Yes, please.

Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia

Thank you. So I am. And an industry. Interdisciplinary Researcher. And with specializing in. Nano Tribology. Soft matter physics.

Nano tribology and soft matter physics — that's a fascinating intersection. Can you share how your interdisciplinary approach has shaped your academic path so far?

And uh. Advanced microscopy and molecular thermochemistry. OK, so. After completing my. PhD in Dikshavarthi University. I have joined University of Tokyo as a JSPS postdoctoral researcher and then I have started. My research that is focused on. Developing mechanochromic sensing platform based on Poly D Acetylene layered materials for quantitative detection and visualizing of friction forces. In various across different. Then scale from nanoscale to macro scale. In nanoscale. By integrating the dual friction force microscopy and fluorescence microscopy, I demonstrated. That I demonstrated the. The relationship between the quantitative relationship between the fiction forces with the. Floresense microscopy, which enables. To detect the the. The friction forces quantitatively, uh. Uh, this allows us to visualize. The friction forces at nanoscale. Later I use this. From expensing idea for real time for for. Real application for sensing materials by developing a smart packaging. System Chameleon packaging system. With the pressure analysis. App which can visualize the even a small scratching with special. Version of few millimeter. And and quantitatively detect it. Pressure distribution on the packaging system and later on. I extended my this research on the biological field such as PDA based microphotic system for cancer cell. Detection. This is a very new the. Research journey that I have started and so. By bridging this fundamental research. With the real time application this next. Chromic sensing platform has its versatile. About application in. Next generation. And wearable devices and biomedical. Biomedical applications so. By bridging this. By. With my. Uh, by this research work I can bridge. Uh, nano tribology? The polymer. And the advanced microscopic. Advanced microscopy through quantitative imaging. So, umm. I'm very interesting. To translate the fundamental research. Into real life. Real-world practical application. While contributing. To the research and also the teaching in an interdisciplinary manner. Thank you.

Dr., you've worked across nanoscale research and real-world applications. When you first teach a foundational concept like friction or molecular interactions to undergraduates, what's your strategy to make it both accessible and memorable?

OK, OK, so, uh. The main. Aim of my research. Actually. To visualize the mechanical force. So. It is very difficult. To detect. And to detect quantitatively.

Right, you're highlighting how tricky it is to make something as abstract as mechanical force tangible for students. When you introduce these concepts in class, do you use demonstrations, analogies,

And to visualize the mechanical forces in our. But mechanical sources is a very important thing. Yes. Yes, yes, obviously, because during my post doctoral research I already have some teaching experience. They come to my, they come to our lap, and I show them how atomic force microscopy works. How the friction force microscopy works and how? We correlate. The friction force microscopy with the fluorescence imaging. To detect descendants. Kind of, uh. Different kind of friction forces across. The nanoscale.

So you actually walk students through the lab, showing them atomic force microscopy and how friction force microscopy ties to fluorescence imaging — that's hands-on and concrete. How do students typically react the first time they actually visualize friction forces at the nanoscale?

And the my, my vision, my my, uh. OK, OK. At first. What they ask at first. Steam only responsive polymer because my. My concept is mechanochromic sensing. So they ask us what is the mechanochromic sensor? So I I said them the mechanochromic sensor is something like that. We stimulate we stimulate some of the materials or applied pressure from. Outside and then it reacts means when we apply the friction forces or something pressure on mechanopropic material it changes. Colors. So first of all, this is the fundamental things and then. We try to visualize in the nanoscale, so atomic force microscopy sketches that thin film and then the scratches are visualizing this fluorescence microscopy. Then we. Take the experimental data, analyzed it with the MATLAB programming and then find the correlations with lateral forces and. And the process microscopy quantitatively so. When I show them this results. They actually understand how beautiful the process is and how the real application and for the real application when I saw them that this chameleon packaging system. That any kind of scratches you can quantitatively detective. With the pressure analysis app, they are so much fascinating about this research work and they we are already collaborate with different kind of. School students are visited.

By us and I demonstrate them about my. Research on some.

Okay, so when students see the color change in the mechanochromic sensor in your lab,

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

Sorry, pardon. Can you can you explain again?

Sorry, pardon. Can you can you explain again? Sorry.

