Dr. Shantikumar Nair is the Director, Amrita Centre for Nanosciences. A former IIT Bombay graduate in Metallurgical Engineering, he received his PhD at Columbia University in the city of New York in 1983. He was a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA, in the School of Engineering, since 1985. He received the prestigious Presidential Young Investigator Award for research in composite materials from the President of the United States in 1986. He was involved in research in nanocomposite materials for the last decade. He has two books and about a 100 international publications in the field of materials science.

Dr Manzoor K, is Associate Professor in ACNS and specializing in the area of Nanotoxicology, Nanomedicine and Cancer-nanotechnology. Prior to joining ACNS during June 2007, Dr. Manzoor has served as Staff-scientist in Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Ministry of Defense for about 10 years and has extensive research experience in the design and development of functional nanosystems including luminescent quantum dots for bio-imaging, plasmonic nanocrystals for SPR based chem-bio-sensing, magnetic nanocrystals for contrast imaging, multifunctional nanocrystals, nano-photomedicines, etc. His valuable contributions to the area of Nanotechnology has been appreciated by Govt. of India by conferring prestigious awards such as DRDO Technology Developer of the Year 2006, National Science Day Award for Nano Research 2005, DRDO Young Scientist of the Year 2004, and Best Laboratory Scientist of the Year 2003. He has about 25 international publications on functional nanomaterials and two international patents (PCT) on nanotechnology.

Dr. Deepthy Menon, Assistant Professor at Amrita Centre for Nanosciences, Cochin, since its inception in June 2006. She is a PhD in Physics from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, with five years of post-doctoral experience, in Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and at the International School of Photonics, Cochin University of Science and Technology. She is the recipient of the “Best Thesis Award” constituted by the Indian Laser Association in 2002. She has received several other recognitions in her research career, which include the Young Research Award from International Union of Materials Research Societies (1999), Young Scientist Fellowship from Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India 2002, and Rapid Young Investigator Grant from Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India 2007. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the DBT project, which aims to explore the use of semiconductor nanocrystals for cancer diagnostics. Her current research programs include development of various types of nanosystems for medical applications such as cancer imaging, tissue engineering, drug delivery as well as toxicological concerns of nanomaterials. She has to her credit nearly twenty publications in internationally reputed journals.

Dr. R.Prasanth, Assistant Professor, received his PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology in Photonic switching in III-V nanostructures. He carried out his research activities at the COBRA Inter University Research Center And European Institute Of Telecommunication Technology. After receiving PhD, he pursued his research activities at Dye Institute, the Netherlands and the National Institute of Nanotechnology, Canada. He published more than 25 articles in international journals and conferences, including Physical Review Letters and Applied Physics Letters. Some of these articles are included in the list of selected papers. He also reviewed articles for many international journals.

Dr. Rangasamy Jayakumar, Associate Professor, received his PhD in Polymer Chemistry from Anna University, India. He has six years postdoctoral experience in Korea, Portugal and Japan. He was a recipient of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Award for a research fellowship at Kansai University in Japan where he developed biodegradable polymer nanomaterials and polymetal complexes. He has about 50 journal publications, mostly in international journals. His current interest is the chemical modification of natural biopolymers with applications in nanomedicine.

Dr.K P Soman (Ph.D., IIT-Kharagpur)
Professor & Head, CEN
16 years of research & teaching experience at IIT-Kharagpur, AEC-Bhatkal, and Amrita. Has around 60 publications in national & international journals and conference proceedings. Has organized a series of workshops and summer schools in e-commerce, fractals, chaos, neural networks, and wavelets for industry and academia. Currently on deputation to the Center for Excellence in Computational Engineering and Networking (CEN). Authored a book on“Insight into Wavelets”, published by Prentice Hall, New Delhi.

