Bio sketch

Dr. Rajesh Kumar, honored with the prestigious international "Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award-2024" conferred (Oct. 2024) by the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Foundation, Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (Award ceremony, Mar 27-30, 2025 Bamberg, Germany). The Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Foundation presents approximately 20 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Awards annually to internationally renowned academics from abroad (non-German scholars) in recognition of their outstanding accomplishments in research (lifetime achievement). In 2024, he was the only single scholar from India to receive the "Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award". Also (in Dec. 2024), he is acheived international "JSPS Invitational Fellowship" (Long-term) (FY2025) (JSPS: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) from the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, Tokyo, Japan. The JSPS Invitational fellowship provides opportunities for overseas researchers (only 60 candidates annually) with excellent records of research achievements to conduct collaborative research, discussions, and opinion exchanges with researchers in Japan. He has been alos awarded the international "JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship" (Standard) (FY2018), from the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, Tokyo, Japan. In 2018, he was awarded Ramanujan Fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, India. He is recipient of the FAPESP fellowship (Sao Paulo Research Foundation Fellowship) in 2017, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Brain Korea-21+ fellowship (Research Professor) (2014), South Korea.  

           Currently, Dr. Kumar is a material physicist and recipient of the prestigious Ramanujan Fellow award from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, India to work in Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India. Ramanujan Fellow award is a prestigious DST award program that supports outstanding Indian scientists/ engineers working abroad to pursue research in India in any academic institution. He received his B.Sc (Physics, Mathematics) and M.Sc (Physics) degrees from University of Allahabad (UoA), Prayagraj, India. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Physics from Department of Physics, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, India (supervision by Prof. R.S. Tiwari & Prof. O.N. Srivastava). He has been awarded the international JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship (Standard) (FY2018), (Govt. of Japan) (2018–2020) to work at Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT), Toyohashi, Aichi, Japan. He is also recipient of the FAPESP fellowship (Sao Paulo Research Foundation Fellowship, Sao Paulo, Brazil) and Brain Korea-21+ fellowship (South Korea). He has worked at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) (Graphene Research Center (KAIST KI Building (E4)): Postdoctoral researcher: 2012–2014), Daejeon and Yonsei University (Department of Materials Science and Engineering: Research Professor (Brain Korea-21 PLUS (BK-21+): 2014), Seoul, South Korea. He has also worked at University of Campinas (UNICAMP) (Centre for semiconductor components and nanotechnology: CNPq postdoctoral fellowship & visiting scientist: 2015–2017), Campinas, and State University of Sao Paulo (UNESP) (Department of physics: São Paulo Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (FAPESP): 2018), Presidente Prudente, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

            Dr. Kumar research interests are focused on 2D layered materials (Graphene, MXenes, Layered double hydroxide, Hexagonal boron nitride, Molybdenum disulfide, Tungsten disulfide, etc.), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), quantum dots, and their hybrid nanocomposites for application in energy (storage/ conversion), sensors, EMI shielding, etc. His research has developed several new class of composite-based electrodes that have been researched for effective energy storage purposes. His cutting-edge 2D composite-based functional materials have been developed for a wide variety of applications. Dr. Kumar's research combines a number of fields, including physics, material science, nanotechnology, chemistry, and biological sciences. He has published more than 135 research articles in SCI international journals of repute. His h-index is 67 (with i10-index = 110), and citation counts are more than 12,500 (based on Google Scholar). The significant impact of his research is reflected by >100 citations for 45 of publications, 16 of which have been cited >200 times. Dr. Kumar is “2024 Highly Cited Researcher” by Clarivate Analytics (author of multiple Highly Cited Papers which rank in top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science over the past decade). He has also been included in the World Ranking of top 2% Scientists (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024) released by Stanford University and Elsevier. So far, he has delivered several invited talks in the country and abroad.