Yes.

Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia

Hello myself Doctor Govindu Sen. I have completed my PhD. From Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology. Institute of national importance.

Alright, so you completed your PhD at the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology,

September. 2020. It is basically focused on development of multiband and broadband. Metamaterial Absorber. And you know that this absorbers are basically. Used for many. Application specifically called Radom applications.

Dr. Sen, since your work touches both research and teaching, I'd like to start on the teaching side. What's one foundational concept in your field that you really enjoy explaining to students, and how do you usually approach it in the classroom?

For allowing certain frequency band. 2 doppers and band of antenna and blocking or absorbing.

Okay, so you're focused on explaining how metamaterial absorbers can allow or block specific frequency bands—especially for antenna and radar applications. When students first encounter this concept, what's one common misconception or point of confusion, and how do you address it in class?

Yeah, students, specifically the next generation has been students.

They easily encounter with many. Electronics gadgets. Are called as smart graduates.

So, you were mentioning that students often have misconceptions, especially the next generation.

Right, so students today are often surrounded by smart electronics and gadgets. Can you give me an example of how you connect those everyday technologies to complex topics like metamaterial absorbers when teaching?

Yeah, so student gives the. Headphones, that being the active noise cancellations or passive noise cancellations like. Like features. So the. Absorber basically. Electromagnetic absorber, which is. The signal is electromagnetic forms. Somewhat different from the. Sound always, but. It can be absorbed. With particular. The Southwest is the technical. Enhancement of those. Specific material. And that is called uh. Metamaterials so that is not. Naturally available, but it is engineered. Actually can be generated so that any of the properties like that. Permittivity, permeability, or both can be negative.

Scientists aspect. A common example is that uh. If you and. If you just put it 1 pin. Or the scale inside a glass of water.

Dr. Sen, I noticed your publication "Broadband Metamaterial Absorber on a Single Layer Ultrathin Substrate" from 2019. When you've taught students about the practical design or simulation of metamaterial absorbers,

Dr. Sen, shifting toward your research impact—your work on metamaterial absorbers is quite timely.

Yeah, actually.

You mentioned the classic glass of water example, which helps students visualize wave refraction—it's a good analogy. When you think about translating your research in metamaterial absorbers into a long-term institutional asset, what specific funding sources or grant agencies do you see as most viable for supporting this work over the next few years?

Uh, yes. So in this aspect I have to highlight that. The Modern Warfare specifically. Rely on the. That is the. Red dot, OK, So the radar, how much your radar is? Efficient to detect training is movement. So based on that. This absorber. The use for particularly Radom applications. It was useful in every aspect of Modern Warfare. So you need to specifically design some type of atom structures. So that. It it can. That particular training environments.

So. It has. That is the. Applications in next. Uh, next. Next decades. For the next two decades or so. You can see.

You’ve spent a lot of time connecting advanced research to real-world applications. Now, suppose you’re teaching a large undergraduate course—say, 200 students—and you’re not allowed to use slides or traditional lectures.

You see these applications as valuable for the next couple of decades. Let's switch gears—how would you help undergraduates at VIT University get hands-on with writing and submitting their first research papers for reputable journals, given your own publication record?

Yes, so I. Will come with some. Prototypes. Of tab servers. That we have designed. In our labs.

Alright, Dr. Sen,

And all so we will coordinate with their undergraduate courses so that they can easily understand actually the working phenomena of. Basic metamaterial absorbers. And who did specifically I was sending. Can you repeat again?

You mentioned coordinating with undergraduates so they can grasp the working principles of basic metamaterial absorbers, and you’d bring in prototypes from your lab. I’d still like you to answer my previous question directly: If you joined our department and found that outcome assessment data was inconsistent across courses, how would you approach fixing that?

First I will, uh, start review that. What are the inconsistency in the data?

Okay, you'd start by reviewing where the inconsistencies are showing up in the data. Once you've identified those inconsistencies,

Then I will try to. Find out the flaws in the data. We'll fix that. We need to basically. Find out uh. Or relations between the defined courses. I will circulate. That around the. To define students. So that they can specifically. Give the particular feedback. According to the courses. Can improve the assessment.

Let’s explore an ethical scenario, Dr. Sen. Imagine a student formally complains that your grading was biased, but at the same time, your department head is pressuring you to raise pass rates. How would you handle this situation, balancing fairness, transparency, and institutional expectations?

