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Dr. N. Sandhyarani is presently a professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology Calicut. After having completed M.Sc. in Chemistry from the School of Chemical Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, she earned a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry working with Padma Shri Prof. T. Pradeep at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Subsequently, she joined Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea as a visiting scholar in 2000. Later, spent about two years as a postdoctoral fellow at University of Notre Dame, Indiana and Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. She then joined BITS Pilani, Goa Campus, as a lecturer and worked there till 2006. In 2007, she joined the National Institute of Technology Calicut as an assistant professor and is now a full professor. She published more than 80 articles in international journals with an i10 index of 69 and an h-index of 37. 12 PhD students completed their PhD under her guidance, and 5 students are presently pursuing their PhD. She has received 9 sponsored projects from various funding agencies, including ANRF, SERB, DST, DBT, CSIR, and KSCSTE. Received the Dr S. Vasudev Award from KSCSTE in 2020 for the best completed project. She was selected for the prestigious SERB POWER fellowship in 2021.
Her research interests include the application of nanomaterials in clean energy and healthcare. The research group focuses on developing electrocatalysts for methanol oxidation and oxygen reduction reactions for fuel cell applications. Photocatalytic and electrocatalytic water splitting to produce hydrogen is another focus area in the laboratory. The group works on energy storage devices like supercapacitors. Her research group also works on biosensors. The group has developed highly sensitive glucose, DNA, Dopamine, and Endotoxin sensors and has received a patent for a cost-effective point-of-care device for the on-site detection of sepsis biomarkers.