Dr Sowmya Purushothaman

Dr. Sowmya Purushothama is a Research Fellow (Returning to academia after a break). She has been studying the role of biological membranes in various functions through engineering and Physics. Dr. Purushothaman then uses the information on membranes to develop artificial soft nano robots that can self propel just like real cells. This field is called active matter which is a very new and fast growing field of study. She also uses her understanding of membranes to further investigate the origins of life, build artificial cells.

Dr. Purushothaman obtained her PhD from Imperial College London, UK and then went on to spend two years at Cambridge University as a Post Doc. Currently, she is a Research Fellow leading the international collaboration between University of California Davis and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Through out her research career, Dr. Purushothaman successfully secured funding to carry out her experiments, having been invited to be a key note speaker in International Conferences (ACS Conference, 2017, High pressure conference - 2014, Nano materials - 2015 to name a few), mentored students and helped them securing scholarships. She has also received an invitation to write a chapter in an upcoming book on soft materials which will be published by the end of this year. her tools have been successfully being used in other labs, central synchrotron facility in the UK. Academically, Dr. Purushothaman has extensive work experience in building cool and novel instruments, program and analyze data.

Aside from research, she is passionate about education and has been involved in various non profit organisations to make education affordable and encourage girls to take up STEM. The outreach activities that she has been involved in are related to science fairs, exhibitions, organizing conferences, sand box activities and demonstration on science through frugal objects.