RSC Meet the Editors - Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India

Dr. B. L. V. Prasad from the National Chemical Laboratory of Pune has been appointed as the Director of the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences, Bangalore. Dr. Prasad is also working as a Senior Principle Scientist, Physical/Materials Chemistry Division of National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), Pune, India. He obtained a Master of Science and PhD degrees in Chemistry from the Hyderabad Central University. After two post-doctoral stints; one at Tokyo Institute of Technology (2 years JSPS fellowship and 1-year Research Associateship) and second at Kansas State University (KSU; 2.5 years -NASA sponsored project); he joined NCL in 2003 and continuing there at present. His group is actively working in the general area of material synthesis and in particular nanoparticles and nanoscale materials. He has published more than 125 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and has 8 international patents to his credit. He was invited as visiting professor by different universities in many countries, including Japan, USA, UK, France and Germany.

Professor Chengzhong (Michael) Yu is a chemist and materials scientist working at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland. He has a joint appointment at East China Normal University. His current research interests include nanostructured and nanoporous materials and their applications in drug delivery, sustainability and energy storage applications. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed journal articles, which have been cited over 36,400 times and resulted in an H-index of 103 (Google Scholar). He has received several awards including the Le Févre Memorial Prize from the Australian Academy of Science.

Professor Eva Hemmer is an Associate Professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Ottawa. She received her PhD (2008) in materials science from Saarland University, Germany. After a postdoctoral experience at Tokyo University of Science, Japan, with Prof. K. Soga (2009-2012), she moved to Canada to become a joint Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow with Profs. F. Vetrone and F. Légaré at Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS-EMT, Montreal, 2012-2015). In the winter of 2016, Eva came to Ottawa where her research team focused on new designs of upconverting and near-infrared-emitting rare-earth-based nanoparticles for bioimaging, optoelectronic, and optomagnetic applications, accompanied by chemically controlled synthesis via microwave-assisted routes, surface chemistry, and understanding of structure-property relationships. She received the 2021 Jubilee Global Diversity Award of the American Ceramic Society (Engineering Ceramics Division) and the 2021 Early-career Achievement Award in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology by NanoOntario.

Subinoy Rana is currently an associate professor in the Materials Research Centre under Chemical Sciences division at IISc Bangalore. Before joining here, he was an assistant professor at Newcastle University, UK. He was a Marie Curie research fellow at Imperial College London after finishing PhD on functionalized metal nanoparticles for biosensing applications at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. His multidisciplinary research focuses on developing novel biomimetic systems using supramolecular chemistry concepts and their applications in catalysis, diagnostics, personalized drug development, precision medicine and environmental remediation. Subinoy is currently an editorial board member of Materials & Interfaces, Inorganic Chemistry Communications and Biosensors journal.

Dr. Suryasarathi Bose is a Professor in the Department of Materials Engineering, IISc Bangalore. Prior to joining IISc Bangalore as a faculty member in 2011, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Katholieke University of Leuven (Belgium), where he was hosted by Prof. Paula Moldenaers. He received his PhD in Materials Engineering from IIT Bombay. Prof. Bose’s research interests include recycling and upcycling of plastics, Vitrimers, membranes for water remediation and desalination, hybrid nanostructured material for heavy metal adsorption, structure property correlation in polymer blends and nanocomposites, concentration fluctuation and segmental dynamics in multiphase systems, directed self-assembly using demixing in polymer blends as a tool, and materials for EMI shielding and microwave absorption. Prof. Bose has published more than 300 articles in journals of international repute. He is the recipient of many awards and accolades, including the prestigious Swarnajayanti Fellowship from the DST and SERB, Government of India, NASI Scopus Young Scientist Award, Prof. Satish Dhawan Young Engineer State Award, Young Scientist award of the Asian Polymer Association, Prof. Kaushal Kishore Memorial Award of SPSI, the Young Innovator Award, the Young Engineer Award from the INAE, INSA Medal for Young Scientist, PPS Young Scientist Award, the DAE-BRNS Young Scientist Research Award, and  the Distinguished Young Rheologist Award from TA Instruments, USA. He has served on the editorial boards of several prominent international journals and is the editor-in-chief of Journal of Materials Science: Composites and editorial board member of Nanoscale.

Professor Umesh Waghmare received a B Tech (with institute silver medal) in Engineering Physics from the IIT, Bombay (1990) and a PhD in Applied Physics from Yale University (1996). He worked as a post-doctoral research associate in physics department at Harvard University before joining Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in 2000, where he is presently a Professor in the Theoretical Sciences Unit and the Dean of Academic Affairs. He is a recipient of DuPont Young Faculty grant award (2003), MRSI medal (2004), a B M Birla award for Physics (2005), a DAE outstanding research investigator award (2009), IBM Faculty Award (2009), SS Bhatnagar award in Physical Sciences (2010) and a GE unrestricted-grant for research (2011). He received the India Citation Award-2012 from the Thomson Reuters Research Excellence, and a JC Bose National Fellowship in 2012. In 2015, he received the Infosys Prize in Engineering and Computer Science. He is a Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy, and presently a Secretary of the Indian Academy of Sciences. His research interests include ab initio modelling and simulations of multifunctional materials, mechanical behaviour, nanostructures, topological insulators and materials for energy and environment.

Dr Heather Montgomery is Managing Editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry’s journals Nanoscale Horizons and Nanoscale within the wider materials & nano journals portfolio. She has been with the Royal Society of Chemistry since 2010 working on a variety of RSC journals including Energy & Environmental Science, PCCP, Chemicals Society Reviews, Chemical Communications and Faraday Discussions. Prior to this she studied chemistry at the Queen’s University of Belfast, UK from where she obtained a PhD in inorganic chemistry.

Lijina is an Assistant Editorial Development Manager at the Royal Society of Chemistry. As part of her role, she works across various disciplines and societies of chemical sciences and support the journals. Lijina completed her integrated PhD in chemistry from the Indian institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram and subsequently she joined the RSC.