Postdoctoral Researcher

Ravi Tomar

Dr. Ravi Tomar is a SERB-TARE fellow at theDepartment of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi and also working as Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, SGT University, and Associate Dean: Students Welfare,SGT University, Gurugram. He completed his Doctorate Degree from the Department of Chemistry, University of Delhi and his work was devoted to the synthesis, characterization and application of Cerium-based catalysts. He didhis Master of Science at the School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, where his thesis was focused onbase-free oxidation of Aldose Sugars in Aldonic Acids using Supported GoldNanoparticles. He has also been awarded Master of Technology from theDepartment of Chemistry, University of Delhi. His current research focus is on the synthesis of various materials, andionic liquids and on the exploration of their applications in the variousfields. He has served as Guest editor in current organic chemistry and currentorganic synthesis and reviewer in various peer-reviewed journals. He haspublished more than 25 paper and book chapter in reputed journals. His Hobbies include music, travelling, volleyball etc.

Ph.D.

Shreya Singh (2018)

Shreya completed her B.Tech from NIT Bhopal in Chemical Engineering and M.Tech from IIT Delhi in Atmospheric Sciences. Her master’s project involved working on impact of aerosols on visibility using chemical transport modelling. She joined CRE group as Prime Minister Research Fellow in 2018 where is working on photocatalytic conversion of CO2 to value added products. Her hobbies include exploring new places and playing sudoku.

Snigdha Mishra (2018)

She obtained her B.Tech and M.Tech in Chemical Engineering from Banasthali University and IIT BHU, respectively. During her master project, she worked on potable water production via capacitive deionisation in which activated carbon was prepared from coconut shell. She also worked on removal of active pharmaceutical ingredients like (paracetamol, ibrufen, antiobiotics) from waste water using various adsorbents at CSIR NCL, Pune. Further, during her internship at Nuclear Fuel Complex at Dept. of Atomic Energy, Hyderabad, she worked on designing a ventilation system for zirconium sponge plant. Snigdha joined CRE group in 2018 where her work is focused on extracting precious metals from e-waste using green solvents. She enjoys music, travelling, reading novels, playing badminton.

Vaibhav Pandey (2018)

Vaibhav completed his B. Tech. from UPTU and M. Tech. in Chemical Engineering from IIT(ISM) Dhanbad. During his master’s he has worked on catalytic conversion of CO2 to methanol in fixed bed reactor.His present research area is catalytic conversion of syngas to methanol in slurry reactor. He enjoys swimming and playing chess.

Akshata Vijay Ramteke (2018)

Akshata completed her B.Tech and M.Tech in Chemical Engineering from Nagpur University and NIT Nagpur, Her master’s project work focused on synthesis and characterization of carbon foam from lignin phenol formaldehyde (LPF) resin and sucrose resin. Her industrial experience involves internships at Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Limited (RCF), Alibagh. Akshata joined CRE group (joint supervision, Prof. Divesh Bhatia) where she is currently working on “Upgradation of light cycle oil to value added products”. She enjoys listening to music, travelling, singing and playing badminton & ping pong.

Surya Chandra Tiwari (2018)

Surya obtained his B.Tech. (2016) and M. Tech (2018) degree in Chemical Engineering from Ch. Charan Singh University Meerut and IIT (BHU) Varanasi, respectively. He has worked on synthesis of PVA based hydrophilic membrane and their application in pervaporation of azeotropic mixtures during his master’s thesis. He joined CRE group (joint supervision, Prof. S. Upadhyayula) in 2018, where he is currently working on “Development of green novel solvents (ionic liquids based) for CO2 capture. His hobbies include travelling, reading and playing sports.

Pranit Samanta (2019)

Pranit completed his B.Sc (Chemistry Hons.) in 2012 and B.Tech from University of Calcutta in 2015. He pursued his M.Tech from the Department of Chemical Engineering, SVNIT, Surat in 2019. His master’s thesis work involved “Stacked Osmotic Microbial Fuel Cell for Simultaneous Recovery of Water and Bio-electricity from Wastewater”. At present in CRE group, his research work emphasizes on zeolite based catalytic alkylation process. He loves playing badminton, and photography.

