About

I am currently an assistant professor at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune.  Before joining the IISER I was a tenure track faculty at Eastern Michigan University USA. On this page you will find a brief synopsis of my academic and professional career. 

I was born and raised in a small town in Uttar Pradesh, India. I qualified a district level exam in fifth grade and admitted to prestigious school Jawahar Navodaya Vidayalaya. This was the first time when I face the challenge and understand the competitive nature of the world. Only 80 student from a district was selected to study in this school and qualifying exam is very competitive. The experience in the boarding school gave me confidence to work and think independently. I completed my masters in physics from Allahabad University and qualified National level gate exam to pursue PhD in plasma physics from Institute for plasma research (IPR), Gujarat India. I have conducted research on dusty (complex) plasmas and published high quality journals. My most cited paper work was the first experimental observation of precursor soliton which has application in space debris detection and mitigation. This work open a whole new area of research and currently many researchers are working on this topic.

After completing my PhD just in three and half year I was awarded by DAAD-DLR research fellowship to pursue postdoctoral studies at German Aerospace Center (DLR) where I was researching microgravity complex plasma and understand the effect of local electric field variation on the phase velocity of dust density waves. Later, I moved to Auburn University and continued low temperature plasma research.  At Auburn, I work on a wide range of topics and mentored numerous undergraduate students.  My main topic of research was to understand the nanoparticle synthesis in magnetized plasma and develop the understanding of how magnetic field effect the growth and morphology of nanoparticles. I also wrote a NSF seed grant which was my first external grant. I utilized my grant to research independently on low temperature atmospheric pressure plasma jet.  we published Nature Scientific report which demonstrate the first observation of green Auroral lines in atmospheric pressure plasma. Later I was associated to Princeton University chemical and biological engineering department where I was utilizing low temperature plasma for green ammonia production. 

Throughout my academic and professional life I faced many challenges and broke many barriers  and kept moving to achieve my goal. Today I am an assistant professor and I would like to provide a better place to next generation college students specially women and people who was underrepresented in many ways. One thing I learnt is that there is no substitute for the hard work and this is the only way to move forward. 

Please checkout my  Publications page for a complete list of my published work. Many of these publications have received accolades and have contributed to the advancement of human civilization. I am extremely happy to talk/share my experience with others so do not hesitate to contact me for discussions related to my research. For all inquiries please contact me at surabhi@iiserpune.ac.in