What I do?
I am a research student broadly interested in the dynamics of gas-surface interactions, ultrafast
electron dynamics, and quantum many-body problems at the intersection of chemical physics and AMO physics.
Currently, I am a graduate student working with Prof. Pranav R. Shirhatti in the Surface Dynamics Group at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research — Hyderabad, India. My thesis work focuses on the dynamics of gas-surface scattering at noble gas–metal interfaces, particularly inelastic scattering of Kr, Ar, and Xe from Au(111).
Academic Background
I received my B.Sc. (Honors) followed by an M.Sc. in Chemistry from the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning.
After my undergraduate degree, I briefly volunteered as a teacher before returning to complete my master's.
I then joined the graduate program at the University of Rochester in August 2019, where I graduated with
an M.S. in Chemistry in 2020. Back in India, I worked as a Junior Research Fellow at TIFR Hyderabad
with Prof. Raghunathan Ramakrishnan (2021–2023), studying ultrafast electron dynamics and developing
optimized Gaussian basis sets for high-harmonic generation spectra. I joined the TIFR PhD program in
the Surface Dynamics Group in 2024.
M.S. in Chemistry
August, 2020
B.Sc. (Honors) in Chemistry
April, 2016
Research Experience
My research has spanned several areas over the years. During my M.Sc., I worked on plasmonic nanostructures
with Prof. Venu Gopal Achanta at TIFR Mumbai (VSRP fellowship) and completed a thesis on exciton transport
in conjugated polymers. After graduating, I briefly studied discrete-time random walk models of transport
with Prof. Upendra Harbola at IISc Bangalore.
As a JRF at TIFR Hyderabad (2021–2023) with Prof. Raghunathan Ramakrishnan, I worked on time-dependent
ab initio methods (TDCI) to study ultrafast electron dynamics and developed optimized Gaussian basis sets
for computing high-harmonic generation (HHG) spectra — resulting in a
preprint on arXiv (2023).
More recently, I visited the Max Planck Institute of Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen (Jan–Mar 2025),
where I performed plane-wave DFT calculations to train machine-learning interatomic potentials for C-atom
scattering on Au(111). Please see the Research page for details on all projects.