Amrita Preetam (2019)

Amrita is pursuing her PhD from IIT Delhi. She is working on development of green process for the recovery of metals from electronic waste and conversion of e waste plastics into valuable products with supercritical fluids and is jointly supervised by Prof.K.K.Pant and Prof.S.N.Naik (CRDT). She obtained her M-Tech degree in Chemical Engineering from BITS Pilani, Rajasthan in 2016 where she worked on Experimental and theoretical studies of dye removal from industrial waste water using bioremediation. She has also worked on mitigation of membrane (bio) fouling and Evaluation of IR Nano particles for Sensitive E-field mapping as Junior Research Fellow (JRF) after her post graduation degree. She likes to paint, listen music and watch plays in her spare time.

Guguloth Venkanna (2019)

Venkanna obtained his bachelor's degree from the department of chemical engineering, VNIT Nagpur in 2015. His bachelor project involved study of thermal, mechanical and rheological properties of poly-carbonate nano-particles. His summer project involves\d the conversion of plastic waste into CNTs using Ni/Mo/MgO catalyst. He completed his master's from the department of chemical engineering (catalysis technology, NCCR) IIT Madras in 2017. His thesis work was development of photo electrocatalyst for the reduction of carbon dioxide to value added products. He had worked as a programme associate in Avanti Fellows. He joined CRE group in 2019 where he is working on photo electrocatalyst development for efficiently converting carbon dioxide to value added chemicals. His hobbies includes playing kho-kho and reading.

Iqra (2019)

Iqra completed B.tech and M.tech from National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar. Her masters project was focused on fabrication of Ion exchange membranes for direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). She has worked as faculty in department of chemical engineering NIT Srinagar from 2017 to 2018. She joined IIT Delhi in 2019, jointly supervised by Prof. K. K. Pant and Prof. M.A. haider. Her research area focuses on Methane Dehydroaromatization (MDA) process using zeolite supported metal catalyst. She like sketching and cooking in my leisure time.

Marut Jain (2019)

Marut received his M.Sc. Chemistry with Inorganic Chemistry as Specialization from University of Delhi. He holds Bachelor of Science with Honors in Chemistry from Ramjas College, University of Delhi. He has been endowed with DST INSPIRE Scholarship by Indian Government and also Summer Research Fellowship by the Indian Academy of Science, Bengaluru. He has worked as an apprentice in IOCL Panipat Refinery. Currently, He is in University of Queensland- IIT Delhi joint PhD program where his research work is focused on Green synthesis of CNTs-based hybrid aerogels for wastewater treatment. Marut is passionate about writing Hindi Poems and also generates and pitches ideas for the promotion of Hindi as a blogger.

Sadaf Aiman Khan (2019)

Sadaf is a silver medalist in her Master of Technology in Biotechnology from Integral University, Lucknow. She holds a Bachelor of Technology in Biotechnology from Amity University with a full 100% merit scholarship. She has worked as Research Intern in CSIR-IITR (Indian Institute of Toxicological Research) in Animal Cell Culture for one year. She had pursued her Master Dissertation at CSIR-NEERI (National Environment Engineering Research Institute). She is an IIT Delhi-University of Queensland joint PhD program student and her work at CRE lab is focussed on Development of biobased silver nanoparticles for application as wastewater disinfectant. She believes that self-motivation and zeal for learning keeps her going forward. Her hobbies are calligraphy, drawing and photography.

Shashank Shekhar (2019)

Shashank Shekhar completed M.tech in 2019 from Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad. His master’s project was focused on “Mathematical Modelling of Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation of Ternary and Quaternary System of Membrane Synthesis”. He has one year of industrial experience at Gujarat Ambuja Export Limited, Karnataka. He joined IIT Delhi in 2019, supervised by Prof. K. K. Pant. His research area focuses on “Conversion of Heavier Hydrocarbon into CNT and Its Commercial Application”. He enjoys reading books, writing couplet (shayari), playing flute etc.

