Prof. Sumana Dutta

Home Research Group Publications Teaching Grants	Academic Background Postdoctoral Research Associate, Florida State University, Prof. Oliver Steinbock (2009-2011) Ph.D. Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Prof. Deb Shankar Ray (2008) M.Sc. Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (2003) B.Sc. Gauhati University (2001)
	Professional Experience Professor, IIT Guwahati (2021- ) Associate Professor, IIT Guwahati (2015-2021) Assistant Professor, IIT Guwahati (2011-2015)
	Contact Information Room no. CHF 101 Department of Chemistry Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati Guwahati 781039 Ph: 0361-2582322 Fax: 0361-2582349 Email: sumana@iitg.ac.in
	About Sumana Dutta is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry, at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. She pursued doctoral work at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) Kolkata, where she studied the theoretical aspects of nonlinear dynamics of spatially extended systems. Later she worked at the Florida State University, USA as a Postdoctoral research associate where she started doing experiments with chemical reactions that displayed nonlinear phenomena. Her current focus of study at IIT Guwahati are the dynamics of spiral and scroll waves, and their control in both experiments and theory. Apart from teaching and research, Sumana is involved with different outreach activities and loves talking about science to the interested. She is especially passionate about popularizing science and mathematics among the school and college students.
	Current research activities Our current focus is the study of spiral waves and their three dimensional counterpart, scroll waves. In the heart, it is found that their occurrence leads to the rapid, unsynchronized contraction of the ventricles which thereby reduces the heart’s ability to pump blood. This is expressed in the form of medical conditions such as arrhythmia and fibrillation, which may be fatal to cardiac health. So the understanding and control of these wave forms is of utmost importance. We use the Belousov Zhabotinsky reaction, to study the spiral and scroll waves and try to control them using external field gradients.