Good day, Nidhi Sinha. I'm Arjun. I've had a look through your background and your professional record. I'm interested in hearing more about your work and how you see yourself fitting in here with our faculty. Ready to start?

Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia.

Hello, I am Niti Sinha. I finished my PhD from Indian Institute of Technology, Dhanbad from India and my major was Physics. After finishing my PhD in 2021, I moved to South Korea for my post doc research. There I am working as a post-doc researcher. From November 2021 until date, I'm still working there.

And my main work was.

Based on the theoretical calculation of uh, uh, electron and positron scattering from molecules during my PhD. Uh, during my PhD I used Fortran code and I also used some softwares.

For my post-doc I worked particularly on electron collisions and atomic and molecular properties. So in my post-doc my main work was somehow interdisciplinary, not purely physics. And now when I'm doing my post doc research, I'm using again some softwares, some some Python codes and some freely available codes.

Also, so I feel the position for computational physics assistant professor.

Expertise and my experience with the handling softwares and codes will be very useful for this position.

Is very suitable for me since my.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing that, Professor Sinha.

Professor, could you start by describing your research expertise in Computational Physics? Specifically, I'd like to understand the scope and impact of your work in this field.

As a PhD student, I worked on the calculation of electron and positron impact cross sections. For that we in our group we use these scattering theory from quantum physics, especially the partial wave analysis method.

And we also use some a very popular dedicated research theory that is our matrix method for low energy collisions and the.

So basically we had two different.

Codes or software as you can see, so for a high high energy that is medium to high energy that is above 20 to 30 electron volts, we used Fortran code and that was based on the optical potential method we where we compute the.

Overall potential with which the incoming electron or positron might be interacting.

And with that potential we solve these Schrodinger equation and then we obtain the S matrix and K matrix and finally the cross sections.

So that particular code or that particular theory that we say scope, that scope method was very useful for height, uh, intermediate to high energies, but it was not very reliable in low energies. So during my PhD, I tried to modify the codes with.

Of with some modification in the in the interaction potential and with that potential and with those changes we were able to compute the even the low energy cross sections. And I have published one paper on that where we have shown that the low energy cross sections that is from one electron volts to 220 electron volts also the the agreement with the experiment.

Experiments were very nice and we named the method as effective potential method.

So this was the main highlight of my thesis, the second work that was quite useful and different from my other PhD members, where it was the inclusion of nuclear static.

Effect. So generally only the orbital electrons are considered when we are studying the interaction between the incoming electron and the.

In the and the atom or the molecule that we are interested in. However, I try to include the nuclear static effect also and that improved our cross section.

On this effect I exclusively studied for ionization cross section. So I am not computed all the different varieties of cross section. But for ionization cross section the agreement was very nice.

Then I also computed the cross sections and back scattering effect in case of condensed molecules or atoms. So generally the collision studies that you find in the literature, it is mostly based on the caseous molecule and then.

When in the actual experimentals.

Set up or say some application, industrial application, it is not.

It is not required that the gas should be that the molecule should be in the gaseous state. In many application it is mostly in the solid-state or or any other or maybe liquid also so in condensed matter.

Sorry, in a condensed phase also the cross sections are required and hence I did some back scattering calculation which is basically the cross section studies that we are doing and using that cross section values we compute the backscaping coefficients. So I did those for few atoms in solid-state and then I also studied the liquid water.

As my target and I computed again the cross section and other useful parameters. So this is the third highlight of my work. And I also try to include other important processes like the rotational excitations also in my scope codes, which is obviously very very reliable in high energy. So for low energy calculations I improve my scope codes. Secondly, I.

Did the calculations for condensed phase also. So these are the 2 main highlights that broadly I can say during my PhD now as a post doc researcher.

I'm trying to.

Do further calculations.

From the existing ones that are already done in my post doc group. So I'm again using the cross sections and I'm doing some simulation studies there using those simulation.

Studies we obtain parameters that are very useful for industrial application.

So there also I have done some small, I prepared some small codes, I have learned many new codes and softwares that are easily available and then I am trying to compute more parameters for my post-doc group.

So this is how I can summarize my work.

And it is it is purely computational what what I am doing there.

Understood, Professor. Your description reflects a robust engagement with Computational Physics, especially in areas involving scattering theory, cross-section calculations, and modifications to existing computational methods. The effective potential method, inclusion of nuclear static effects, and extension of studies to condensed phases are noteworthy contributions. To further understand your expertise, could you elaborate on the challenges you faced when modifying the interaction potentials in your scope codes, and how you validated these improvements?

Yes, so.

The main challenge was the.

Uh, how to obtain the interaction potential? So there are different methods. Uh, first method is either I use some quantum chemistry code and I opt I.

