👋 Hi, I’m Sachin — a National Postdoctoral Fellow (N-PDF), sponsored by the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), India, in the Condensed Matter Group, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru, hosted by Prof. Prabal K. Maiti.

I completed my Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at IIT Madras (2026), advised by Prof. Tarak K. Patra.

🔬 I’m an interdisciplinary researcher working across statistical thermodynamics and soft matter physics, with a focus on multi-scale molecular modeling and machine learning. I use exascale computing to tackle problems in polymer science and nanocomposite design, and I’m currently extending this toward water-harvesting metal–organic and covalent–organic frameworks, and machine-learning-guided design of industrial coatings. Longer term, I’m working toward an independent, interdisciplinary research lab that combines molecular theory, high-fidelity simulation, and AI-driven optimization to accelerate functional-nanomaterial design.

🧪 Research interests:

• Machine-learned potentials and deep-learning models of molecular interactions (potentials of mean force, force fields)
• Coarse-grained MD of nanoparticle/polymer self-assembly and nanocomposite rheology
• Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulation of gas and water adsorption in MOFs & COFs
• Data-driven design of copolymers and nanocomposite formulations for industrial applications

Education

• Ph.D., Chemical Engineering — Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), 2020–2026. Thesis: Microstructure–Rheology Correlations in Polymer Nanocomposites
• M.E., Chemical Engineering — Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani – K.K. Birla Goa Campus, 2017–2019
• B.Tech, Chemical Engineering — National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), Surathkal, 2013–2017

Selected Achievements

• 📄 Co-author of a 2025 Nature Communications paper on nanoparticle-architecture-dependent viscosity reduction in polymer nanocomposites
• 🏆 PCCP–SPHERE 2025 (IISc) — 1st Prize, Best Poster Presentation, “Thickening of Liquids Using Copolymer Grafted Nanoparticles”
• ✈️ DST International Travel Scheme (ITS) Grant, Govt. of India — to present doctoral research at the 12th International Liquid Matter Conference (2024), Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany
• 🖥️ Argonne National Laboratory — 1,000,000 CPU-hours on the Carbon Cluster (Center for Nanoscale Materials) for large-scale nanomaterial-assembly simulations
• 🏆 ChemPlus 2023 — 1st Prize, Best Paper Presentation, “Predicting Polymer Grafted Nanoparticles Assembly using Deep Learning”
• ✈️ IIT Madras Institute Travel Grant — to present Ph.D. research at a materials symposium in the USA (2023)
• 🏆 InDA 2018 — 1st Prize, Best Poster Presentation, NIT Trichy

I’ve also been awarded competitive HPC allocations totaling more than 2 million CPU-hours across Argonne National Laboratory and TACC’s Stampede supercomputer for large-scale molecular simulations.

Talks & Presentations

I’ve presented this work at 8 conferences and workshops since 2022, including the APS March Meeting (Las Vegas), the International Liquid Matter Conference (Mainz, Germany), and CECAM MD60 (Bengaluru) — see the full list on the Talks page.

Professional Service

Member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the American Physical Society (APS), and the Society of Polymer Science, India (SPSI). Organizing committee member, ChemPlus school-cum-symposium, IIT Madras (2022).

🤝 Open to Collaboration

I’m always glad to connect with researchers and students working on machine-learned potentials, molecular simulation of soft matter, or data-driven materials design — from polymer nanocomposites, to MOF/COF-based gas and water sorption, to ML-guided formulation design. Whether it’s a joint project, a methods question, or exploring a postdoc/PhD collaboration, feel free to reach out by email or LinkedIn.