Abhishek Sahoo

Sahoo completed his Integrated M.Tech (Energy Engineering) from the Central University of Jharkhand, Ranchi in 2020. In his final year of master’s project, he worked on "Assessment and analysis of Kinetics and Thermodynamics parameters for Scalability of Biomass Pyrolysis" in IIT-Guwahati and IIP-Dehradun under the supervision of Prof. K. Mohanty and Dr. T. Bhaskar respectively. He joined ChemE, IITD in 2020 and jointly supervised by Prof. K. K. Pant and Dr. T. Bhaskar. His hobbies include solo travelling, cooking, and gaming.

Shally Gupta

Shally completed her B.Tech. from Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT) Jaipur. and M.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. Her master's work was focused on the synthesis of metal-doped carbon-based nanomaterials for fuel cell and heavy metal removal applications. Before joining the CRE lab, she has four years of industrial experience at Tata Research Development and Design Center (TRDDC), Pune as a researcher.Her work at TRDDC was related to the development of functional coatings and metals recovery from hard disk magnets. Currently, she is pursuing PhD under the University of Queensland-IIT Delhi joint PhD program. Her PhD work is focused on metal recovery from electronic waste. She enjoys listening to music, playing table tennis and football.

Nidhi Kushwaha

Nidhi has completed her B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from Banasthali Vidyapith in 2018. During her bachelor’s, she worked as an intern in GAIL and ONGC. She completed her M.Tech in Fuel Engineering from IIT(ISM) Dhanbad, in 2021. During her post graduate studies she worked on “Production of hybrid fuel from Refuse derived fuel and biochar”. She has also worked on waste management and in the application of machine learning in heterogeneous catalysis. She is fond of English Literature.

Shivangi Pathak

Shivangi completed her B.Tech from Kurukshetra University in Chemical Engineering and M.Tech from IIT Delhi in Atmospheric Sciences. Her master's project involved working on the impact of aerosols vertical profile on its radiative forcing and climate over India. She joined Ph.D. in Dec 2019, supervised jointly by Prof. Priyanka Kaushal and Prof. K. K. Pant. She has been endowed with the Prime Minister Research Fellowship (PMRF) as a lateral entry. Her research area focuses on removing polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from petrochemical industries using activated biochar.

Ravi Kumar

Ravi Kumar is a Ph.D Research Scholar in CRDT, IIT Delhi under combined supervision of Prof. Priyanka Kaushal and Prof. K.K. Pant. He has rich experience of more than 6 years at Coal India Limited (CIL) as an Assistant Manager. His contribution and tireless efforts has helped in solving various challenges related to technological innovation & implementation, production enhancement, health & safety, environmental conservation etc. both in Underground as well as Opencast Mines of Coal India Ltd. He obtained his Bachelor of Technology in “Mining Engineering” and Master of Technology in “Safety Engineering and Disaster Management” at IIT Kharagpur in 2014. His areas of interest are integrated solid waste management, Biomass energy, clean energy technology related areas.

Rahul Kumar

Rahul did his B. Tech from University School of Chemical Technology, GGSIP University in Biochemical Engineering and M. Tech in Biochemical Engineering from School of Biochemical Engineering, IIT BHU. In his B. Tech included Algal cultivation in Modified Conventional Bioreactor, Photobioreactor Designs, CFD Simulations and Analysis which resulted in Major Publications in International and National Journals. His M. Tech work includes cultivation and optimization of fungal species (Mushrooms) and designing reactors based on rheological parameters for cultivation. Currently, He has been registered as full-time PhD student in IIT Delhi, jointly supervised by Prof. K. K. Pant and Prof. Anushree Malik. He has recently been awarded Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship. His research work includes the production of filter material from Algal Biochar. Cultivation of Microalgae in Wastewater, Biochar Production and Modification for Air Purification applications. Rahul Enjoys high end PC Gaming, Streaming Online, Travelling and is a Foodie.

