Yeah, sure.

Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia

Yeah. I am I am Doctor M Maniandan. Currently I'm working as a. Fellow at the National University of Singapore.

You're currently at NUS as a fellow—could you walk me through how you got there, starting from your doctoral work?

I completed my PhD in Physics from University of Madras. During my PhD. Come again?

Professor, let's talk about your teaching approach. What's one foundational concept in physics you especially enjoy teaching to undergraduates, and how do you introduce it in the classroom?

Yeah, I focus on building strong fundamentals.

Yeah, I focus on building strong fundamentals. But then connecting concept to. To real world application.

And I use visual explanations Yeah, we can show them the real time application to understand the basic field.

Okay, you emphasize fundamentals. Can you give me a concrete example—say, when teaching Newton's laws, how do you make those basics engaging for students who might not have a strong physics background?

Okay, so you tie fundamentals to real-world examples. When you're teaching something like Newton's laws, what activity or analogy do you use to make it stick for students who might not be confident in physics yet?

Yeah, we can show them the real time application to understand the basic field. Strongly. Strongly. For example, if you use the Newton third law.

You've had extensive work in magnetism and functional oxides, and your recent paper—“Giant magnetostriction in La2CoMnO6 synthesized by microwave irradiation”—caught my attention. How do you leverage findings from that research when teaching students about the intersection of materials science and physics?

That's an interesting point. Could you elaborate a bit more on that?

Yeah, actually the magnet restriction is a change of dimension of your material when placing that material in a magnetic. It's a very simple experiment. Can show them.

Right, demonstrating magnetostriction is a great way to bridge theory and experiment for students. Now, thinking about your research in functional oxides—where do you see the most fundable directions over the next few years, and what types of external grants or revenue streams would you target to sustain a research group in this area?

In the. Practical Lab. How the magnetic material is?

Given your hands-on approach, suppose you have to run an introductory session on quantum mechanics for a large class, but you're not allowed to use slides or the traditional chalk-and-talk method. How would you design that lesson to actually get students participating and thinking critically about the material?

I can explain them. Uh, using the board I can explain them.

I can explain them. Uh, using the board I can explain them. The the magnetic. Domain structure. Because it's very simple how the spins are aligned. In a SQL domain.

You’ve clearly got a strong practical, interactive teaching style. Now let’s discuss something broader—accreditation cycles can be demanding. If you joined our department and found that outcome assessment data was inconsistent across courses, how would you approach fixing that?

Okay, so for topics like magnetic domains and spin alignment, you use board work and hands-on explanations to help students build intuition. Now, shifting gears a bit—accreditation cycles can be demanding. If you joined our department and found that outcome assessment data was inconsistent across courses, how would you approach fixing that?

You apply a magnetic. How does or? Response to the uprising.

So you’re thinking about how magnetic materials respond when you apply a field, which is great for the lab context. But on the administrative side, if you saw that some courses weren’t collecting or reporting outcome assessment data properly—what steps would you actually take to ensure we meet accreditation standards? Would you start with faculty training, process updates, or something else?

Yeah, we can go with the faculty training. Or, uh, we can. Uh, develop. Simulation kind of things.

Yeah, we can go with the faculty training. Or, uh, we can. Uh, develop. Simulation kind of things. To make them. Understand.

Professor, let’s shift to an ethical scenario you might face here. Say a student submits a formal complaint alleging your grading is biased, while at the same time your department head privately tells you to raise pass rates. How would you balance fairness to the student, your own academic standards, and this pressure from leadership?

Okay, so you’d prioritize faculty training and possibly use simulations to help with assessment consistency. Let’s move to an ethical scenario: imagine a student files a formal complaint accusing you of grading bias,

And any. Uh, references from. Other uh. Yeah, first of all, while teaching them itself, I make them. Comfortable. To ask any questions to me. They have any doubt they can come and talk to me friendly. So in that way I can approach them friendly.

Alright, Professor, shifting to industry alignment—given your research in semiconductor device physics, do you have any current or prior industry connections that could help our students access internships or collaborative projects with companies?

So I need to motivate them to. Learn new things. And for the exam point of view. To make them. Yeah, right now I don't have a industrial collaboration, but. Uh, I had a experience with uh. Micron that is a semiconductor company. NUS so. So I I know a few. Hayarati Teen. So in future I may collaborate with them.

Even Semiconductor, the thin filmmaking company in Chennai.

Okay, so you’ve got some background with Micron and NUS,

Even Semiconductor, the thin filmmaking company in Chennai. One of my Yeah, and, uh. In the Micron they. Actually depositing the films. On the silicon wafer?

Let’s dig into some of your technical strengths, starting with semiconductor device physics. Say you’re working with a batch of silicon wafers that show unexpectedly high leakage current at room temperature. What’s your first step in figuring out the root cause?

Alright, so at Micron you were involved when they were depositing films on silicon wafers. For that leakage current issue—would you first check the deposition parameters, wafer cleaning, or device structure, and why?

That we can. Uh, show the students. How the thin films are? King and how to improve the. Actually, the cleaning process is very, very important and the deposit rate, whether the film is home. Fleet Depositor.

Alright, so you’d emphasize the importance of cleaning and making sure the film deposition is uniform—good, that shows you’ve really done hands-on device work. Now, switching gears to machine learning, say you want to predict the electrical properties of new semiconductor materials based only on their atomic structure. What kind of features would you extract, and how would you handle the fact that your dataset is pretty small?

And how the contacts are. So if you make a good film. Then we can. Yeah, in this, uh. In these questions. I need to. The measure, the prop. Property in atomic layer. Like 2 probe or 4 probe sector?

Right, so you’re thinking about using 2-probe or 4-probe methods to measure atomic layer properties, which definitely helps with thin film characterization. For your machine learning model, though—what features would you actually extract from the atomic structure data before training, and how would you deal with the challenge of having only a small dataset?

The electrical contact. And. Call.

Alright, so you’re focused on the importance of electrical contacts and their role in characterizing thin films. Now, let’s talk quantum computation for a moment—imagine you’re teaching an advanced undergrad class, and a student is struggling to grasp the concept of quantum superposition. What’s your go-to analogy or demonstration to make that idea click?

We can show them some modeling. Like like. Patient or some semantic?

The moving. The image was. The animations.

So you’d use modeling or maybe some kind of simulation to get the concept across—that’s one way. What’s an analogy you’d pick, though,

So you’d use moving images or animations to illustrate quantum superposition. Can you give me a specific example—like, what would the animation actually show to help a student grasp the idea?

Yeah, for example. How the spin current? The quantum current or transporting. In a. In a material. That we can easily simulate or animate it. How the spin current are transporting from one end to one end? And how this response? In applied magnetic field. So this.

Okay, so you’d use an animation to show how spin current moves through a material and changes with an applied magnetic field—that’s a solid way to make it visual. Now,

Can easily. Uh, make them understand the. Yeah, the for the industrial. I have some plan on. Magnetically ordered high entropy materials because the high entropy is. So using that material making into thin film.

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

And and using that one for. Superpastance application. Edge. Uh, right now I don't have. Cushing. Right now I don't have any.