

Arunjunai Raj Mahendran has also an external university teaching assignment at University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria. He has guided 6 master's research projects in various areas related to natural fibres and polymers. He mentored 3 doctoral students and his research interests are: bio-based thermoset resins, biodegradable thermoplastics, cure kinetics of thermoset resins, isocyanate free polyurethane, renewable coatings, high temperature thermoset resins, polymer nanocomposites, and natural fibre reinforced composites. He is author of 60 full length research papers in peer reviewed international journals and his publications have so far received about 480 citations. Apart from that he authored 5 book chapters and presented his research works in 65 conference papers. He has been a referee for international journals and doctoral dissertation works.