Either optimize or you can say I perform the calculation exclusively for the for the solid-state there or the liquid state. Because in a say in Gaussian, which is very popular quantum chemistry code, you have the option to include the straight of the gas. So in in that case I can obtain the electron charge density and using that charge density I can obtain the static potential and with those with that static potential.

Optimize the.

I can further obtain other potentials.

And that are included in the interaction potential. However, as a PSG student I was not aware of these calculations since my group was purely based on physics calculations so I had no idea of chemistry calculations. So the first challenge for me was how to obtain that potential because with without those that potential I cannot do the further calculation like I cannot solve this Claudinger equation so.

In the literature I studied, I read many papers and then I found that for in case of atoms.

When we are doing gaseous calculation, we use paper from Salvat. He proposed some parameters and that those parameters are then used in the formula for static potential. So he has also published a paper which was specifically for solid atoms. So the parameters that were reported very specifically for solid-state. So I obtained those.

I I just use those parameters and then obtain the static potential and the further other potentials where then.

Computed.

For and then again when I am doing the calculations for solid-state or any or even liquid state, I cannot use the directly the ionization potential or the polarizability of the gaseous molecule. So I also tried to obtain those values from the literature or with some approximations also we can obtain them.

So for solid-state I did this this kind of modification and for liquid state again in the literature.

I found that the charge density and the static potential was reported by one of the authors and with those potential again I obtained other potential and then I obtained the Schrodinger equation. So this this was how I did my calculation for condensed phase for effective potential method.

I was just working on my course for 2-3 years then all of a sudden it strike my mind that maybe.

Modify the codes or the way we are obtaining the potential. It can be modified because this code is working for last 30 years and it has given very reliable results in the higher energies. So it cannot be questioned. However, there is still a scope to improve the courts or improve the theory because the outer structure will be the same. However, how we are using.

We can.

I think that theory.

Uh, those steps in our course.

That algorithm can be modified and I tried that algorithm. I changed the algorithm, I modified it and then surprisingly I found that for low energies it is working very well. So for while for all these three kind 3 work like for solid atoms, liquid water or the effective potential method. I picked those targets only for which some experimental data was already available. And if you go through my papers for.

The the agreement with the experiments was excellent, so this is how I validated it. And this is how like I already explained how I got the idea how to modify those things.

33 works specifically.

Thank you, Professor. Your explanation highlights a structured and thoughtful approach to overcoming key challenges in your computational work. It’s clear that your modifications, especially the improvements to existing algorithms and potential formulations, required innovative thinking and rigorous validation. Your use of experimental data for validation, tailored strategies for solid and liquid states, and careful attention to literature reinforce the scientific depth of your research. Let's proceed into exploring how your proficiency in computational modeling translates into your ability to guide student projects effectively. Could you share your approach to advising students on computational methods, particularly when they face conceptual or technical challenges?

Yeah.

So as a PhD student, I have already Co mentored around 3-4 students. So I have mentored BTEC students, I have mentored MSC students who were basically working for their research project projects under my PhD supervisor. And then during my interaction with them, my first approach is always to build a personalization, not very personal but of course a very friendly relation so that they are comfortable with me so that they can.

Question. If they have any question they can tell me. So the first approach will be.

I need to understand what are their capacities, how they, how well are they encoding or using any software. So since I have.

Good. I can say I have handled 4 four students and during my post doc also, uh, there was one German student who was, uh, visiting our institute. So I helped her learn the R matrix method that I told you earlier. So I helped her to understand the basic concept and then the.

She was successfully she could handle this software by the time she left, so we even performed 1 calculation with together.

How to handle the software? So she was there for one month and.

So I think I have a good experience how to handle students and of course the challenges will always be there because there every individual has their own pros and cons. I need to personally tailor my.

Maybe my approach to them?

So maybe this is how I can handle them?

Do I need to inform more like give more information?

No, Professor, your response sufficiently demonstrates your ability to mentor and guide students effectively. Your tailored approach to accommodating individual strengths and challenges, along with your successful experience in training students on computational methods, is clear and well-articulated. Let's now shift focus to your ability to teach theory and laboratory courses. Can you share how you approach structured teaching, balancing theoretical depth with practical application, to ensure student comprehension?

Yeah, sure.

So as a teacher when I'm teaching.

And since my position is for assistant professor computational physics and I, I assume it will be mostly for B.Tech students. So first let's try to understand how we can handle undergraduate students. So undergraduates, of course, they come after finishing their 12th standard, so they are not very proficient with coding, you know, and.

The computational methods. So first, my first approach, especially, especially if it's for computational physics, will be to.

Introduce them to the real.

Real problems where actually this computational physics or the numerical methods are utilized so that they are more open to understand what I'm what the syllabus demands. So the first approach will be that. And as a teacher my approach will be in general for any subject, if it's computational physics, atomic molecular physics or quantum physics, it will be always that. It's not. It should not be the traditional.

