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SPEAKERS
Dr. H. L. Roy Memorial Lecture
Prof. Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan
Principal Scientific Advisor to Govt. of India
Professor K. VijayRaghavan is the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, succeeding Dr. R. Chidambaram on April 3, 2018 and the Chairperson of Prime Minister’s Science, Technology & Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC). He was Secretary, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India from January 28, 2013 to February 2, 2018.
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The Principal Scientific Advisor works with all arms of the Government, with our States, our citizens, national and international agencies. The goal is that the benefits of science, technology and innovation solutions reach the most needy, for the sustainable development of India and for the well being of our planet.
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VijayRaghavan is also a Distinguished Professor at the National Centre of Biological Sciences (NCBS), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Bangalore (TIFR) and was the NCBS Director till 2013. He studied Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research was a Senior Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. His research is on nerves and muscles and how complex behavior emerges during animal development.
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VijayRaghavan is a Fellow of the Indian Science Academies, the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences (UK) and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2013.
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Prof. N. R. Kamath and Mrs. Ruzena Kamath Memorial Lecture
Dr. SSV Ramakumar
Director (R&D), Indian Oil Corporation Ltd
Dr. SSV Ramakumar is Director (Research & Development) on the Board of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. Prior to this, he was Executive Director (Refining Technology) at Indian Oil's R&D Centre at Faridabad.
With a doctorate in Chemistry from IIT-Roorkee (erstwhile University of Roorkee), Dr. Ramakumar has almost three decades of uninterrupted R&D experience in downstream hydrocarbons sector, notably in the areas of refinery process research streams, including catalyst development; simulation & modelling; and development, quality upgradation and marketing coordination of automotive lubricants.
He is instrumental in development of India's home-grown, OEM-approved marine lubricant technology, which catapulted Indian Oil's SERVO lubes into the select league of five MNC oil companies. As head of Nanotechnology research in IndianOil, he spearheaded the fastest ever development and commercial deployment of Indane Nanocut high-therm metal-cutting gas. Dr. Ramakumar has to his credit over 95 research publications in peer reviewed national / international journals and 33 patents besides winning several prestigious awards for presenting the best research papers in international conferences.
Prof. C.K. Murthy Memorial Lecture
Prof. Ashutosh Sharma
Department of Science and Technology, Government of India & Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Prof Ashutosh Sharma was appointed as the Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India on 9 January 2015.
He is an Institute Chair Professor and C V Seshadri Chair Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He is the founding Coordinator of DST Thematic Unit of Excellence on Soft Nanofabrication and Chairman of Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT Kanpur.
He is best known for his pioneering research work in the areas of colloids, thin film, interfaces, adhesion, patterning and in the fabrication and application of self-assembled nano-structures.
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This talk is in two parts. We start out by examining some of the compelling processes of doing science and its translation to useful applications with the help of an example of nano-thin films! Such processes include the power of lateral thinking and scientific commonsense, connecting the dots, being interdisciplinary, portability of tools and concepts across silos of knowledge, developing new and useful applications, relating a narrow domain of research to the larger concerns of science and, while doing all this, putting some fun back in research!
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The general ideas above are illustrated by an example from the realm of symmetry-breaking instabilities and self-organized pattern-formation in highly confined, nearly 2-D systems. Thin (5 nm-100 nm) polymer films, which are governed by inter-surface interactions and surface tension, can spontaneously form micro-structures. The focus of our work is on the fabrication of large area, ordered nano-patterns by control of self-organized instabilities and their applications. While the size of structures is controlled by the tyranny of surface tension at small scales, scientific common sense provides a strategy to reduce the length scale of physical self-organizational processes from tens of micrometers to sub-100 nm levels. The latter are characteristic of chemical self-assembly.
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The second part of the talk presents some major oncoming challenges, opportunities and directions in scientific research such as: Sustainable Development, Rise of Intelligent Machines & Industry 4.0/Society 5.0, Science Communication and Popularization, Connecting Science to Innovation and Society, Future of Scientific Funding and Publishing, and Nurturing Diversity. A few selected approaches to address the above challenges are presented. The idea is to encourage awareness and debate on some of the issues that concern the principles and practice of science.