Yes.

Please start by introducing

Yes. Hello. Are you listening me?

I'm here and listening, Dr. Please go ahead and introduce your professional journey in academia.

Yeah, so my name is Doctor Jots. I did my post doc. Uh, from uh, TST plus TST women scientists. From IC Bangalore. From 2010 to 2013. TS Kotari Fellowship from 2011. To June 2 thousand, 2024. Uh, 2014. Not umm. OK, now I did my high school in 1998. 12th in 2000. Bachelor's degree in 2003 and. Uh, Master sixteen, 2005.

Yeah, so my name is Doctor Jots. I did my post doc. Uh, from uh, TST plus TST women scientists. From IC Bangalore. From 2010 to 2013. TS Kotari Fellowship from 2011. To June 2 thousand, 2024. Uh, 2014. Not umm. OK, now I did my high school in 1998. 12th in 2000. Bachelor's degree in 2003 and. Uh, Master sixteen, 2005. PSDI started in 2005 and finished on May 18th May 2010.

Yeah, so my name is Doctor Jots. I did my post doc. Uh, from uh, TST plus TST women scientists. From IC Bangalore. From 2010 to 2013. TS Kotari Fellowship from 2011. To June 2 thousand, 2024. Uh, 2014. Not umm. OK, now I did my high school in 1998. 12th in 2000. Bachelor's degree in 2003 and. Uh, Master sixteen, 2005. PSDI started in 2005 and finished on May 18th May 2010. So this is my professional journey.

Alright, so you completed your postdoc at IC Bangalore and held fellowships from 2010 through 2014, and you mentioned your academic track starting from high school. Is there anything else you'd like to add about your teaching or research experience before we get started?

Dr. Jots, you’ve described a strong research background. I'd like to hear about your teaching—what's one foundational chemistry concept you especially enjoy teaching to undergraduates, and why?

Alright, Dr. Jots, thanks for laying out your academic timeline—so you wrapped up your PhD in 2010 before starting your postdoc at IC Bangalore. Let's talk about your teaching: can you tell me about one foundational chemistry concept you really enjoy teaching to undergraduates, and what makes it so rewarding for you?

Yeah. For that, we love to take organometallic as well as the the inorganic chemistry for material applications basically. My my major postdocs were on the synthesis of nanomaterials. Which are basic. Basically, the precursors will be taken from the inorganic chemistry. And decompose them and make the the semiconductors. So I love. To be that, explore the methodology what we adopt. For the quantum dot synthesis or nanomaterial synthesis.

Okay, so you especially enjoy teaching organometallic and inorganic chemistry, particularly as they relate to nanomaterial synthesis and material applications. When you're explaining quantum dot synthesis to undergraduates, what's a specific analogy or hands-on activity you use to help them really grasp the concept?

OK, So when when we work ON Semiconductor synthesis, generally we take the silicon or germanium as an example, we never look towards our regular environment where we take it ticket 1st Tio 2 also or. Available material. The semiconductor and how we synthesize E liver stress taking a titanium metal salts and adding any of. So toxic acid or something, and then we add it into the room temperature for heating. We'll get the Tio 2. And we have to tell the graduate student that how the. Techniques of temperature as well as the environment around the synthesis work well. For the nanomaterials, this kind of nanomaterial. Synthesis as well as their framework designing. This is how. We start Allegheny. Stream of design. To understand them. That how the physical as well as chemical environment changing make. More affordable towards the. Capacity in the level. About 3 so that they will synthesize the nanomaterial. At a room temperature or at a. Available environment.

Dr. Jots, I noticed your recent publication as first author—"Shape and phase-controlled one-pot synthesis of air stable cationic AgCdS nanocrystals" in Small Methods. How has your work on AgCdS nanocrystals influenced the way you teach advanced inorganic chemistry or energy materials to your students?

Can you repeat the question?

Of course, let me repeat that. Dr. Jots, I noticed your publication, "Shape and phase-controlled one-pot synthesis of air stable cationic AgCdS nanocrystals" in Small Methods. How has your research on AgCdS nanocrystals changed the way you teach advanced inorganic chemistry or energy materials to your students?

