Dr Rajendra Kurapati
Assistant Professor Grade I (Chemistry)
  +91 (0)471 - +91-4712778306
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Rajendra Kurapati was born in a small village near Nuzvid, Andhra Pradesh, and did his schooling at St. Thomas High School and +1 and +2 (Intermediate) at Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada. Later, he studied for his Bachelor’s Degree at Acharya Nagarjuna University and did his Master’s in Chemistry at the University of Hyderabad in 2008. Later, he obtained Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2014. During 2014–2017, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Alberto Bianco at the CNRS in Strasbourg. In 2018, Kurapati received the Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship with Prof. Abhay Pandit at CÚRAM, the University of Galway, Ireland. Since September 2021, Kurapati has been an Asst. Professor of Chemistry at IISER TVM. His main research interests include developing functional biodegradable materials for drug delivery, biotransformation of nanomaterials by immune cells, antimicrobial coatings, biomineralization, etc. He received the DBT-Ramalingaswami fellowship in April 2021, hosted by the University of Hyderabad.

Awards and Fellowships

  1. March 2021 – DBT Ramalingaswami (RLS) Re-entry Fellowship for 2020-21 by Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. India.
  2. May 2018 – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at the Centre for Research in Medical Devices, National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway, in the group of Prof. Abhay Pandit
  3. June 2016 – Travel Grant by European Science Foundation and Graphene Flagship to attend EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) 2016, Manchester
  4. 2009-2013 – Junior and Senior Research Fellowship from CSIR, India.

Professional Experience

09/2021– till date
Assistant Professor Grade I
School of Chemistry
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram
04/2021 – 08/2021
DBT Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellow
School of Engineering Sciences and Technology (SEST)
University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad; Host PI: Prof. VVSS Srikanth
09/2018 – 08/2020
Marie-Curie Fellow
SFI Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CURAM)
The University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Advisor: Prof. Abhay Pandit
Research Project: Bioelectronics based on 2D Black Phosphorus Materials
02/2018 – 08/2018
Research Engineer
Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris, Chimie ParisTech, Paris
Advisor: Prof. Philippe Marcus
Research Project: Environmental Durability of Silver Mirrors for Space Application
04/2014 – 12/2017
Postdoctoral Fellow (European Graphene Flagship)
CNRS Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IBMC),
University of Strasbourg
Advisor: Prof. Alberto Bianco
Research Project: The functionalization of graphene and other two-dimensional materials: Biodegradation and Biomedical Applications

Educational Training

2008-2013
Ph. D. (Materials Engineering)
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Advisor: Prof. Ashok M Raichur
Dissertation: Investigation of Graphene Oxide based Multilayered Capsules and Films for Drug Delivery and Antimicrobial Applications
2006-2008
Master of Chemistry University of Hyderabad, India; Advisor: Prof. T.P. Radhakrishnan; Dissertation: Ultra-thin Films of Novel Molecules with Tail-Head-Tail Structure using Langmuir- Blodgett for fluorescence enhancement