Dr. Akshai Kumar Alape Seetharam
Designation: Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry
Position: Head, Centre for Nanotechnology
Member: INYAS-INSA
Fellow: Indian Chemical Society
Tel: +91-3612583479 (O), +91-3612583051 (O)
Fax: +91-3612582349
Email: akshaikumar@iitg.ac.in, akshaikumara@gmail.com
About Dr. Akshai Kumar A. S.
Akshai Kumar hails from Mangalore. He obtained his B.Sc. in 2002 from Mangalore University. From the same university in 2004, he received his Master’s degree in inorganic chemistry. He pursued his doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. Ashoka G. Samuelson at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, where he was awarded a Ph.D. degree in 2009. After a postdoctoral stint in the same laboratory, in October 2010, he joined the group of Prof. Andreas Terfort at Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany, as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2012, he extended his postdoctoral activities and worked in the Goldman group at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick. In 2015, he was appointed as Assistant Professor in Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati.
He utilizes his expertise in catalysis (heterogeneous and homogeneous), organometallics and organofluorine chemistry to bring about; (i) Upgradation of light hydrocarbons and their derivatives to fuel grade chemicals. (ii) Utilization of petrochemicals and alkanes to generate aromatics. (iii) Biomass conversion and transformation of waste biomass to value–added fine chemicals (iv) Greenhouse gas to fuels and fine chemicals (v) Synthesis of heteroatom and fluorine doped π-conjugated molecules for material applications (vi) Asymmetric catalysis. The targets are achieved via pincer−metal-catalyzed C−H and C−F activation reactions for the synthesis of fuel chemicals and heteroatom-doped π-conjugated organic materials.
Learn More