So basically 3 concept we if we look at that paper, basically 3 concepts we introduced first is like cation exchange reaction. Which is typically a galvanic replacement. Can have no boundary limits nowadays because we can tune with their different binding abilities of the ligands. Second thing, the. The second thing what we observed over here is that. We can uh, introduce the digestive ripening as a ripening processor where those wall ripening, the noble noble people get noble award get by, the scientists by. That we see set the example that how the ripening process where the big molecules either converting into the small small atoms that are digestive happening as well as second is the Oswald ripening where the big small cluster of the molecule make it the big molecules that are forming. That is nanoparticles that are called the Oswald ripening process in it. And the advance. Investment in this paper is that we're not dead this ripening processor along with the. The size play we also debit, the shape plays. With the different patrial phases also. This is quite. Quite interesting when we go towards the catalysis. Some phases of the molecules are particularly responsible for the catalysis because the surface as well as material problem. Now what will happen? If the metal is there, support that is highly conducting material like silver is there. Did Katie change the phases quickly? So how we can manage with their different phases? To control them. As a second thing. In the energy dynamics. That in. In especially the case of HR. We are trying to achieve the heir in alkaline media. So in that case. This is the how the material surfaces are playing role along with the silver. That which is not etching faster in Aztec media, it is stable in alkaline media. So that the performance of the material will be. More accurate in alkaline media. That's how the upcoming outcoming. Of this project will be more useful for UG student as well as. Student to study. Facts about the. The source precursor designing. Second thing is a. Selection of the league and new surface ligand specially. 3rd is the uh environment of the catalysis should be. Controlled also. So yeah, these are. Hello, am I audible?

Right, so you emphasized how concepts like cation exchange, galvanic replacement, and different ripening processes from your AgCdS nanocrystal research inform your teaching, especially around catalysis and the role of surface chemistry. That’s a pretty advanced set of ideas for undergrads. Switching gears a little—have you ever had to adapt or simplify this kind of research topic for a non-chemistry major or a general science class? What did you do to make it accessible?

Yeah. So where we start? Let's start with the Class 10, the 9 basic chemistry where the galvanic replacement, they are studying in the basic label. So how? How these things are really work? OK. So when we take a simple metals of the cadmium sulfide, suppose that arcadium, cadmium salt, simply add the silver nitrate into it. Yeah, so it is completely transformed into the silver silver salt, That cadmium is completely replaced by the silver. At the end of the day, only solution of the silver nitride will be available or silver nanoparticle will be available. That's how the people who are not have a background of the chemistry. Are not advanced labels, but they can understand. Yeah. So, so that the we can monitor also this reaction by the UV visible spectroscopy as well as the. Uh, as well as the. XPS Yeah, this. A little bit advanced for that, but you we can trace out these. Things as well as. With a powder XRD patterns also we can confirm that which metal is replaced and what metal powder be isolated. And so and what phase of that? Now this can we can done. In a general chemistry.

Dr. Jots, given your background in nanomaterials and energy materials, where do you see the most promising and fundable research directions in your field for the next few years? Which specific grants or external funding sources would you target to support that work at an institution like VIT?

So what field are you looking forward like? Right now I worked on Catanics. Cationic alloy materials, semiconductor alloys where we've displayed the just different cations and we are getting the assemblies for them. Now we. Here planning in future to change the anionic moieties also in it, like sulphur replacing with a selenium or terrarium. To tune their band gaps to be more accurate towards the energy. Energy Environment. OK. So now in that case, consideration. What power? Future plan? Is like. To first of all make the anionic as well as cationic alloy or histore structure of the semiconductors. Second thing. I would like to do is a energy application in that. And 3rd is optics of that material to study. Uh, and second things are the most important in this project is like TM is very informative and as well as surface analysis is more import. An important role to play and look at intuit that. The electrons interaction with the surface as well as the morphology changes will be affect there. Electronic properties so that way we can tune with in situ TM also. We would like to collaborate with that. Third thing, the important foremost for the funding. It will look for the international that. National Hydrogen Mission. From our. Our our country. Second thing, we can go and apply for the countries like who are. We're opening their project internationally for the energy sciences. Like Nederland. And Japan, Mosante and Seoul, South Korea. So from these countries we will like to collaborate for the energy applications of the material as well as we would like to operate on the Super lattices and there we use their advanced microscopic facilities as well as fabrication facility to make. Device electrochemical devices in a running way so that we can patent and apply in a real market. Hello. Am I audible?

Alright, Dr. Jots, let's shift gears to teaching. Suppose you're assigned a 200-student introductory inorganic chemistry class at VIT and can't use slides or traditional lectures. How would you run a session that actually keeps students engaged and learning the material?

