IIT Gandhinagar Biological Engineering PhD Openings 2017-18 Semester II

IIT Gandhinagar is looking for bright and dedicated young scholars interested in research to join us as Ph.D. scholars. Currently, we offer Ph.D. programmes in Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Cognitive Science, Computer Science and Engineering, Earth Sciences, Electrical Engineering, History, Language & Literature, Materials Science and Engineering, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Social Epidemiology and Sociology. Prospective students satisfying the eligibility criteria are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the research areas of our faculty members for suitable match of interest. IIT Gandhinagar also offers a Start Early Ph.D. Fellowship with additional financial support for exceptionally qualified undergraduate students from select colleges wishing to start on a direct Ph.D. programme after B.Tech.

Minimum Eligibility Criteria

At least 55% marks or 5.5 CPI marks in M.A./M.Sc./B.Tech./M.Tech. or equivalent degree in appropriate branches. Above mentioned eligibility criteria is minimum at Institute level.

For discipline wise minimum eligibility criteria, please click here. The disciplines may use higher cut off levels for short listing besides giving due consideration to the way questions are answered in the application form. Candidates belonging to SC/ST/PD categories would be eligible for relaxations, as per norms, in the selection criteria.

Credits Requirement

IIT Gandhinagar strongly believes in value addition through course work. There is a significant component of course work a PhD student needs to do depending on his/her background. PhD students entering the programme will have to take total credits ranging from 88 through 120, out of which coursework credits (courses worth 4 credits each in general) can range anywhere between 32 through 64 credits, depending upon the previous degree attained by the student. Out of the minimum credits through coursework, a minimum of 12 credits are required to be completed through 3 credit project-based courses.

Qualifying Degree	Minimum Credits through Coursework	Minimum Credits through Research	Total Minimum Credits for Graduation
B.Tech., BE or equivalent 4-year bachelor’s degree	64	52	120
MSc, MA or equivalent 5-year Master’s degree	44	52	100
M.Tech., M.E, M.Phil. or equivalent	32	52	88

Residential Requirement 

Ph.D. programme is fully residential. The regular candidates will have to stay on campus. For candidates under Continuing Doctoral Programme, currently 2 years of residency requirement after completion of 1 year of advanced admission is followed.

Admission Categories

Regular(RR): Fulltime residential research candidate.

Continuing Doctoral Programme (CDP): This if for the candidates working in industry or as a faculty in any educational institution. In this category the candidate is given advance admission with 90 days of residency requirement in 1st year and on successful completion of 1st year, the admission is confirmed with the expected minimum 2 years of full time residential requirement on campus for completing course work and a major part of thesis work. After 2-years, the candidate may be permitted to go back to parent organization subject to significant progress in thesis work. Subsequently, the candidate is expected to complete at least 2 weeks of residency at the Institute for each semester all through the PhD programme. A certificate in support of the candidature must support the application. Click here for more details about the programme.

Financial Support

Students joining the Ph.D. program as regulars (RR) will be considered for Institute Fellowship based on the following norms:

• Post Graduate Degree in Basic Science with NET/GATE Qualification or Graduate Degree in Professional Courses (B.Tech/B.E.) with NET/GATE Qualification or Post Graduate Degree in Professional Courses (M.Tech/M.E. etc) : Rs. 25,000/- per month.
• Qualifications mention at (i) above with two years of Research Experience: Rs. 28,000/- per month.

Highlights

• Full time PhD students are encouraged to present their research work at international conferences. Financial support of up to Rs. 2.00 Lakhs for the entire duration of the programme is available. Additional funding may also be provided.
• A support of up to US$ 12,500 may be considered in deserving cases to do research work at the best Universities/Labs abroad for a period of 4 to 6 months.
• Candidates who have obtained at least one of their previous degrees from a premier institution like IIT, IISc etc. can be considered for an additional fellowship of Rs. 10,000/- per month.
• Over and above the monthly assistantship, an additional fellowship of Rs. 5,000/- per month may be provided to the candidates ranking within the top 5% in any relevant National level qualifying examination. A candidate can receive only one of the above mentioned two additional fellowships. Payment of assistantship is subject to a candidate complying with the prescribed norms/work output.

Know Our Students

IIT Gandhinagar has been quite successful in attracting some of the brightest minds in the country for our Ph.D. programmes. You can see the background of our existing Ph.D. students here.