Komalkant Adlak

Komalkant Adlak Obtained BS-MS (dual degree) in Chemistry from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal in 2017. His master's project work was focused on organic synthesis of pharmaceutically important compounds. He joined Biogas laboratory at CRDT, IITD under joint supervision of Prof Pant, Prof Ram and Prof. Vijay. His PhD work is focused on the "development of sustainable materials for the storage of upgraded biogas". Besides research he enjoys playing badminton.

Aisha Noor

Aisha is currently enrolled as a UQIDAR PhD student. She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate in Biotechnology from Jamia Millia Islamia 2021. Before enrolling at the joint PhD program-UQIDAR under Prof. Kamal Kishore Pant and Prof.Anushree Malik , she did her master's project in nanotechnology. She worked on synthesizing different morphology of nanoparticles and ultimately using them to formulate medicines and biosensors. At CRE Lab, she will be working on novel topical formulations of antimicrobials to treat skin infection/disorders. Besides this she is interested in sports, traveling and learning new languages.

Debi Prasad Samal

Debi Prasad received his B-Tech degree in Chemical Engineering from NIT Rourkela on 2014. Subsequently he continued his Masters in chemical engineering at IIT Kharagpur and passed out in 2016. He joined in MNC in Oil and Gas sector and worked for 4.5 years at Honeywell UOP before pursuing his Ph.D. in IIT Delhi under the joint supervision of Prof. Sreedevi Upadhyayula and Prof. K.K. Pant. He is working on the topic Catalytic conversion of syngas to methanol. His hobbies include travelling and playing table tennis. He also keeps a huge interest in current affairs and policy making of Govt./Private firms with respect to minimization of carbon footprint into the environment.

Aakash Bhardwaj

Aakash obtained his bachelor's degree from the department of chemical engineering, Institute of Technology Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya (ITGGV) Bilaspur (C.G.) in 2017. His bachelor project was focussed on "Production of Bio-ethanol from potato using algae and Saccharomyces Cerevisiae". His summer project and training involved the production of ethanol and rectified spirit from sugar molasses in Bajaj Hindustan Sugar Limited, Gola, U.P. He completed his Master's from the department of fuel and mineral engineering, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad in 2019. His master's project was focussed on the Recovery of heavy metals from effluents of Indian Leather and Tanning Industries by Ion Flotation. During his master's programme, he has done winter training project in Hindustan Copper Limited, Malajkhand, Balaghat, M.P. and summer training project in Uranium Corporation India Limited, Jaduguda, Jharkhand. He joined CRE group (joint supervision, Prof. Sreedevi Upadhyayula and Prof. Shantanu Roy) in 2019, where he is currently working on "Integrated carbon dioxide absorption and conversion to methanol using slurry reactor". He enjoys cooking, playing cricket and travelling.

Neethu Joshikumar

Neethu holds a Master of Technology in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering from T. K. M. College of Engineering, Kollam affiliated to University of Kerala. Her Bachelors project focused on preparation of Gasohol using bio-ethanol from sugarcane bagasse and design of batch fermenter which led to her interest in biomass conversion and sustainable technologies. She is a University of Queensland- IIT Delhi academy of research joint PhD candidate, joined CRE lab in January 2022 and is currently working on techno-economic and environmental assessment of conversion of biomass to value added chemicals. She has done projects in various fields such as biomass synthesis, material characterisation, effluent treatment, modelling of reactor and adsorber. In her free time she likes to draw, paint and read.

Abdul Rafey

Abdul Rafey holds M.Tech and B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). His masters work focussed on developing a model for prediction of methane emissions from landfill. He joined as a full time PhD student at IIT Delhi in August 2022 under the supervision of Prof. K.K. Pant. He has worked on several projects in the past including Synthesis of Heterogeneous Nanocatalysts at CSIR - National Chemical Laboratory, Pune; Industrial Training at Tata Chemicals, Haldia, West Bengal; and Municipal Solid Waste Characterization study at Bhandwari Landfill, Gurugram with TERI, New Delhi. His areas of interest include solid waste management, wastewater treatment and cleaner production.

