DAAD Research Ambassadors

Agriculture, Forestry, Geo- and Hydroscience

• Dr Amar Agarwal
  IIT Kanpur, India
  Focus Areas: Applied Structural Geology; Impact Cratering; Rock Magnetism
• Dr Ankit Agarwal
  IIT Roorkee, India
  Focus Areas: Hydro-climatic patterns, teleconnections, and extreme events; Multi-scale dynamics of the Earth system; Big data, wavelets and complex network; Statistics of extreme/rare events, statistical/machine learning, and different flavors of regression
• Dr Chamila Madurangani Dias
  Open University of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka
  Focus Areas: Hydrology – Irrigation management on rice cultivation
• Dr Rumana Rana
  Khulna University, Bangladesh
  Focus Areas: Study of wood chemical components by spectroscopic method;  Functional anatomy of tropical hardwood species; Study of hydraulic architecture of different wood species
• Dr Archana Raghavan Sathyan
  Kerala Agricultural University, India
  Focus Areas: Climate Change and Adaptation Studies; Gender; Citizen Science

Architecture and Planning

• Prof. Dr Gaurav Raheja
  IIT Roorkee, India
  Focus Areas: Design for human inclusion – ageing and gender; Universal design; Inclusive mobility systems; Accessibility policy; Social equity; Child-friendly urbanism; Contextual research methods; Visual communication; Design thinking; Architectural theory and pedagogy
• Dr Janaka Wijesundara
  University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
  Focus Area : Sustainable urban design; Urban and community planning; Place; Urban architecture and cultural identity; Urban generation; Ancient planning and urban design in South Asia

Bioscience & Medicine

• Dr Satish Kumar Adiga
  Manipal Academy of Higher Education ( MAHE), India
  Focus Area : Clinical Embryology; Clinical Embryology; Assisted Reproductive Technology; Andrology; Fertility Preservation
• Dr Jaydeep Bhattacharya
  Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
  Focus Areas: Nanobiotechnology; Biosensors; Single molecule fluorescence microscopy
• Dr Vasudharani Devanathan
  IISER Tirupati, India
  Focus Areas: Cell adhesion molecules in neurodegeneration and neurite outgrowth; Neuronal membrane proteins; G protein signalling in platelets and neutrophils; Teaching methods in interdisciplinary biology
• Dr Chandan Goswami
  NISER Bhubaneshwar, India
  Focus Area : Cell biology; Implications in pain and pathophysiology
• Dr Ram Kulkarni
  Symbiosis International(Deemed University), India
  Focus Area : Food biotechnology; Biochemical and molecular characterisation of probiotic; Lactic acid bacteria
• Dr Sirsha Mitra
  Savitribai Phule Pune University, India
  Focus Areas: Molecular Biology – Herbivore-induced changes in the plant’s proteome and the role of atypical herbivore-responsive proteins in Nicotiana attenuata
• Dr Sagar Pandit
  IISER Pune, India
  Focus Areas: Agrobiotechnology; Biopesticide discovery; Chemical ecology; Molecular ecology; Restoration ecology
• Dr Areejit Samal
  Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai, India
  Focus Areas: Complex networks; Systems biology; Metabolic networks; Gene regulatory networks; Chemical spaces for drug discovery and toxicology; Protein secretion system; Next generation sequencing data analysis; Geometry-inspired measures for complex networks; Statistical genetics
• Dr Avinash Sonawane
  IIT Indore, India
  Focus Areas: Host-pathogen interactions in tuberculosis; Leukemia drug development

