Profile

Kez trying some film drying hacks

I was born and raised in India. I went to a school in a small town in north-western India where I grew up, until year 10, before moving to another school in the nearest city. I then moved to southern India to go to University and did my BSc and MSc in Chemistry. During my MSc I won a scholarship to go and work in one of the top-ranked physical laboratories in the country (IIT Madras). I was very inspired to see the work being done by research scholars and scientists in that lab and it motivated me to continue my career in research. I then applied and received the University of Sheffield Faculty of science scholarship to pursue my PhD, and this led me to move to Sheffield in 2017. My work involves designing new materials for better performing solar cells. In 2019, I received the Rise professional scholarship offered by DAAD – the German academic exchange service, through which I traveled to Germany and spent some months at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin. Here, I did some analytical studies on the materials I had developed at Sheffield. I am currently writing up my PhD thesis. I will soon be moving to Prague to start my career as a postdoctoral scientist.

During my spare time I love to cook, bake, read and I also try some artistic painting and calligraphy. I love to sing and I am a soprano singer with the University of Sheffield Gospel Choir. I love to travel, but that has been on hold this year because of  COVID-19. During the first lock-down in March, I took up running as a hobby. Having never run before, not even if I were being chased (not-kidding), this was a big challenge for me. I have made progress in coming as far as finishing 5K runs in under 30 min. After I submit my PhD thesis, I plan on training for 10K runs.

At a research conference, Moscow

I make new types of solar cells with nanomaterials called MONs in them. These materials have superior properties. I work on making sure these materials are designed to be well-suited for solar cells applications.

One of the prototype solar cells prepared during my PhD

My regular work day involves planning and preparing new types of nanosheets with superior properties to be used in new-generation solar cells. I run experiments to test quality of the nanosheets and make devices out of them. This is followed by testing the performance of the device and finding ways to enhance the performance in the next set of devices.

A typical day in the lab

At the Berlin synchrotron facility