Kaushik Kundu

Kaushik completed his M.Tech in Fuel Engineering from IIT (ISM) Dhanbad in 2019 and B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology (formerly known as WBUT) in 2017. During his M.Tech he worked upon characterization and production of bio-coke from agricultural wastes. He joined as a full time PhD student at IIT Delhi in August 2022 under the joint supervision of Prof. K.K. Pant, Prof. H. Kodamana and Prof. R.R. Sonde. His areas of interest include thermochemical conversion of coal and biomass, cement technology, solid waste management and gas hydrate dynamics. His hobbies are travelling, playing cricket and listening to music.

Part Time Ph.D.

Rajib Roy

Rajib acquired both his Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. His master degree project was focused on the efficiency improvement of Rotating Disc Bio-Reactor (RDBR) based on optimisation of operating parameters in production of marine bacteria. Currently he has joined as PhD student in Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Delhi. At CRE Group, his research work is focused on production of turquoise hydrogen from hydrocarbons and treading towards net-Zero. He enjoys trekking, reading poems and listening to music. He joined ONGC, Jorhat in April, 2012 and presently posted at Institute of Oil & Gas Production Technology (IOGPT) in Navi Mumbai, a R&D unit of ONGC. However, he served his first employer, Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) in Kolkata, as a Programmer Analyst for nearly one year. His hobbies are playing badminton and reciting poems

Satheesh V K

Satheesh V K obtained his B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering from Calicut University in 1996 and M. Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1998. His master’s thesis work was related to Computational Fluid Dynamics study of flow over a bundle of tubes. He has registered as part-time PhD student in IIT Delhi in 2016. His research area is the conversion of di-aromatics to mono-aromatics using zeolite based catalyst. He is currently working as General Manager at Indian Oil Corporation Ltd leading the technology licensing group including development of design of process plants. He likes to listen music, play badminton and violin.

Lalit Kumar

Lalit obtained his M.Tech (2007) in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay. His M.Tech work, under the supervision of Prof. V.A. Juvekar, focused on preparation and characterization of amphiphilic nano particles. He is currently working with Research & Development (R&D) Centre of BPCL (a fortune 500 company and one of the Oil and Gas majors in India) in the capacity of Senior Manager (R&D). His research areas include heterogeneous catalysis for bio-fuels (Green-diesel & Renewable Jet Fuel), lube oil dewaxing, FT synthesis and aromatic alkylation. Apart he has wide experience in the areas of synthetic lubricants, vacuum residue (VR) up-gradation, pressure swing adsorption & gas separations.
He has two Indian patents and one US patent to his credit and has contributed to three book chapters published under Taylor & Francis publication. He along with his team at BPCL R&D Centre has received “Best Innovation” award in year 2019 by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MOPNG), Government of India (GOI) for successfully commercializing indigenous lube oil dewaxing catalyst. Lalit joined IIT, Delhi and CRE group as PhD student in year 2018 and currently pursuing his PhD under the supervision of Prof K K Pant in the area of “Aromatic Alkylation to Valuable Petrochemicals”. He is a fine cricket player and enjoys reading motivational books.