You mentioned demonstrating your research—are you also guiding undergraduates or postgraduates through these lab processes, maybe even having them run parts of the experiments or analysis themselves?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, yes, I already already teach the students how to use atomic force microscopy and. And. The frozen microscopy. This dual technique. This this discovery is made by. Made by our lab. Sugiyara lab in. YouTube and. And I found that. Yes, there is some interfacial physics. Related in behind because. My my experience. Shows that. How? The tubular level changes in the. Molecular level changes.

Yes, yes, I already already teach the students how to use atomic force microscopy and. And. The frozen microscopy. This dual technique. This this discovery is made by. Made by our lab. Sugiyara lab in. YouTube and. And I found that. Yes, there is some interfacial physics. Related in behind because. My my experience. Shows that. How? The tubular level changes in the. Molecular level changes. Uh, help to understand.

You mentioned the discovery in Sugiyara lab and the connection to interfacial physics. Given your experience, where do you see the most promising, fundable research directions in mechanochromic sensing or nano tribology over the next few years? Which agencies or grants would you target to support this work?

Okay, so you’re connecting how changes at the molecular level drive what you observe with dual techniques like AFM and fluorescence microscopy. Given all this, how would you collaborate with industry or other research institutes to bring applications of your work—like that chameleon packaging system—into VIT University’s classrooms or labs?

How the friction forces propagate. Yes, Sir.

You gave some concrete examples of guiding students through advanced microscopy and correlating experimental data, which speaks to your hands-on approach. Now, Professor, can you provide an example of how you've guided undergraduate or postgraduate students in a laboratory setting to achieve innovative outcomes in semiconductor device physics research?

Semiconductor device research. I am not. Exactly familiar with the semiconductor. Conductor Research devices I am only. I I I learned something about in the solid-state physics when I. I was in. I'm doing my MSC. So right now for the semiconductor based devices.

Semiconductor device research. I am not. Exactly familiar with the semiconductor. Conductor Research devices I am only. I I I learned something about in the solid-state physics when I. I was in. I'm doing my MSC. So right now for the semiconductor based devices. Actually I have to work. Frankly speaking, I have to work on this but. If you say. For the supplemental physics I can teach them.

Okay, so you’re honest about your focus — I appreciate that. Now, 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?

Alright, so you’re not currently working in semiconductor devices, but you’ve got a strong background in solid-state physics and supplemental physics teaching. Let’s pivot a bit — beyond teaching and research, what role do you see yourself playing in department-level governance, like curriculum committees or program reviews?

Uh, because. Yes, yes.

So you see yourself being involved — can you give me a concrete example of how you might contribute to something like a curriculum review or a program assessment process, especially if you notice a gap between what’s being taught and what students actually need to know?

OK, OK. That is very good question. As a student, what I learned. Through my research journey, that is. My background was. Physics then. I turned into chemistry. And then now soft matter physics and then. Uh, biology so. I thought. How this transition? Uh, effect or? Or influence your research work so. I told them. I guide them for the analyte for any kind of analytical on solve and problem solving. Techniques.

Alright, you’ve clearly had a cross-disciplinary journey, blending physics, chemistry, soft matter,

And I guide them and I I would like to. To provide to. Integrate them with. Yes, yes. OK. OK. So for the research. I would like to collaborate. With my previous. Places like someday like different research labs in Japan.

Also, I would like to collaborate with the European or American research laboratories and for the teaching experience.

Professor, imagine this scenario: a student submits a formal complaint, alleging your grading was biased. At the same time, your department head is pressuring you to improve pass rates in your course. How would you handle that situation?

You mentioned wanting to collaborate internationally, which is valuable. But in the scenario I gave—student complaint about grading bias, and pressure from your department head to improve pass rates—how would you actually respond to both parties? For example, what’s your process for reviewing the grading and communicating your decision?

OK, so for the trading purpose, I always, uh. Prefer that. Is student. A clear.

Alright, you started to say you always prefer students be clear—can you walk me through your actual process if a student comes to you questioning their grade and feeling they were treated unfairly? How do you review your own grading,

His or her exam? With his uh. I can give them a great, I don't.

You’ve laid out your approach to student assessment and fairness, even under pressure. Given your background in solid-state and soft matter physics, do you have any industry connections or collaborations that could help students access real-world research projects, internships, or placements—especially in areas like materials science or applied physics?

