Principal Investigator

Dr. Milan Kumar Jena is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering (MSME) at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhilai, India. He completed his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemistry from Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, and IIT Guwahati, respectively. He earned his Ph.D. in computational materials under the supervision of Prof. Biswarup Pathak from the Department of Chemistry, IIT Indore. He finished his Ph.D. in October 2024 and briefly worked as a Research Associate (RA) there till January 2025. Subsequently, he joined the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick, UK in January 2025 as a Postdoctoral Researcher and worked with Prof. Hatef Sadeghi till joining IIT Bhilai in December 2025.

He has more than six years of research experience in diverse interdisciplinary fields of nanolectronics, biomolecule sequencing, and advanced materials design. His research interests lie at the intersection of nanoelectronics, quantum transport, and AI/ML for quantum engineering of molecular junctions, quantum devices, and nanoscale materials. His work includes modelling of solid-state 2D nanopore/nanogap/nanochannel devices for DNA sequencing using the transverse quantum tunneling current approach. In addition, he holds extensive experience in the field of heterogeneous catalysis (CO2RR, OER, ORR), Li-air battery, thermoelectrics, and data-driven design and discovery of various advanced materials. Complementing his computational expertise, he also actively collaborates with experimental research groups focused on atomically precise metal nanoclusters and energy materials.