Yeah, sure.

Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia

Thank you SO and doctor Subir Kumar Patti. So first I completed my schooling from Saraswati. This with them on their Kale Square Katak in 2008. Followed by my +2 in Christ College cuttack. Where I done my +2 in science? Then I joined Stuart Science College. In Cuttack. With chemistry honors and physics pass there I. My rank was fourth in the university during my Bachelors of Science. Then I talked.

The entrance exam for Utkal University Masters in Chemistry and I completed my Masters in Chemistry in 2015 from Utkal University Department of Chemistry. Then I joined Raghunathjiu Degree College as a lecturer for six months where I teach. The undergrad.

You mentioned your university rank during your bachelor's—that's impressive. You were saying you "talked" after that. Go on.

So you taught undergrads at Raghunathjiu Degree College for six months. Anything else in your academic journey you'd like to add, or is that a good stopping point?

No, I want to add that my research experience after that. So I joined CSIR Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology for one year from 2017 to 18. Then I worked at the top institute of India that is Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Bombay. For one year. And followed by IIT Hyderabad for one year on different energy storage materials for supercapacitor applications. Then I joined my PhD in South Korea and I completed my PhD from one of the top institute of the world that is ranked 126th in the QS University Ranking. Sungkyunkwan University in Chemical Engineering and I. Published around 16 papers. During my my pre PhD and PhD period, currently I am working as a postdoctoral researcher at The Ohio State University, USA. Before this, I joined for a short-term project in Indian Institute of Science for four months where I published one paper as a corresponding author. So, this is my research journey and my academic background.

So that's all from my side.

You’ve taught undergraduate courses and supervised research at several institutions.

You’ve worked across top institutes in India and abroad, published extensively, and held postdoctoral roles. When you’re designing a chemistry course for new students, what foundational concept do you find most rewarding to teach?

So it depends upon the course which students are taking. So considering the chemistry background student, I'd love to teach them the basics of chemistry as I am an electrochemist so I'll. Do the electrochemistry starting with the basic concepts of electrochemistry. Followed by its advanced, uh studies and its application towards different energy storage devices like that. I think that's from my side. You can continue. Do you have any other questions?

You said you’d start with basics in electrochemistry, then move to advanced applications. When you introduce electrochemistry to undergrads, what’s your favorite way to make the concepts click for students who may be struggling with the math or theory?

So it is just like general they already. UH studied that during their uh schooling and the +2. So it is very easy to for them to continue the starting day 6. And for the advanced studies, there is not such mathematical or theoretical calculation. It is mostly electrochemistry is consisting of chemistry and physics things. So we will focus on the materials and its chemistry and how it works like that. Can we proceed? Do you have any other questions?

Professor, I see your thesis at Sungkyunkwan University was on “Molecular engineering of semiconducting conjugated polymers for high energy-density-supercapacitor applications.” Can you describe a moment where you had to simplify that research for a group of undergraduate students or non-specialists?

Yeah, sure. So it is just basically the undergrad students know that polymer is consisting of several monomeric units in a continuous form so far. Of that I studied different polymers that is consisting of different. Varieties of monomers in a conjugated manner. That's why we are calling it as a conjugated polymer and it is conducting in nature. That we applied with electrochemistry for different energy storage application like supercapacitor.

Right, so you broke down the polymer research by linking it to monomers and conjugation—keeping things concrete for students. If you had to explain why conjugated polymers are useful in supercapacitors to a class with no prior exposure to energy storage, how would you make that concept accessible?

How this material? Store the charge. And store the energy. We calculate by different.

You started to explain how the material stores charge and energy, and mentioned calculations — go ahead and finish your thought.

Yeah. So like you asked how it store charged like polymeric units have side chains like carbonyl C double bundle, nitrogen, oxygen, so those things interact with the electrolyte ions to store the charge. So in that way we like I said my. Thesis is engineering of polymeric materials. So we engineered that side chains. Which can enhance the charge storage ability by attracting the electrolyte ions and. Storing it. As energy. Which we can use to. Uh like lightning of LED bulbs or some small gadgets or watches top watch like that?

Yeah. So like you asked how it store charged like polymeric units have side chains like carbonyl C double bundle, nitrogen, oxygen, so those things interact with the electrolyte ions to store the charge. So in that way we like I said my. Thesis is engineering of polymeric materials. So we engineered that side chains. Which can enhance the charge storage ability by attracting the electrolyte ions and. Storing it. As energy. Which we can use to. Uh like lightning of LED bulbs or some small gadgets or watches top watch like that? Please continue.

Alright, let's shift to your research productivity and funding strategy. Given your experience in energy storage and supercapacitor materials, where do you see the most promising, fundable research directions over the next three years? Which grants or funding sources would you pursue to support that work?

