Know Your Professor (KYP) — Prof. Chandra Sekhar Tiwary
Awaaz, IIT Kharagpur got the opportunity to interact with the young Dr. Chandra Sekhar Tiwary, Assistant Professor, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. He has recently been selected for the NASI-Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award (2020), and the INSA Young Scientist Medal (2020) for his contributions in developing new classes of nano-structured engineering materials that exhibit superior properties.
Here’s what he has to share with the KGP Community:
Q.1. You have a lot of passion for research. What inspired you to pursue a career in research? What is your source of motivation for research in the fields like energy materials, nanomaterials, etc.?
In my third year of B.Tech, the Indian Academy of Science gave me an opportunity to spend two months at the Indian Institute of Science, through which I got to explore new areas and was exposed to research. As a student, the best thing I like about research is that you have to explore something unknown. Exploring the unknown excited me, so I continued this path.
Q.2. What do you like the most about being a professor at IIT KGP?
Technology is changing rapidly, and if you want to catch up with the current trend, you have to be in contact with the current people. The good thing about being a professor in IIT is that I get to interact with young kids and get to know what is new in technology and society. I find it most exciting because there is a large pool of students and a large diversity in Kharagpur, and that’s the best part.
Q.3. How was your experience of taking classes in the online semester? What did you like and dislike about teaching through virtual classes?
It is undoubtedly a new experience for me. I want to tell the students that anything that comes in front has both advantages and disadvantages, and we have to utilize the advantages and move ahead with positivity. Being focused in class is an issue for your ages, especially in the online semester; I can imagine the challenges. As a professor, I always miss the physical presence of the students in the online semester, but we have no choice in such a situation. One thing that I do to help students with poor internet/resources is giving group assignments because this develops the culture of helping each other.
Q.4. What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced in your career path? How did you tackle them?
We are blessed to be born in an Indian family where we don’t have to worry about our needs, and our parents always try to make sure that we are taken care of. I was fortunate to have mentors, teachers, and supervisors in my research career who always helped and guided me. The biggest challenge was making decisions about my career. As we had multiple choices, making those decisions is challenging. I always followed my passion and chose the option which makes me happy and keeps me motivated in my life.
Q.5. You were a doctoral student and research associate at IISc, Bangalore, and a postdoctoral fellow at Rice University, USA. How was your experience at those institutes? What difference did you observe in students’ and teaching lifestyle there, as compared to IIT Kharagpur?
I was blessed to be in India as a Ph.D. student because here we get a good amount of money and everything is taken care of, while in the west, life is very stressful as there are too many deadlines and the process is very hectic. If you do research in India, you are free to choose your research topics, whereas in the west, in general, you are funded to do a particular project, so you are limited/focused on that. In India, I worked on many different things that were not part of my Ph.D. Coming to the West’s advantages, you have a lot of time to work and less distraction and follow strict deadlines. Also, in the USA, we meet people from all around the world, which is interesting. This is very useful in academics as they can look at the same problem from a different angle and give diverse solutions.
Q.6. Would you like to tell us about some of your hobbies or habits you nurtured that have benefited your career?
Since childhood, I used to love playing cricket. I am not a rigid person, and I do not worry much about everything, so this flexibility in my habits is something I like.
Q.7. What does it take to succeed as a student? What qualities do you observe in your bright or successful students?
I feel that the definition of success and the definition of failure is not appropriate. Nobody is successful, and nobody is a failure. Ups and downs are a part of one’s life, but they do not determine success or failure. Every student is unique, and I don’t think that a student’s CGPA or marks define their chances of success or failure. It’s just a matter of time and interest. The thing that you must do is love what you do or do what you love.
Q.8. Many students just run after getting good grades. How can they be motivated to focus on learning rather than grades?
This is one of the severe problems of a nation with a large population; marks/grades become criteria to judge the quality of students. From class 1, we start focusing on marks, which continues at every stage of education. If we look back at our history, we can see that during Mahabharata, although all the five brothers had the same teacher, they developed expertise in different fields. Similarly, we have diversities in our class, and we have to nurture them. I think this will change generation by generation and evolve slowly. I believe students can bring this change by being able to learn and enjoy different things. There is no single-shot solution to this.
Q.9. What are the projects and research works that you are undertaking?
There are different directions on which our research group is working. One of the areas is structural materials, in which we build strong and lightweight material by changing material composition and its microstructure. We are also working to make atomically thin materials called 2-D materials, and we are trying to discover new 2-D materials. These have fascinating chemical applications like catalysis, sensor, energy conversion, etc. The third direction is 3-D printing. We take inspiration from nature to build complex architectures using 3-D printing. We are trying to change the topology of existing complex 3-D structures to make them strong and rigid. The last area is working on materials to develop for energy or the environment. We see how we can manage the wastes of electronic products.
Q.10. What message would you like to give to the students of IIT Kharagpur?
I see students getting panicked and worried these days very quickly. My suggestion to the students is they should try to understand that the current covid situation is unique, and all of us have piles of problems. I advise them to don’t panic, keep calm, help each other, and we all are here to help you. We are trying to minimize the problems, but you also need to help us with the coordination.