Alumni

Name Year Of Passing Current Affiliation
Dr. Tony Sarvinder Singh, Ph.D. 2005 Deputy Director, Public Health Engineering Division Director, Virginia
Dr. H.A Zaidi, Ph.D. 2006 Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University
Dr. Akansha, Ph.D. 2007 Shell Houston
Dr. A. Nandini, Ph.D. 2007 SABIC Bangalore
Dr. Sanjay Patel, Ph.D. 2008 Nirma Institute of Technology
Dr. Sushil Saraswat, Ph.D. 2012 Asst. Professor, MBM Engineering college Jodhpur
Dr. Vikrant Sarin, Ph.D. 2014 Huber Membrane Dubai
Dr. S. K. Das, Ph.D. 2014 General Manager IOCL
Dr. Sachchit Majhi, Ph.D. 2014 Principal Researcher, Tata Steel Ltd., Jamshedpur
Dr. Pravkar Mohanty, Ph.D. 2014 Scientist-D, DST
Dr. Snehal Parmar, Ph.D. 2015 Research Scientist, Reliance India limited, Bombay
Dr. Garima Chauhan, Ph.D. 2015 Post Doc University of Alberta, Canada
Dr. Deepika, Postdoc 2015 Reliance India Limited, India
Dr. Ravindra Pradhan, Postdoc 2015 Research Officer, IOCL refinery
Dr. Dinesh Kumar, Ph.D. 2016 Asst. Prof GGS Indraprastha University, Delhi
Dr. Perminderjit Kaur Ph.D. 2016 Senior Policy Fellow, Jointly hosted by DST and IISc, Bangalore
Dr. Tarak Mondal, Ph.D. 2016 Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Ropar
Dr. Dinesh Gupta, Postdoc 2016 Quality Control Officer, IOCL Refinery
Dr. Vikas Kardam Ph.D. 2016 Cargill India Pvt. Ltd
Dr. Chandrakant Mukesh, Postdoc 2017 Postdoctoral Fellow, Umea University Sweden
Dr. Sonal, Ph.D. 2018 Asst. Professor, Chemical Engineering Department at NIT Jaipur
Dr. Poonam (CRDT), Ph.D. 2018 Reliance Industries Limited, India
Dr. Samuel Kassaye, Ph.D. 2018 Post Doc USA
Dr. Ritesh Mittal, Ph.D. 2018 Engineers India Limited
Dr. Tapas Dora Postdoc 2018 Associate Professor GMR Institute of Technology, Rajam
Dr. Ejaz Ahmad, Ph.D. 2019 Assistant Professor, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad
Dr. Kunche Babu, Ph.D. 2019 IOCL
Dr. Ashish Pandey, Postdoc 2021 Senior Scientist, Sherritt International, Fort Sasketchwan, AB, Canada
Dr. Shireen Quereshi, Postdoc 2021 Johnson Matthey, Gurgoan
Dr. Aditya Prakash, Postdoc 2021
Dr. Rohit Kumar, Ph.D. 2021 Assistant Professor, IIT BHU, Varanasi
Dr. Sonit Balyan, Ph.D. 2021 Post Doc University of Virginia
Dr. Sourabh Mishra, Ph.D. 2021 UOP Honeywell, Gurgaon
Dr. Arun Krishna Vuppaladadiyam Postdoc 2021 Hongkong Polytechnic University
Dr. Sonal Asthana Postdoc 2022 Director, Bajaj Insulation Company
Dr. Kaushal Parmar, Ph.D. 2021 Post Doc University of West Virginia
Dr. Ashish Bohre, Ramaligam fellow 2022 Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Kapurthala
Dr. Kunwar Pal, Postdoc 2022 Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Kapurthala
Dr. Arindam Modak, Postdoc 2022 Amity University, Noida
Dr. Ramdayal Panda, Ph.D. 2022 Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, NIT Jaipur
Dr. Akshay Mankar, Ph.D. 2022 UOP Honeywell, Gurgaon
Dr. Uma Dwivedi, Ph.D. 2023 UOP Honeywell, Gurgaon
Dr. Prashant Jadhao, Ph.D. 2023 Post Doctoral Researcher, UPC School, Spain
Dr. Komal Tripathi, Ph.D. 2023 Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Roorkee
Dr. Rajan Singh, Ph.D. 2023 Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Indore
Dr. Vallari R. Chourasia, Ph.D. 2023 Sandia National Laboratories, California
Dr. Deepti Mishra, Ph.D. 2024 Research Associate, The University of Queensland, Australia
Dr. Sagar Y. Dhanuskar, Ph.D. 2024