Alright, so you engineered side chains to enhance charge storage by attracting electrolyte ions, which powers things like LEDs. Given your focus on energy storage materials, where do you see the most promising research directions for external funding over the next few years? What kinds of grants would you pursue?

Yeah. So now in India, there are a lot of abbreviations or availability of the findings like Prime Minister career research grant or an RF funding. So this energy sector is like in boom for the next three to five decades. So it will be very crucial to introduce some noble projects because a lot of people are working on this energy storage. So our selling point or our focus will be on this organic materials because normally people work on inorganic materials for this energy. So these organic materials are not much explored. So first our main point will be the new and noble materials, then how we can improve its performance or the main issue with these organic materials is the stability of the material. So by engineering these materials how we can enhance the stability and I talked mostly about supercapacitor that is high power density, low energy density used for small gadgets. Now we can improve that towards battery section which have high energy. And low power density by increasing its power density using this material and also matching the energy density of the inorganic material. So battery is another improvement of this super capacitor on which we can write some funding and can get it. So this is from my side. You can continue your questions please.

You’re focusing on novel organic materials for energy storage, highlighting stability and performance improvements, plus leveraging funding schemes like PM Career Research Grant and NRF. Given the competitive landscape, how would you build a research group at VIT University that can attract industry partnerships or consultancy projects in chemistry—and how would you leverage those connections for your students and research agenda?

Yeah, so as you can see from my CV that I worked with several. Good professors in India and outside.

You’ve worked with several top professors in India and abroad, which should help with network-building. Now,

So I know how. Set a lab so initial things like the globe box and the chemicals and the instrument for electrochemistry that we need to set up. And follow. Yeah, so as I said, I worked in South Korea, USA, so I interacted with many students that how to interact with students and how to set up a lab and laboratory course. So like we can design some basic electrochemistry courses for the undergraduate students from which they will be attracted towards this area. And they can contribute to this section by in future they can register for masters and PhD degree in bit and they can work in my lab and. Produce some good papers in collaboration in India as well as abroad. So it will be very. Yeah, interesting. For them, I can bring some international collaboration for bit, which is helpful for the institute and for myself also. So it will be like, uh. Give and take for both sides. Please continue.

So you’d set up the lab with the right electrochemical instruments and design courses to spark interest in energy storage, plus bring in international collaborations. When you’re teaching complex theoretical topics like quantum chemistry or thermodynamics, what specific methods or philosophies do you use to make them accessible for undergraduates?

So I'll first like the as everyone is a learner so before teaching them I have to learn from good books like Indian authors and the foreign authors. For example in Indian author there is Puri Sharma Botanya for thermodynamics and in the foreign authors Atkins is one of the excellent physical chemistry book for the electrochemistry. So I can combine those things and prepare some good. Notes for the student and teach them in such a manner that they can easily check those things and easily get the access for those books and read from that. So it will develop their theoretical knowledge. And for similarly for quantum chemistry we can follow some foreign author books or the Indian author books and combine and make our own syllabus according to that which will be helpful for them for their masters or the PhD degree in which they are interested. Any other questions please?

Okay, so you combine notes from trusted Indian and foreign authors, making sure students get access to both perspectives and the material is relevant for their advanced studies. That covers theory quite well. Given your experience, how do you evaluate students in these courses to ensure both their conceptual understanding and their practical skills are developing?

So for that apart from theoretical exams, we can give them some assignments on regular basis. According to some group of students or individual projects. From which they have to solve some equations or the problems or some practical applications in the laboratory. They can do that things in the practical way. For like already available basic materials like carbon materials or some metal oxide materials and put them in the experimental setup and how it works and what is electrolyte, what is electrode, so basic things. So from that we can give them some assignment and from their assignment structure we can evaluate their understanding. If you think it's. Correct. Then you can please continue with your next questions.

Let’s dive into pedagogical innovation, Professor. You mentioned designing basic electrochemistry lab courses to get undergraduates excited. Suppose you can’t rely on slides or rote lectures—how would you run a session for a large group that keeps students genuinely engaged and makes the material stick?

Sorry, I cannot understand what you exactly want. So I don't know.

No problem, Professor. Let me repeat the question for clarity. Imagine you’re teaching a large group of undergraduates a basic electrochemistry lab course, but you can’t use slides or give a standard lecture. What would you do in that session to keep the students actively engaged and help them really grasp the material?

Yeah, we can do some quiz like making some team and ask some just basic questions and I can like give them some homework. To to continue that things in the quiz we discussed how we can implement that in their future classes and in the next class we can discuss the same thing with the slides if it is available.

You’d run team-based quizzes and homework to keep students involved, then follow up next class using slides if available. If some students aren’t participating or seem disengaged, what would you do during the session to draw them in and make sure everyone’s actually learning?

