Dr. Anwesha Sarkar

Harpole-Pentair Assistant Professor

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Iowa State University, 2020

Ph.D., Physics, Wayne State University, 2015

MS, Physics, Wayne State University, 2013

MPhil, Physics, Institute of Physics, India, 2011

MS, Physics, IIT Madras, India, 2010

BS, Physics, ST. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, India, 2008

Dr. Anwesha Sarkar obtained her undergraduate degrees (B.Sc) in Physics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, India and her Masters of Science (M.Sc.) form IIT Madras, India. She received Ph.D. in Physics from Wayne State University, Michigan (2011-2015). She was a postdoctoral research associate at Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University (2016-2020).  She joined Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State university as an adjunct assistant professor in Fall 2020. She is currently an assistant professor (starting Fall 2022). Her main research interests include high-resolution imaging, nanomechanical property characterization of hard as well as soft samples such as proteins, DNA, RNA, biomolecules, and live cells, the measurement of single molecule interaction forces and binding kinetics of ligand-receptor/ protein-protein systems on live cells using Atomic Force Microscopy. She is also interested in incorporating machine learning approaches to make AFM data analytics faster. Prediction of 3D structures of protein complexes using a hybrid method (combining AFM based 2.5D high-resolution imaging and geometry aware machine learning approaches) is one of the new directions, she is pursing. She co‐authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications (journal and conference publications), and presented more than 10 invited talks. Dr. Sarkar Served as a reviewer and reviewed multiple conference publications for prestigious conferences: Modeling, Estimation and Control Conference (MECC), and Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting (BMES). She also served as a reviewer of multiple journal publications for ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Dr. Sarkar chaired and co-chaired multiple conference sessions at Biophysical Society Annual meeting (BPS) and Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting (BMES). As an Adjunct Assistant Professor at ISU (starting Fall 2020), she received Iowa State College of Engineering Exploratory Research Project (ERP) grant both in 2021 and 2022. She also received SVPP Term Faculty Professional Development award both 2021 and 2022. As an Assistant Professor (starting Fall 2022), she received NSF grant (CMMI) of $650,000 on “Nanomanufacturing of Hybrid Nanocarriers and Understanding their Physicochemical Properties for Targeted Drug Delivery” project as a co-PI.