Brief Bio: Dr. Sambit Bapari joined IIT Ropar in February 2025 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Metallurgical & Materials Engineering.  He completed his B.Tech in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from NIT Durgapur and received his ME and PhD in Materials Engineering from IISc Bangalore. Addressing the rigidity thresholds in composite microstructures in the group of Prof. Atul H. Chokshi, his PhD research reveals new insights into the strong interplay between soft and hard phases in a highly-filled metal-polymer composite.  As a postdoctoral research associate, he worked with Prof. Joerg Weissmueller at the Institute of Materials Physics and Technology at Hamburg University of Technology, Germany, where he developed a new nanoporous metal hydride with large continuous hydrogen solubility and provided insights into the characteristic metrics of dealloyed nanoporous Au. His current research interest includes deformation of synthetic and natural materials with one continuous soft phase and interactions of metal-hydrogen systems with stress fields.