So basically quiz and competition between the student groups that will be make them engaged. Yeah. So during that in the team, I will not allow like that they will only one person will answer. So we can ask them to. Front and give their opinion, it is like not about the right answer or wrong answer. It's like how their opinion about the topic, how they are tackling the problem like that. So it will be just like a learning. It is not like they need to know everything they can learn with each and every experience. So if I see someone is not engaged completely then I can make the separate groups and ask them the questions that is interesting for them like from the basic things then. Slowly towards the advance. So it is not like 5 fingers are same. We cannot expect the same level of understanding from all students. So I have to focus on them more. In comparison to the those who are already good in that subject. Yeah, please, we can continue if you are satisfied with my answers.

Okay, Professor, let's talk about institutional stewardship. If you joined our department and found that outcome assessment data for chemistry courses was inconsistent across the board, how would you approach fixing that to meet accreditation standards?

So it's like. For chemistry course of other professors. Are only. Means the overall course of the department or my part of the course, so that I want to know. Like which one you're talking about?

Right, so you’re asking whether I mean the department-wide chemistry courses, not just your own teaching. In this scenario, it’s the whole department—outcome assessment data is inconsistent across multiple professors’ courses. How would you tackle that to ensure we meet accreditation standards?

So basically I hope that bit is a very excellent institute. So all the professors selected there are good. But still if happens then we can have a group meeting of the professors and discuss what is the issue and take the evaluation from students what is the real issue like they cannot understand their teaching. Or they are neglecting their class. So according to that we can discuss with the same professor, politely ask him for the improvement that is required. It is mostly based on the student evaluation and also we can discuss what is the issue. If he has the E or C like the professor have any problem or something then we can discuss. But. Uh, hopefully I. Expect that all the bit professor are excellent and they are very good experience. It will not happen hopefully. Yeah, please continue. Can I move to the next question please?

Let’s talk through a real ethical dilemma, Professor. Imagine a student files a formal complaint alleging your grading is biased, but at the same time, your department head is pressuring you to improve pass rates for your course. How would you navigate that situation while balancing academic integrity and departmental expectations?

So it is very common in academia, I know. But as you said, the grading complaint from the student, we can easily show the answer sheet to other professors or the department head or something like how I graded. Is it fair or not? And I don't think there will be a pressure from other professors to me because I am I am an independent researcher and I know how to tackle the situation. And I will not. Let others interfere in my course unless I am doing anything wrong. If I am right then I can stand by my side and I can prove that by all the fair study course like how I teach in the every section of the class and how I conducted the exam how I get the grade. So all will be in a proper channel. It will not be like anything I am hiding or doing something in the back of the screen. So it will be all fair. So I hope it will not happen. At least from my side and I can tackle the situation by showing all the proofs to anyone they need, like from the head of the department to director of the institute. So I don't think it will be an issue for me. Yeah. Any other questions please?

Alright, let’s shift gears to industry alignment. Given your experience working with professors in India and abroad, have you developed any industry connections—such as partnerships or consultancy opportunities—that could translate into internship or placement options for VIT students?

Yes, you're like in the energy sector, there is a lot of industries in India and near to BIT in Bangalore and Chennai there are a lot of industries and I have some connections like Enola Electric or like Ather Energy. Or like. Different battery companies so we can talk with them easily. Some of my friends and seniors are working there as research scientists, so it will be very easy for me to connect with them. For sending student for internship. Or some future placements. And also in abroad we can send them for different institutes, for instance, for two to three months. So it is very good opportunity for the students and for myself also to collaborate with different industry and get some funding from them and we can work on industry-based real-time projects. So it will be a benefit for both these sides.

I hope it answers your questions please.

You mentioned Enola Electric, Ather Energy,

Right, you’ve got connections with battery companies in Bangalore and Chennai and research contacts at Enola Electric and Ather Energy. Can you give one concrete example of a student internship or industry project you facilitated in the past, and what impact it had on the student’s career or research?

Yeah. So in Korea I worked on one project on the. K carbon that is a very famous carbon based company in Korea so from that I guided one of my master students in our lab so she was working with me and we published one paper you can see in my resume in carbon letters. I was the first author and she was the co-fast ether with me so from that we. What carbon from the industry and we translated it to some application which they liked and we published that and recently as I said, I worked in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for four months. They are my project was funded by Arthur Energy. So like in that we developed some material for in future zinc ion hybrid batteries like now you know lithium and sodium are in boom. So zinc is more safer than that so like. We bought some project from Ather Energy and I worked on that. I published 1 review paper. Some other words are currently going on, which may be published very soon. So it is very easy to like, discuss with industry. They understand the real life problem, real-world problem and provide funding. And they need some good results from the academics because they know before going for large scale, we need to prove it in the small scale, in the lab scale, so we can send some student for internship or bring some industry. People to our lab to show. Our students that how it works in industry we can arrange some study tools so a lot of things can be done so the concrete example that I published one paper with industry collaboration in Korea and I worked in an industry based sponsored project in India so I have some experience and also. I want to highlight the point that I already worked with the one of the biggest company of India that is the Tata and from that I have one patent you can see in my resume in which I worked on the thermal. Become a barrier coating and we make it in a Indian pattern. So it is a lot of examples are there that I worked with. Yeah, please. Any other questions?