Refill that particular. Students uh. That is, the managed students are. And I will find. I will justify my. That is the marks. Quita students answers.

So. So I will. With the rules that will. With the ethics that teachers should have.

Alright, Dr. Sen, turning to industry alignment—given your background in embedded systems and communication, do you have any industry connections or collaborations that could help translate your research into internship or placement opportunities for VIT students?

So, focusing on your image processing experience—imagine you’re guiding a student team building a low-cost embedded vision system for real-time object detection. What’s the first thing you’d have them prioritize, and how would you help them avoid the most common pitfalls with hardware-software integration?

Five first. Like to. Invite the students. And do the specific literature works? On that particular large. Hardware and software integrations.

And then? You go from the basics. After this one. Understanding of how the system level works actually done.

So you'd have the students start with literature review to ground their understanding of integration challenges. Can you give me one hands-on pitfall you've seen students run into when actually wiring up hardware and software, and how you'd help them recover from it?

Mm-hm.

The integration is specifically. Complex tasks. So we need to particularly. Optimized as or the calibrate. The system. To get accurate results. By integrating the hardware and softwares.

So you emphasized the importance of calibrating and optimizing the system to get accurate results during integration. Shifting a bit—can you walk me through how you’d evaluate students in a lab-based course, especially when it comes to assessing both their theoretical understanding and their practical execution?

So that too. Democracy if we get more accuracy. That is better system level design we are having. Could you repeat the questions?

Right, you mentioned that better system-level design leads to higher accuracy. Here's the question again: can you walk me through how you'd evaluate students in a lab-based course, especially when it comes to assessing both their theoretical understanding and their practical execution?

So for lab test scores. It is basically the application of the theory. That the students are learning in their course theory classes. So we will give some assignments, lab assignments that is. We will be the Industry Pacific. Product development online. The some specific. Experiments, that is. The outcomes of some theories. And we'll just, uh. At particular out. Comes whether it is matching with the theoretical results. With their calculations. In the back door. So. They would. Their level of understanding will. And it will be.

Alright, so you’re planning to compare students’ lab outcomes directly to their theoretical calculations to gauge understanding. What do you do if you notice a student’s practical results are consistently good, but their theoretical explanations are weak?

I'll fast. Elaborate. That part of the. Uh, fault in their calculations and theoretical calculations. And I'll try to, uh, give some clues so that they can solve by themselves.

Okay, so you’d walk the student through where their theoretical calculations went wrong and nudge them toward solving it themselves. Shifting now—how do you structure your classroom lectures to make sure your delivery stays clear and organized, especially when teaching complex technical topics?

And as a result. Their understanding. Of that level. Understanding level. Yes, so to for teaching the complex. Technical topics for the undergraduate students. I I'll keep try to keep with some practical examples. So that they can correlate. With their theory and a particular. Technical details. And level by level. Are we increase the complexity of the delivery so that. They will not suddenly fall in from. Or their level of understanding is not mismatch. So in this way. We can improve. And we'll also try to demonstrate. Some practical and. Experimental works in the theory classes.

Or hands on. What's?

Alright,

You’re asking about hands-on activities—so when you run a session like that, what’s your strategy for making sure every student actually participates and doesn’t just follow along passively?

Yes, for that I need to understand the. Uh, this assessment or basic classes I need to do? And I I would like, I would, I would can.

Analyze that what are the means the which student and the strong students. So. That I. Interactively. I'll do the same quick class.

Okay, so you'd start with some assessment or basic classes to gauge students' understanding before hands-on sessions.

So you’re grouping students by their strengths so you can run the class more interactively. Can you give me a concrete example of how you adapt your guidance for a student who’s struggling, versus one who’s excelling?

So for the first learner. They will easily understand the. My delivery of the topics. But for the slow learner. I I would like to take some remedial classes. Uh, based on their. Governments and. In that. I'll make sure that MP student will understand my topic. So in a week basis I will also try to. In some class taste. Surprise glass test. Pin book challenges for solving the complex. Problems or their analytical skills to test their analytical skills.

Okay, so for students who pick things up quickly, you keep your regular pace, but for those who are struggling, you run remedial classes and use surprise tests to check if they're catching up.

Based on the Bloom's level 5 to 6.

You referenced Bloom’s levels 5 and 6, so you’re aiming for higher-order thinking like evaluation and creation. Can you give an example of a lab or exam question you might use to assess students at that level?

