Name
Field of specialization
Degree sought
Born in a family of engineers, the ambience inculcated in me an innate desire to be an engineer. I appeared for the Joint Entrance Examination conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology and was placed in the top 1.0% of the 100,000 students who took the exam. I took up Chemical Engineering as my undergraduate major at IIT kharagpur, which provided me the opportunity to explore the diversity of chemical engineering. While all the core courses provided the fundamentals of the field, the electives that I took helped me gain an insight into the various aspects of chemical engineering.
It was when I took up a course titled "Polymer kinetic theory " that I developed a keen interest in the field of Polymers. This course employed statistical thermodynamics and probabilistic approaches extensively to derive the constitutive relationships that explain stress- strain behavior of polymers in a cogent manner. The course introduced me to the complexity of the polymer molecules. I appreciated the ingenuity that goes into the theories that model these complex fluids, to evaluate their properties. This course whetted my appetite for polymers and encouraged me to delve deep into this field.
The fact that polymers play a pivotal role in modern industry can be stated with certitude. Hence any progress in this field will have a marked effect on the industry and society. To make any further advancement in this field, a good understanding of the behavior, properties and industrial applications is essential.
I gained good knowledge about the practices and the problems in the polymer industry when I took a course titled "Polymer processing". While this course helped me comprehend the practical techniques and problems, a course titled "Rheology of polymers" imparted the necessary understanding regarding the behavior of polymers. My experience with the above courses has confirmed my interest in the field of polymers and has strengthened my desire to probe into this field extensively to investigate the intimate relationship between structure, properties and behavior of Polymers.
I gathered first hand experience of working on an open-ended project when I was part of a team that examined the effect of temperature, on the viscosity of " Fullers' Earth". I had the opportunity to work with complex fluids in this project. In the course of the project we encountered many challenging problems. To illustrate a few, in one of the problems, we could not explain the erratic nature of the viscosity values being recorded. I suspected the particle size of the sample to be responsible for this and measured the particle size using an optical microscope. My suspicion proved to be right and now we had to devise a new way to make the viscosity measurements in light of the new facts. In this project we had to look at every problem from various angles to solve it.
The exercise of overcoming these problems contributed immensely to my knowledge about the behavior of complex fluids like polymers. Working as a team was crucial to root out any problems that we encountered and the spirit of teamwork made the project a pleasant learning experience. I believe that my experience with this project will be of great assistance in my future research and educational pursuits.
While polymers is my primary area of interest, other fields of chemical engineering like Transport Phenomena and Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics also interest me. My terminal B.Tech thesis examines the effect of pulsations on the mass transfer to laminar flow in a dialyser. This project under the guidance of Prof M.S. Ananth has implications in the Biomedical industry. It attempts to verify the analytical correlations that have confirmed enhanced mass transfer under pulsations to laminar flow. The results of this experiment could be used for improving the performance of Dialysis equipment.
While undergraduate study is instrumental in equipping a student with the ground rules of a subject, it only provides him a broad appreciation of the field. I feel that dedicated research is essential to gain in-depth knowledge of a subject. Graduate study provides the perfect environment to pursue research and thus gain a better perspective of the subject.
Georgia Institute of Technology is among the best graduate schools in the world and offers excellent opportunities for research in chemical engineering. I find the research in Polymers, at Georgia Tech to be eminently compatible with my interests. I observe that many research projects being undertaken study the Thermodynamic and Transport properties of polymers systems, a perfect confluence of my areas of interests. I would cherish to engage in research to develop Polymeric materials for novel applications. Given an opportunity to pursue graduate studies at Georgia Tech, I am confident that I will contribute substantially to the ongoing research.
My extracurricular activities include playing Volleyball, Table Tennis and Badminton. I also have been actively participating in literary events such as Scrabble and Pictionary.
I am confident that graduate study at Georgia Tech will help me develop my overall personality. Thank you for considering my application.