Chemistry

• Dr Aruna Dhathathreyan
  Emeritus Prof. AcSIR, CSIR-CLRI, India
  Focus Area : Biophysical Chemistry; Design of new materials at interfaces; Thin polymeric and protein films; Adhesion proteins; Soft condensed matter; lipid-protein interactions ; Bio-nanotechnology
• Dr Prasanta Ghorai
  IISER Bhopal, India
  Focus Area : Methods for organic synthesis with chemo-, regio-, diastereo- and enantio-selectivity; Synthesis of complex molecules possessing interesting structural, biological and physical properties
• Dr Thiruvancheril Gopalakrishanan Gopakumar
  IIT Kanpur, India
  Focus Area : Molecular functional materials; Scanning tunneling; Atomic force microscopy; Surface science
• Dr Kiran R Gore
  IIT Kharagpur, India
  Focus Areas: Bio organic Chemistry; Chemically modified siRNAs for therapeutic applications; Design and development of chromogenic sensors for the detection of biologically important molecules.
• Dr Anant Kapdi
  Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) Mumbai, India
  Focus Areas: Palladium Catalysis- Homogeneous catalysis using palladium and nickel based complexes, C-H bond Functionalization of heterocycles; Green Chemistry approaches to synthesis; Microwave assisted organic reactions in aqueous media; Nucleoside modification and development of fluorescent and biological probes; palladium-based anticancer agents development
• Dr M. Nuruzzaman Khan
  University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
  Focus Areas: Surface modification by E-beam/UV promoted chemical lithography; Effect of environmental estrogens in breast cancer; Removal of heavy metals from tannery waste;  Complex sculpturing of 3D DNA nanostructures, synthesis of DNA brush by SIEP; Development of biomaterials for bio-medical applications; Fabrication of natural fiber composites for construction and engineering
• Dr Sukhendu Nandi
  NIPER Mohali, India
  Focus Areas: Bottom-up and top-down approaches for the syntheses of carbon dots for multicolour real-time visualization of membrane processes; Live cells imaging, bacteria sensing and detection, structural studies of membrane binding proteins and dynamics of binding;  Novel approaches for lipid modification of carbohydrates-syntheses; Surface-Active properties and supramolecular self-assemblies
• Dr Arvind Natu
  IISER Pune, India
  Focus Area : Organic chemistry; Bio organic chemistry; Combinatorial chemistry; Biology in drug discovery
• Dr Dinesh Sawant
  CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, India
  Focus Area : Catalysis – homogeneous, heterogenous, nano, organocatalysis, bioorganometallics; Organic synthesis; Physical organic chemistry; C1 chemistry; Catalysis for energy
• Dr Kalidas Sen
  University of Hyderabad, India
  Focus Area : Density functional theory; Confined electronic systems; Chemical applications of information theory

Engineering

• Dr Srinivas Boppu
  IIT Bhubaneshwar, India
  Focus Area : High level synthesis; Programmable hardware accelerators; Coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures; System-on-Chip design; Low power VLSI, CAD for VLSI
• Dr Manmohan Goel
  VNIT Nagpur, India
  Focus Area : Finite Element Analysis and Modeling; Computational and Continuum Mechanics; Structural Analysis; Materials Engineering; Solid Mechanics; Numerical Simulation
• Dr Amitava Gupta
  Jadavpur University, India
  Focus Area : Distributed Real-time Systems; Power Plant Simulation & Control; Nuclear Power Engineering
• Dr Subhamoy Mandal
  IIT Kharagpur, India
  Focus Areas: Medical Image & Signal Processing; Medical Imaging, Photoacoustics/Optoacoustics; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Augmented Surgeries; Point-of-care diagnosis
• Dr Ramesh Kumar Maskey
  Kathmandu University, Nepal
  Focus Area : Hydraulic engineering; Hydropower engineering; Energy technology; Robotics; Mechatronics
• Dr Jyotirmay Mathur
  MNIT Jaipur, India
  Focus Area : Energy efficiency in buildings; Passive cooling systems; Renewable energy and energy policy modelling; Development of codes and standards; Low energy cooling
• Prof. Dr Vasant Matsagar
  IIT Delhi, India
  Focus Areas: Multi-Hazard Engineering: Blast, Fire, and Wind Engineering; Earthquake Engineering; Structural Dynamics and Vibration Control; Computational/ Finite Element Methods; Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) in Prestressed Concrete Structures; Bridge Engineering
• Dr Subha Narayan Rath
  IIT Hyderabad, India
  Focus Area : Molecular analysis angiogenesis and osteogenesis; Application of biomaterials; 3-D bioprinting using stem cells; Biomaterials to fabricate organs; Evaluation of biomaterials
• Dr Saptarshi  Sasmal
  CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Center, Chennai, India
  Focus Areas: Health monitoring and assessment of critical infrastructures; Performance based design and life extension of aging infrastructure; Nonlinear ultrasonic and vibro-acoustical techniques for integrity assessment; Nano-engineered novel and smart composites for disaster resilience and embedded sensing for continuous health; Analysis and design of special structures
• Dr Gargeshwari K Suryanarayana
  Dayananda Sagar University (Ex-NAL), India
  Focus Area : Reduction of aerodynamic drag; Innovations in active and passive flow control; Unsteady aerodynamics; Air-intake aerodynamics; Transonic flows

Environmental Sciences, Energy

Humanities, Social Sciences and Language

• Dr Milind Brahme
  IIT Madras, India
  Focus Areas: Literary Studies; German language and literature; Education / Pedagogy
• Dr Farhat Naz
  IIT Jodhpur, India
  Focus Areas: Natural Resource Management; Water Governance; Forest Governance; Disaster Risk Reduction; Climate Change Adaptation; Resilience; Poverty Reduction; Agroforestry; Gender; Social Exclusion; Caste; Sanitation; CSOs; Governance Studies; Public Goods & Services Management; CPR