Blackboard thing I want.

How many online materials are available where you can actually?

Understand what?

How the processes are happening?

Say, uh, you have uh, double slit experiment. So on the blackboard it's.

Little difficult to actually imagine what's happening, so we can utilize online tools, we can utilize YouTube videos to make them grasp what actually.

This micro level physics is because my expertise is quantum physics, apartment molecules, so it's all in the micro world. So our brain is generally it's tailored to.

Perceive and understand.

Macrophysics what we can actually see from our eyes, but for atomic molecules level it is very difficult.

To imagine. So for for the atomic molecular part, this will be my approach and obviously for computational physics part, I think not just the mathematical structure is important or the codes are important, but also why we are using these kind of approaches. So maybe some real world problems should also be introduced to them where they can understand how to use these methods.

So this will be my answer for this question maybe.

Thank you, Professor. Your response reflects a thoughtful and modern approach to teaching, emphasizing not only theory but also visualization tools and real-world applications to enhance understanding. Incorporating online materials, simulations, and relatable examples is a great strategy, particularly for topics in microphysics and computational methods. Your consideration for the needs of undergraduate students also highlights an adaptability in your teaching style. Now, moving forward, let's assess your experience with student evaluations and exam duties. How do you ensure fairness and clarity in assessing student performance, particularly in practical and theoretical assessments?

Sorry to interrupt, we're down to the last 5 minutes.

OK. I'll try to very quickly finish it. So as a PhD student, I was also the teaching assistant, so I have experience in examination.

Like examination copies, checking.

And we were given the power gift, the final marks also in my IIT. So the fair for the fairness, I think the best way is to either prepare.

A answer sheet and that should be the benchmark with which I I might be checking other people like all the papers.

From these students and for the practicals it should be again, I, I, I believe it should be flexible. And because for the same code of say, write a code to solve the roots of some equation is there. So every student will have their own approach. Maybe their algorithm might be a little different and the way they are coding might be different. So we cannot have a very strict.

Maybe personally I will try to understand how what they are doing and whether their algorithm is correct or not. But if it's on the other side of like maybe atomic, molecular, quantum physics, then we can still have a structured answer sheet. Of course there will be again some flexibility there and but benchmarking might be more important in atomic, molecular or quantum physics. In my case. This is my thinking.

Answer sheet We cannot prepare so I will.

Thank you, Professor. Your insights on structuring evaluations, emphasizing benchmark answer sheets for theoretical assessments while allowing flexibility for practical approaches, show a comprehensive and equitable strategy for assessing diverse student outputs. With time running short, is there anything additional you'd like to discuss or emphasize before we finalize this interview?

Yes, I was very curious like the position is for research faculty, so.

What will be my contribution towards teaching as a research faculty in VIT?

Professor, based on the job description, while the role predominantly emphasizes research, it also requires active involvement in teaching. You would be responsible for delivering classroom and laboratory sessions, evaluating students, and guiding their projects. Beyond teaching, there's a strong focus on research development, collaboration with industry, and publications. Additionally, contributing to academic tasks such as curriculum development and departmental activities is part of the role. Would you like to explore any specific aspect further?

Yes. How will I then contribute to the academics? Like do I need to?

Uh, as a researcher, do I need to bring more collaborators, foreign collaborators there or bring more Mous, something like that, or just it will be paper publishing?

Professor, based on the responsibilities outlined, your academic contributions would encompass several dimensions: 1. **Research Development**: Publishing high-quality research papers in reputed journals, advancing the university's academic profile, and potentially engaging in multidisciplinary research initiatives. 2. **Industry Collaboration**: Promoting industry–institution interaction, which could involve consultancy projects, research partnerships, or developing impactful, application-driven studies. 3. **Departmental Enhancement**: Bringing foreign collaborators, establishing MOUs, and pushing for funded projects are powerful avenues to enhance the department's academic and research reputation. 4. **Student-Centric Tasks**: Guiding student projects and research activities, curriculum development, and attracting motivated students into emerging areas of Computational Physics. In essence, while paper publishing is vital, fostering collaborations, building networks, and contributing to institutional growth via research impact seem equally important. Does this align with your research vision?

Yes, I I cannot fully understand what you're trying to tell me, so it's this information is very useful for me.

Thank you.

You're welcome, Professor. It's been an insightful discussion—thank you for sharing your expertise and thoughts. If you're ready to conclude the interview at this point, just let me know.

Our scheduled time for the interview is now up. Before we conclude, do you have any questions related to the role or the company?

No, I I got all the answers. Thank you very much.

You're most welcome, Professor. To confirm, would you like me to formally end the interview now?

Can you repeat?

Certainly, Professor. Would you like me to formally end the interview now?

Yes.