People

Anirban Hazra

• Integrated M.Sc. IIT Bombay, 1999
• Ph.D. Princeton University, 2005
• Postdoctoral fellow, Penn State University, 2006-2011
• Assistant professor, IISER Pune, 2011-2018
• Associate professor, IISER Pune, 2018-present

Curriculum Vitae

Avdhoot Datar

I completed my B.Sc. (Hons) in Physics from D. G. Ruparel College in Mumbai and my M.Sc. in Physics from Department of Physics, University of Pune. I started my Ph.D. degree trying to understand non-radiative energy transfer at metal-molecule interfaces. For mechanistic insight into such processes, I studied the Independent Electron Surface Hopping (IESH) algorithm. I then moved on to non-radiative energy transfer processes in molecules of biological significance. I have looked at the photostability mechanism in 5,6-Dihydroxyindole - a building block of the naturally occurring polymer, Melanin. Presently, I am looking at Barbituric acid, a proposed proto-RNA molecule, which is structurally similar to Uracil. Understanding its photostability mechanism, and comparing it with that of Uracil, will add to the body of knowledge in the field of 'chemical origins of life'. See here for my ResearchGate profile.

Mahesh Gudem

I got my B.Sc. from Andhra Pradesh Residential Degree College, Nagarjuna Sagar and my Masters degree in Chemistry from the University of Hyderabad. Currently, I am pursuing my Ph.D. degree from IISER, Pune. My aim is to understand the chemical and physical changes that take place in electronically excited states. I have studied the photodecay and phototautomerization of ortho-nitrobenzene, which is an ideal model to study photo-protecting molecules. At present, I am studying the chemiluminescent reaction between nitric oxide and ozone. While this reaction has several industrial applications and has been known for decades, its mechanism is not well understood. My objective, is to explain the mechanism by which some fraction of the products of this reaction (nitric dioxide and dioxygen) are formed in the excited state, which are responsible for the observed chemiluminescence. Click here for my ResearchGate profile.

Meghna A. Manae

I completed a bachelors degree in science from St. Josephs College of Science and Arts in Bangalore. I am currently pursuing an integrated Ph.D. degree in IISER Pune. I am generally interested in the drastically different behaviour of non-canonical DNA nucleobases (in comparison to canonical nucleobases). I have studied the varying redshifts in the absorption of Thiothymines, which are tuned by the site of sulphur substitution. Thiothymines are also known to have high rates of inter-system crossing and near unity triplet yields. My goal is to understand the structural features in these molecules which enhance inter-system crossing rates and triplet yields. Since these two characteristics, are some of the requirements of drugs used for photodynamic therapy, this study would help in the improvement of their design. See here for my ResearchGate profile.

Vaibhav Singh

I am a 4th year BS-MS student in IISER Pune. I am presently doing a project under the supervision of Dr. Hazra. Experimentally, a redshift was observed in the vibrational absorption peak of the C=O bond with a change in the polarity of the surrounding solvent, by our collaborators, Dr. Sayan Bagchi's group. I am attempting to model this effect by representing the C=O bond as a dipole whose dipole moment is accordingly affected by the polarity of the solvent surrounding it.

Shreyas Malpathak

I am a final-year BS-MS student at IISER Pune. I studied basic Electronic Structure Theory, in particular Restricted Hartree-Fock Theory under Dr. Anirban Hazra’s guidance. My research involved stationary point calculations for a novel C-H functionalization reaction developed by Dr. Gnanaprakasam’s synthetic organic chemistry group. Our calculations served as a secondary validation of the proposed reaction mechanism. Currently, I am pursuing my masters project in Prof. Bill Hase's group at Texas Tech University.

Khushboo Singh

I am a graduate student at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I spent two semesters with Prof. Hazra at IISER Pune working on two projects. In collaboration with Prof. Talukdar and under Prof. Hazra’s guidance, we investigated the reaction mechanism of formation of cyclic and acyclic amidines from enynamines and sulfonylazides using Moller-Plesset Perturbation Theory and Density Functional Theory. We studied the transition of the reactants towards three plausible products that were obtained by varying substitutions on enynamines. My second project in collaboration with Prof. Madhusudhan involved studying the fundamental interaction of hydrogen bonds and the secondary structure of the protein. We studied the cause of a preferential Ĥ angle (formed by the donor atom, acceptor atom and the acceptor antecedent) observed in proteins by modeling hydrogen-bonded systems containing all possible combinations of side-chain and main-chain as both donors/acceptors.