Management

• Dr Rajendran C
  IIT Madras, India
  Focus Area : Scheduling in manufacturing and service systems; Logistics management; Inventory optimization ; Lot sizing problems; Heuristics, metaheuristics and applications; Total quality management
• Dr Ishanka Chathurani Karunarathne
  University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
  Focus Areas: International Human Resource Management; Cross-cultural Management; Dual Career Couples; Work-family Integration

Material sciences

• Prof. Dr Ashok Raichur
  IISc Bangalore, India
  Focus Areas: Engineered nanomaterials for a variety of applications including nanomedicine to treat cancer, hepatitis C and bacterial infections; Nanocomposites – core-shell and hybrid nanoparticles for toughening epoxies; 3D Bioprinting for tissue engineering; Nanotoxicology – Fate and effect of engineered nanoparticles
• Dr Mayur Vaidya
  IIT Hyderabad, India
  Focus Areas: Diffusion behaviour of deformed and nanocrystalline materials; Design and development of novel high entropy alloys; Thermal stability and environmental interaction of materials during real time applications; Processing, characterisation and stability of nanocrystalline alloys

Mathematics, Computation, Data Sciences

• Prof. Dr Shajulin Benedict
  IIIT Kottayam, India
  Focus Areas: Cloud Computing; IoT; Supercomputers; Parallel Compilers
• Dr Pratibhamoy Das
  IIT Patna, India
  Focus Area : Numerical analysis; Moving mesh methods; Singular perturbation; A posteriori error estimates; R-refinement strategy; Integral equations; Fractional order equations; Nonlinear problems
• Dr Tanka Dhamala
  Tribhuvan University, Nepal
  Focus Area : Modelling and solving the real-life problems; Simulation and heuristic algorithms; Shop scheduling; Just-in-time sequencing; Network optimisation; Emergency evacuation planning; Disaster scenarios
• Dr Nagarajan Ganapathy
  IIT Hyderabad, India
  Focus Areas: Artificial Intelligence (AI) for healthcare; Affective computing; Big data in medicine; Internet of Medical Things, Explainable AI, Wearable and smart sensors; Behavioural informatics; Signal and Image analytics; Drug discovery and repurposing; Federated Learning
• Dr Sashikumaar Ganesan
  Indian Institute of Science, India
  Focus area: Numerical analysis; Finite elements; Computational fluid dynamics; Simulation of multiphase flows; Population balance modelling; High performance computing
• Dr Panchatcharam Mariappan
  IIT Tirupati, India
  Focus Areas: Numerics for PDEs; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Mathematical Modeling; GPU computing; Numerical Linear Algebra; Mesh Free Methods; FEM; FVM; Computational biology; Heat Transfer
• Dr Areejit Samal
  Institute of Mathematical Sciences, India
  Focus Area : Network biology; Computational biology; Systems biology
• Prof. Dr Subbiah Sundar
  NIT Mizoram, India
  Focus Areas: Numerics for PDEs; Mathematical Modeling & Numerical Simulation

Physics

• Prof. Dr Aranyabhuti Bhattacherjee
  BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus, India
  Focus Areas: Quantum photonics; Quantum optomechanics; Quantum optics of nanostructures; Modeling of quantum devices
• Dr Gopal Dixit
  IIT Bombay, India
  Focus Areas: Ultrafast physical and chemical processes; Natural timescales; Attosecond and femtosecond
• Dr Nilotpal Ghosh
  SERB-DST, India
  Focus Area : Super Conductivity; Material science; Condensed matter physics; Growth of single crystals and material synthesis; Transport and magnetization measurements at low temperature

DAAD Research Ambassadors are academicians and scientists who have a long standing relationship with Germany and are interested in promoting Germany as a destination for higher learning and scientific cooperation by sharing their experience, mentoring students and colleagues. As established members of the academic/scientific community they help inspire their colleagues and students to consider Germany as a partner in their work or as a destination for study or research  by answering their questions and by organising events on and off campus. As Research Ambassadors they also support the DAAD in organising and conducting PhD Proposal Writing Workshops.

DAAD has an extensive network of Research Ambassadors spread over India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Research Ambassadors are appointed by the DAAD Regional Office New Delhi for a duration of three years and work on an honorary basis.

Requirements

A DAAD Research Ambassador

1. is an academician/scientist or works for R&D in the industry, and has a PhD
2. is a citizen of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal or Sri Lanka
3. has studied/done research in Germany or has cooperation with German academic/research institutions, and
4. is upon selection invited attend an orientation workshop in New Delhi

Application and Deadline

An application together with the following is required from potential candidates:

1. Curriculum vitae
2. Recent photograph
3. Ideas and an open mind

If you have any questions about the programme, please write to marketing.newdelhidaad.de.