OK so learning the nanomaterials are not like if I don't have slides or. Traditional lectures. So, uh. We will take around the tour around us. So that. We will take a general chemistry. Suppose that an organic chemistry from the product table. Bus just, uh, by, uh, by telling them what materials are useful for that. Titaniums are mostly use the hardest material and. It used gold and silver we used in our general life for the ornament and silver properties. How? It will react. Why silver will eat? And. The gold is non reactive towards that among them. That's why we precious metals jewelries will form. Now the course of amorphousity of the. Carbon, especially the pencils, how they are amorphous and if they're going for the graphites or graphene cells. Conducting is happening. So that in. In our daily routine, how the metals display the electrical conductivity? Are there this charge mechanism in our ruler cells? That. By doing designing the online experiments. We will try to teach. That how the effect of. Play. Where the involve. How the burning flames have a different different flame test? We in our kitchens we see basically that flames are different. Between colors, so that concentration of the gases will be different in that section. And 3rd what we can demonstrate them the the chemistry basically around the cells? We can do it. Chemistry on the periodic table so that the hydrogens and hydrides and the basic level chemistry of that how our cleansing mechanism work. In our body. Either in our daily routine so that the assets and base chemistry will come over there. We will try to coordination chemistry. Them by either adding water that how the crystallization work. In the sodium. Or how purification can be done? The different metals. How these change processes? In the practical happening in our lives. That made materials, made the alloys or utensils made with a different steel or something. Like that, setting some examples, setting them some experiments on life, we will teach them. As well as the. Crystallography also we can teach them that how the crystals of different materials will be different by demonstrating them. Alive.

OK so learning the nanomaterials are not like if I don't have slides or. Traditional lectures. So, uh. We will take around the tour around us. So that. We will take a general chemistry. Suppose that an organic chemistry from the product table. Bus just, uh, by, uh, by telling them what materials are useful for that. Titaniums are mostly use the hardest material and. It used gold and silver we used in our general life for the ornament and silver properties. How? It will react. Why silver will eat? And. The gold is non reactive towards that among them. That's why we precious metals jewelries will form. Now the course of amorphousity of the. Carbon, especially the pencils, how they are amorphous and if they're going for the graphites or graphene cells. Conducting is happening. So that in. In our daily routine, how the metals display the electrical conductivity? Are there this charge mechanism in our ruler cells? That. By doing designing the online experiments. We will try to teach. That how the effect of. Play. Where the involve. How the burning flames have a different different flame test? We in our kitchens we see basically that flames are different. Between colors, so that concentration of the gases will be different in that section. And 3rd what we can demonstrate them the the chemistry basically around the cells?

Okay, so you'd have students connect concepts from their daily life—like why silver tarnishes, why gold's stable, or how graphite in pencils differs from graphene—to the chemistry they're studying. How do you actually check if your students are understanding and engaging with these activities, especially when you can't rely on traditional exams or quizzes?

OK by asking them questions related to that that if if suppose we are not using carbon. If you are using lead. How the pencils will work If the lead is not there, that fragile T will come. So they suppose. To answer with the plus or minus. That OK, this answer should be poll will be there so that there will be. For engaged, we will try. To take a poll. So that the. We will understand, I will try to understand that how their thought of processes are going to be involved and I will try to ask them questions that. In their life how they modified if the questions. With the like standing on the clause because of the turmeric or something will came how it become red when we contact Suda sodium or something sodium hydroxide or causes? What are their observations according to them? What are the truthful results we can add? So that's how we can conclude that real life, taking examples for me as well as from them and try to dissolve together. So that. Each and every student. Involved in that experiment as well as the study that how to resolve more complex problems from that. And also I would like to add some examples from our electronic evolution of the. Television sets from where the Catholic rose rays are coming, and behind the biggest screens where they're where they're. Both the combinations of the colors were more. Of them now introduce introduction of the TFT monitors from the LCD monitors from the white light emitting diodes from the bulb revolution. That how the. Other things Jade and what makes difference about the nanochemistry also. The materials evolution. Displayed really well in our regular life is in the mobiles all electronic gadgets, how they evolve either is the memory devices or. RSC Electronics. That can also displayed over there. Without putting in. Put people into the slides or normal traditional method of using. We can easily display our the traditional methods to the advancement of the science. Chemistry part in it.

Alright, Dr. Jots, let's talk about institutional responsibilities for a moment. Say you join our department and discover that the outcome assessment data for accreditation is inconsistent across different chemistry courses. How would you approach fixing that and making sure we meet accreditation standards?

If I am, I'm not aware of. Accreditations, Accreditation said. Can you please explain that term? To me.

Alright, so you’re not familiar with accreditation. In short, accreditation is a formal review process universities and departments go through to make sure their programs meet national or international standards—think of it as quality control for curriculum, evaluation, and student outcomes. If you discovered that the way we track student results and course outcomes wasn’t consistent, how would you go about creating a process to fix that, even if you’re new to the terminology? What would be your first steps?