Yes, yes. Actually I have write a. Project. With my previous supervisor for where I am a Co Co principal investigator by. But on that project I have done everything right, the project writing, submitting everything so. I can guide the students.

And. I also covered previously I collaborated with industry in Japan. For the smart sensing packaging systems and. They always often come to flap my. Visit.

And. I also covered previously I collaborated with industry in Japan. For the smart sensing packaging systems and. They always often come to flap my. Visit. Yes.

And. I also covered previously I collaborated with industry in Japan. For the smart sensing packaging systems and. They always often come to flap my. Visit. Yes. Yes, yes.

And. I also covered previously I collaborated with industry in Japan. For the smart sensing packaging systems and. They always often come to flap my. Visit. Yes. Yes, yes. Yes.

Alright,

So you’ve collaborated with industry in Japan on smart sensing packaging systems, and it sounds like you maintain those connections, which could be great for student exposure. Shifting gears to machine learning—imagine you’re mentoring a student who’s building a basic neural network for materials property prediction, but their model consistently overfits. What practical steps would you have them try to address the overfitting?

So your industry work in Japan on smart sensing packaging gives you that practical perspective. Now, thinking about machine learning—say you’re leading a project to predict material properties from microscopy images, but your labeled data set is small and a bit noisy. What practical steps would you take to build a robust model in that situation?

So you’ve handled project writing and collaboration, and you’ve got industry connections in Japan. Now, thinking about machine learning — if you were leading a project to predict material properties from microscopy images, how would you design the workflow to ensure your model’s predictions are both interpretable and reliable for researchers who may not have a background in machine learning?

You’ve kept up those collaborations in Japan, and you’re clearly proactive about forging international research links. Switching gears — quantum computation is another key area for us. Can you describe a situation where you’d use quantum algorithms instead of classical ones, and what the main advantage would be for a physics research problem?

OK. So this is very broader aspect that you you have asked. Yes, Sir. Actually I have started. To apply this machine learning techniques for. I researched because it's. It has a. Different application in my case, let's say if I. If I design. Layered soft layer, 2 dimensional layered system there are difficult. Different type of parameters that I can achieve, so something like tune the mechanophromic behavior, so. If I know the prop I have. Already different kind of data sets from different materials, so I use them for the machine learning. Something like the sparse modeling. Which can. Which can evolve around and give. Need the optimization set of the yes. Something like that. This kind of ratio I have to mix this kind of this kind of. Pressure I have to apply to get the mechanochromic behavior or something. So the machine learning will be very much helpful. For this and I have already started to apply that. And yes, obviously the industry relation. With the. With my system is very. Very effective.

OK. So this is very broader aspect that you you have asked. Yes, Sir. Actually I have started. To apply this machine learning techniques for. I researched because it's. It has a. Different application in my case, let's say if I. If I design. Layered soft layer, 2 dimensional layered system there are difficult. Different type of parameters that I can achieve, so something like tune the mechanophromic behavior, so. If I know the prop I have. Already different kind of data sets from different materials, so I use them for the machine learning. Something like the sparse modeling. Which can. Which can evolve around and give. Need the optimization set of the yes. Something like that. This kind of ratio I have to mix this kind of this kind of. Pressure I have to apply to get the mechanochromic behavior or something. So the machine learning will be very much helpful. For this and I have already started to apply that. And yes, obviously the industry relation. With the. With my system is very. Very effective. And uh. Yes, as you said, the. Quantum algorithms is a very very.

You gave a solid example of how you use machine learning for optimizing material parameters and mechanophromic behavior, and how you leverage industry relationships for your research. On the theoretical physics side, can you walk me through a specific concept or result from statistical mechanics that you've applied directly in your own research, and explain how it influenced your experimental design or data analysis?

You started to explain how you've applied machine learning—like sparse modeling—to optimize material parameters in your research,

But I am. Now trying to adopt this machine learning techniques. I have the the I have the data. Sorry, I don't have any idea about the quantum computation. I'm frankly speaking. But if I gave a chance, I would like to explore that portion.

I think only uh. I only uh. Kuwait, my data set.

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

Got it.

Yes, yes, I. We would like to ask that. Umm, if I have been selected as a physics teacher or something in the in the?