Alright, Professor, now I’d like to check a few key skills for this role. Imagine you’re teaching both theory and lab courses in battery materials. If your students struggle with connecting the theoretical concepts to the practical lab experiments, what’s your strategy for bridging that gap and helping them see the relevance?

Yeah. So it is very common that what theory says it is not always true in the practical section. So I have to bridge the gap by ensuring first complete the theory part and then relate the things with the lab experiments if it does not work. Then I have to. Prove that why it is not working. So it is like depending upon the that situation we cannot. Preplan that. So it is like that is what my experience is, which I can translate into the academic 1.

By working at different labs we know if I we are imagining 1 result but getting another result then I will ask. Students.

Alright, you said you’d first cover the theory and then relate it to experiments, and if things don’t match you’d try to explain why.

Right, so you’d ask students to reflect on why the expected result didn’t match what happened in the lab. How do you measure if students really understand the connection between theory and experiment, beyond just getting the right answer?

Yeah.

Hmm, that’s pretty broad — how do you actually check, in practice, if students understand the connection? Are you using oral exams, project reports, lab notebooks, or something else?

So you see, chemistry is mostly based on the exceptions. We cannot predict everything before. So if I found some error in the experiment then I'll ask the student. Check the material like if the material is actually formed or not by different characterization like XRD, Rama and FTI are a lot of tools are there. So like if it is not showing the expected result, there may be some problem in the synthesis of the material. If the material is perfect then there is a lot of factors in electrochemistry like electrolyte or how we set the experiment. So that is like I already said it depends upon the situation what is happening and it is very common. Academia and industry that we space some failures but we have to connect that with theory and also the experimental razors and connect that and solve the issues. And it is for the young students like undergrad and master student, it will take time but they will understand and I don't think they need such advanced experiment in the undergraduate stage and slowly they will. The like understand that. Yeah, that's all from my side. You can.

Okay, you brought up using tools like XRD and FTIR to verify material synthesis when results don’t match theory — that’s a hands-on approach. Switching gears a bit: when you’re assigned exam or evaluation duties beyond your own classes, how do you ensure objectivity and fairness in grading students you don’t know personally?

Yeah, it is like very fairly. I'll grade the Mars according to how they answered the question, what was their approach. It is not like answer will always be the right, but how they approach the problem, if it is a expected like mathematical question, if they're formalized correct, maybe the calculation may be wrong, but I will not give them zero for that. I check their approach, how they understood the question. So I'll try to be fair as much as possible from my side and hope. All student can do good as BATC. Takes some excellent students of India. So it is very easy to evaluate them. For the other course and I don't think there will be some personal relation in the professional career. I don't think any personal relation with the student will help them from my side because all student will be the same for me. They all came here to the study, so learn. So I'll try to be fair in all the cases.

Yeah, it is like very fairly. I'll grade the Mars according to how they answered the question, what was their approach. It is not like answer will always be the right, but how they approach the problem, if it is a expected like mathematical question, if they're formalized correct, maybe the calculation may be wrong, but I will not give them zero for that. I check their approach, how they understood the question. So I'll try to be fair as much as possible from my side and hope. All student can do good as BATC. Takes some excellent students of India. So it is very easy to evaluate them. For the other course and I don't think there will be some personal relation in the professional career. I don't think any personal relation with the student will help them from my side because all student will be the same for me. They all came here to the study, so learn. So I'll try to be fair in all the cases. Thank. Thank you.

Alright, we're wrapping up. Is there anything you'd like to ask about the role or the team before we finish?

Alright, you’re focused on fair grading and treating all students equally, regardless of personal connections — that’s good to hear. Dr., before we close, is there anything you’d like to ask about the role or the team?

Yeah. So I want to know that I applied for the assessment officer in research, but it is showing in the beginning that it is for the bath. Critical battery.

But I. I am not a theoretician, I am an experimental chemist. So is it the role for the light?

You’re asking about the assessment officer role versus battery research focus. Let me clarify: the position you’re interviewing for is Assistant Professor in Chemistry, with a strong emphasis on battery and energy storage research. If you’re interested in assessment duties, those are typically part of the broader faculty responsibilities—exam evaluation, project supervision, and guiding student research.

That's clear — you see yourself as an experimental chemist, not a theoretician. The role welcomes experimentalists, especially those working in battery and energy storage, so your profile fits. Anything else you'd like to ask before we wrap up, Dr.?