The Speakers

Prof. Chandan Dasgupta is a Professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru, specializing in theoretical condensed matter physics with a strong emphasis on statistical mechanics. His research addresses a broad range of problems in nonequilibrium dynamics, including first-passage statistics such as persistence and survival probabilities in surface growth and fluctuation phenomena, as well as rheological chaos in sheared nematogenic fluids. He also works on nanoscale physics, studying the dynamics of water and other small molecules confined within nanoscale cavities, the kinetics of nanocrystal growth in solution-based synthesis routes, and the mechanical properties of nanostructured materials. 

Prof. Dilip K. Satapathy is a faculty member in the Department of Physics at IIT Madras. His research interests include complex fluids under confinement, complex oxide heterostructures, and the use of x-ray and neutron scattering to study materials. His laboratory focuses on polymers and colloids, examining soft polymer actuators responsive to water vapour, probing polymer kinetics through ellipsometry and X-ray reflectivity, investigating colloidal self-assembly, and developing flexible thermoelectrics for energy generation.

Prof. Sumesh P. Thampi is a Professor in Chemical Engineering at IIT Madras, working in the areas of complex fluid hydrodynamics, interfacial flows, and active matter. His research focuses on the hydrodynamics of complex fluids, interfacial flows, and active matter. His group primarily develops continuum models of soft and active materials, using large-scale computational simulations to visualise and understand their dynamics.

Dr. Debasish Chaudhuri is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, working at the interface of soft matter physics and biological physics. His research interests include cytoplasmic organisation, bacterial chromosome dynamics, and neural growth. He also studies a range of non-equilibrium phenomena such as stochastic thermodynamics and active particles, along with soft matter systems including colloids, polymers, and confined materials. 

Prof. Pinaki Chaudhuri is a professor in the department of theoretical physics at IMSc, Chennai. His research focuses on soft condensed matter and disordered systems, including glasses, gels, and jammed materials. He studies how microscopic disorder and external driving (such as shear or self-propulsion) lead to complex collective behaviour like glass transitions, jamming, yielding, and non-equilibrium flow. His contributions include identifying how mobile regions percolate to trigger shear-band formation in glasses and revealing rich dynamical states in dense active matter. Overall, his work advances the theoretical understanding of how amorphous and active materials respond to stress and evolve far from equilibrium.