OK, so calculum if. If there is a label of curriculum, uh difficult from the designing of the 12th. Or suppose that is standard where they're coming from, either from a 12th grade or the. Masters grade so we will try. To make a 11. A preemptive kind of like intermediate coursework designing where the. Though their fallout from the results or deviation of the student from the more. Accurate results. More so that they will go through the bridge course kind of thing. So that we will take a mediation steps and we will try to manage those things. With a particular department, sections and the faculties. To ensure that that. Bridging will be involved in their course curriculum from the. 12th either from the graduation or masters classes so that they will understand the concept. What we are going to utilize? Second thing. Think the loop will come when the student get relaxed with the proper monopolist. Monopolist like monotonous routine. So we'll try P advanced sometime. We will try to be like. More theory to be added. They should know the theory of the con. Behind and the theory behind the. Things are working so that we will try to. Elevate that label also so that. They will not be monotonous. They should be involved each and every activities either is. Reading, writing, test quizzes or something. That way. Their grades will not be fall apart and department will also try to score. By certain seminars. Putting them the students through seminars so that their grades. They will try to each and every step that where you are getting minus or plus score so that according to that faculties and. Students will. Go on that particular topic and topics and evolve that. Process then. So that way we will fix the loopholes in certain way so that we will academically we will. Both together.

So let's shift to a different kind of challenge, Dr. Jots. Imagine a student formally complains that your grading seems biased, while at the same time your department head pressures you to improve the pass rate. How would you handle that situation and balance both academic integrity and institutional expectations?

Oh this is tough question. So as per my understanding this question, can you please repeat it so that I can make a section clear to you.

Sure, let me repeat that. Imagine a student has formally complained that your grading is biased, while at the same time your department head is pressuring you to improve the pass rate. How would you handle that situation and balance both academic integrity and institutional expectations?

First of all, the grading system should not be biased from my side. I will try to do that. That whatever the lessons should be like it is. I suppose that is a 12 chapter concept. I will take a question whatever the live sessions I took it are there as a presentation or is a quizzes are there? So from. That quizzes I will take the questions from that concepts and put it into thing. So that they. I will test. And most more practicals from that particular syllabus. They're getting. More used to of their. Test series and by the by that you they will learn each and every. Concept very well. So biasedness will be roll out because I'm not categorizing our concept in one category or I'm not. Anybody favorite because there are 12 chapters? Somebody loves some chapters so they will get the grading but. Each and every chapters when I'm. Tweeting that yeah, that will that that time they the student might get higher. Scores are something but. In the meanwhile I will try to put the other three questions also other previous chapters also in it, so that they will have a equal sharing between that. From the recent to that one. That should be avoided. And 3rd, the second thing is a performance. It will, yeah, definitely will simultane. They improve because we are grading systems are always equal to the student performance if we student performance. Increase the credit system will also increase as well as the there's no pressure at all. From our higher authority to take a chance, take another challenge. So in both way we will be. Rule out any kind of conflict as well as we will enhance the performance of the students.

Alright, Dr. Jots, given your research on cationic and anionic alloy materials and your focus on energy applications, do you have any existing industry connections or collaborations that could help create internship or placement opportunities for students at VIT?

OK, so we we work on the section what is called energy. Energy sections are like. We have certain. Which work on the electron microscopy in jaw or. Thermo Fisher. From that we can introduce our student. To call for the internship program over there so that they will learn the advanced techniques. On this and they will try to. There's techniques like. TM also an SEM techniques electron microscopic techniques from the preliminary label over there How the machines literally work. But, uh, right now I don't have any collaboration from the industry in the energy section. In the future, if I have, I will try to introduce student Student.

You mentioned the possibility of connecting students with places like Thermo Fisher for internships in electron microscopy, but that you don’t have formal energy industry collaborations yet. If you were to start building those industry links from scratch at VIT, what would be your first steps?

I will, I will try to be fixed up with the Reliance industry where the energy application and Tata Semiconductors. From there we will try to take a fundraising and push up our idea. So that we will. Will talk to industry people from other industries. From foreign. And which name I cannot. Name them right now, but if I search on that segment I can. Make a setup and meanwhile I will try to also raise funds from BIT, our institute. As well as. From the Tata industry as well as Reliance industry. Set up the alkali. The non electrochemical device will a photochemical electrochemical device for the. Hydrogen. Hydrogen.

Thanks for clarifying that, Dr. Jots. Now, I want to touch on a few core skills for the Assistant Professor role, just to make sure we're aligned. Suppose you're teaching a lab section where several students consistently get poor results in their titration experiments. How would you diagnose the root cause and adjust your teaching to help them master the technique?