OK, so. Orcas study based questions. Uh, the all the, umm, theoretical. Uh and theoretic understanding they are having. So the application of that. Will reflect. In their assignments.

You’re saying that case-study-based questions help reveal whether students can apply their theoretical knowledge in practical assignments. For your research publications,

So there. They don't need to know every. Fundamental things of the. Fundamentals of the theory. Yeah, that's subject, particular subject. First I will uh. See the work. Which is related to its journal, so the based on the work. And the alignment of the work. Related to particular. And. Uh, specifically the the reputation of that journal. Whether it is and also the based on the IPC charges is it is Open Access or not? Or we are having the funding for that. Open Access publications or not?

So these are the defined criterias and. Obviously, most important criteria is the novelty of the. So as a. As a researcher. I have some understanding of that. What type of novelty of the award are suitable for strength of charge?

Alright, so you weigh the alignment of your work with the journal’s scope, its reputation, and practical factors like open access and funding for publication fees.

You emphasized the importance of novelty in your research and matching the strength of your work to the right journal—makes sense. For image processing, Professor, suppose you’re working with real-time embedded hardware that has limited processing power. How would you adapt your image processing algorithms to run efficiently on that platform?

So as because this real the hardware. Limited processing power. So I need to, uh, do the. Processing with some optimized algorithm or some? Parallel processing. Uh, so that. The load on the processor will not be much. More and. The processing and the processing will be smoothly.

Alright, so you’d optimize algorithms and maybe use parallel processing to reduce load on limited hardware.

And the results will come. And you know. Given time. So processing and speed I will choose the balance. Getting that. For some application specific. That is defined requirement so I will go for that application specific requirements.

You mentioned considering application-specific requirements to balance speed and accuracy—so your approach changes depending on what the system actually needs. Shifting to embedded and communication skills, suppose you’re integrating an image sensor module with a microcontroller using SPI or I2C. What’s a common issue you might face with data integrity during transmission, and how would you address it?

I would like to tell that this one. We speak topics. Is beyond my uh. Uh, I'm not, uh, in my. So I. I have to go through that. Then I can answer this particular.

No problem, Professor, we can skip that one. Let’s talk about your teaching and academic skills—can you describe a time when you had to modify your teaching style for a particularly diverse group of students, and what strategies you used to ensure everyone was engaged?

Uh. So. For first few classes. I need to specifically understand uh. Plus, this is really class behavior. I can, let us say that. I have to assess the classes.

Okay, so you take time at the start to observe and assess class behavior before deciding how to approach instruction.

That this is me. Becomes the interactive. Are the existing laws for the students of. So complex. Problems. I need to. Explain that in details. And also I have to correlate them with. They are present, understanding or. Some. If there is some, uh, prerequisite is required. So I need to tell them that. You need to study. You need to go through that prerequisite. Before understanding this particular problem.

So you make the session interactive, tie complex concepts to what students already know, and point out prerequisites they should review. Thinking about guiding student research—if a student’s project starts drifting off topic or losing focus, how do you help them get back on track without taking over their work?

OK, so. Support that particular points. So I have to. Mentored them. That actually. Uh, problems they are facing. And because of. Problems sometimes students. Get back. So I need. To solve the problem. Or I need to give them some uh. Input analysis.

So you’d mentor them and help with problem analysis, but let them own the work. For student evaluation and exam responsibilities,

And then I. You can go through that particular. Topics and and the. That results they will. A complete platform. So particularly. Uh, I would analyze that particular. Pay for the flaggers and problem is there. So I. Verify from my. And then I will tell. Writes about these points.

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

Yes. For which role?

You're interviewing for the Assistant Professor (Research) role. This position focuses on teaching, guiding student research, classroom and lab instruction, mentoring, and contributing to departmental research and publications. Anything else you'd like to know about the responsibilities or the team?

Uh, I. I would be, I would. I'm giving this interview with the research.

Right, you’re here for the research-focused Assistant Professor role. This interview’s aimed at understanding both your research outlook and your ability to mentor and teach—since both are central to this position. Anything else you’d like to ask about the department, the role, or our expectations before we wrap up?

So it is a permanent post. What is the? What is the? Position It is a. Contextual or permanent positions. And also what is the CTC? That he will be getting. Hello. Are you there?

Is the meeting is over?

So, to clarify—this is a full-time, permanent faculty position at VIT,