Dr. Ramachandran K. I. (Ph.D., IIT- Madras)
Research Faculty, CEN, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and Assistant Professor, Dept. of Production Engg, Amrita Institute Of Technology.
Dr. Ramachandran K. I. is currently working as Research Faculty, CEN, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and Assistant Professor, Dept. of Production Engg, Amrita Institute Of Technology.B.Tech. in Mechanical engineering from Govt. Engineering College, Trichur under Calicut University. M.Tech (Mech. engineering) from IIT-KanpurPhD in Manufacturing Engineering from IIT-Madras.His research interests are Finite Element Analysis, Computational Fluid dynamics, Wavelets, Signal Processing and Partial Differential Equations. He is senior member of SME. He is a member of ASME, SIAM, ISA, Institution of Engineers, Computer Society of India and ISTE. He has many papers to his credit and has participated and conducted several conferences/workshops in India.

Dr. Nikhil K. Kothurkar, Ph.D (University of Florida)
Nikhil K. Kothurkar joined Amrita Vishwa Viyapeetham in 2007 after completing higher studies in the US. He has a B.E. (Polymer Engineering) from Maharashtra Institute of Technology, University of Pune, India where his final year project was “Hollow Fiber-Reinforced Polyester, Wind Turbine Blades”. In 1999, he moved to Gainesville, Florida, USA, to pursue his graduate studies in the University of Florida, Materials Science and Engineering Department. He worked as a graduate research assistant under the guidance of Dr. Anthony B. Brennan. His research project was developing inorganic-organic particulate nanocomposites for ultrafast infrared optical sensor protection from destructive laser attacks. He graduated with a doctoral degree in August 2004, after defending his dissertation entitled “Solid State Cadmium Sulfide-Polymer Nanocomposites”. He was offered a position as a postdoctoral research associate in the Solar Energy and Energy Conversion Laboratory, University of Florida, for two years. Here developed rugged and crack-free sol-gel photocatalyst coatings on metal and ceramic substrates. He also worked on a project to develop lower cost hydrocarbon polymer electrolyte membranes for fuel cells. He further worked as a Research Scientist in the Clean Energy Research Center, University of South Florida for a year in the fields of photocatalysis and its applications in biomedical devices, and hydrogen production by biomass gasification.
His fields of interest are nanomaterials, photocatalysis, biomedical materials and devices, low cost waster treatment, alternative energies. Currently he is teaching Environmental Science and Engineering and Materials Science, at Amrita.

Dr. Murali Rangarajan, Ph.D (University of Florida, Gainesville USA)
Dr. Murali Rangarajan has recently joined the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham as an Assistant Professor. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Electrochemical Engineering in 1997 from Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi through Madurai Kamaraj University. During this time, he worked on design and lab scale development of a PEM electrolyzer to dissociate potassium sulfate. He obtained his master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1999, wherein he worked as a part of a team involved in the development, testing and installation of software sensors for online optimization of an atmospheric crude distillation unit (CDU) at the Indian Oil Corporation, Mathura Refinery, India. He then joined the University of Florida, Gainesville USA for his doctoral studies. He obtained his PhD in 2006 for a dissertation titled “Polymer-Induced Forces at Interfaces” in which he studied equilibrium forces of compression of physisorbed polymer layers using lattice mean-field theories and simulations, and biophysical modeling of the motility of Listeria monocytogenes propelled by actin filaments. He worked brief as a visiting research scholar (post-doctoral fellow) at the Clean Energy Research Center at the University of South Florida on modeling and simulation of alternate energy systems, including combined power/cooling thermodynamic cycles and thermochemical methods of hydrogen production.
His current research interests include modeling and simulation of confined complex fluids, modern control strategies for crude oil processing units, petroleum reservoir engineering, alternate energy systems for fuel and cooking, and developing innovative strategies to improve engineering education.

Dr.Bipin Nair
Professor and Dean, School of Biotechnology
Dr. Nair, joined us from MDS Pharma Services, USA, where he worked for the past 12 years as the Research Manager in the Lead Discovery Group. Dr. Nair was responsible for the coordination of New Assay Development and High Throughput Screening. He has been responsible for generating several million dollars in revenues over the past decade at MDSPS and has over 30 international publications to his credit.