Research Areas [Admissions to Semester II (2017-18)]

Discipline	Tentative Intake	Broad Area of Research
Biological Engineering	13	Proteomics in Neuroscience, Biomechanics, Biomolecular Simulations, DNA Regulatory Mechanisms, C. elegans neuronal transport, Molecular motors and intracellular transport system, kinesins and Dyneins, Epigenomics and Cellular Homeostasis, Cellular Mechanism of DNA Damage, Kinases in DNA Damage/Repair pathways and Cancer therapeutics for Helicobacter pylori and related pathogens, structural biology and macro-molecular X-ray crystallography of chronic disease related proteins, Nucleic Acid Biophysics and Quadruplex DNA Targeting, Protein misfolding in Alzheimer Disease, Peptide Synthesis and therapeutics
Chemical Engineering	15	Process Safety, Chemical Reaction Engineering, Multiphase reactions, Nanotechnology, Biomedical Engineering, Pharmaceutical Engineering, Polymer Processing, Smart Polymeric Systems, System Identification, Waste Water Treatment, Process Systems Engineering, Colloids and Interfaces, Rheology, Powder Technology, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics, Molecular simulations, Protein aggregation and protein folding
Chemistry	12	Computational Chemistry, Density Functional Theory; Molecular Dynamics; Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Discovery: Infectious diseases ( H pylori) and Cancer (Kinases), Chemical Biology of Cancer: Targeting DNA damaging mechanism involving Kinases; Asymmetric Supramolecular catalysis / Asymmetric Organocatalysis; Synthesis of photoresponsive π-conjugated materials; Bio-inorganic chemistry, electrochemistry, enzyme-inspired catalysts design, small molecule activation for renewable energy research; single particle spectroscopy, spectroscopy of gold nanoparticles, plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy, plasmonic sensors; Bio-conjugates of porphyrins and Boron-dipyrromethene days for chemosensing and bio-imaging applications; Development of anti-inflammatory drugs; design of sulfonylurea-based metalloenzyme inhibitors; synthesis of cyanine dyes; Electrocatalysis and electrochemistry for CO2 reduction, Catalysis for energy and environment; Chemical crystallography of small molecules and studies on weak interactions.
Civil Engineering	9	Performance-based earthquake design of masonry and concrete structures, blast-resistant design, Dynamic response of fine grained soils, Liquefaction and Cyclic Instability in Soils, Constitutive modeling of frictional materials, Numerical Modeling of Geotechnical Structures, Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, Modeling of hydrologic extremes (droughts and floods), Real time flood/drought monitoring, Climate change impacts on water resources, Ground motion characterization, Spatial variability of ground motion, Seismic protective systems, Structural performance assessment, Behavior of irregular buildings under seismic excitation, Confined masonry buildings, Multi-physics study of structures under fire, Structural design for fire safety, Assessment of building facade systems under fire, Large scale hydrologic modeling, River engineering, Transients in pipes, Transients in open channels, Water resource management
Cognitive Science	3	Neuroeconomics, decision making, visuomotor sequence learning, neuroinformatics, Brain imaging, Brain connectivity, Deep learning; control of attention;
Computer Science & Engineering	12	Theoretical Computer Science, Algorithms, Computational Complexity, Game Theory, Mechanism Design, Data Mining, Social Networks, Data Science, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, Computer Architecture, Memory and Storage Systems, High Performance Computing.
Earth Sciences	6	Earth Surface Processes, River Science, Remote Sensing and GIS, Hydro-geochemistry, Groundwater modeling, Contaminant transport, Metal speciation, Isotopic fingerprinting, Surface -groundwater interaction, Soil and water pollution, Bioremediation, Black Carbon
Humanities and Social Sciences	9	South Asian Literature, South Asian History, Gujarat : Society, Politics, Literature, Partition Studies, Ageing/Gerontology, Social Demography, Public Health, Social Determinants of Health, Language, Identity and Politics, Bengali Literature, Modern Indian History, History of North East India, Democracy and Civil Society, Translation Theory and Practice, Philosophy of mind, Consciousness, Moral Cognition, Urban transformations, Caste, City spaces, Comparative Literature, Digital Humanities, Sociology, Indian writing in English, Postcolonial literature, Education Policy, Biodiversity Conservation, Human-Animal relations, Indigenous peoples, Ecotourism, Cultural Anthropology
Electrical Engineering	18	Research Areas Nanoelectronics, Semiconductor Devices, Nanotechnology VLSI Design, Asynchronous Circuits, Computer Architecture Biomedical Engineering, Human Computer Interaction Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition Signal Processing, Soft Computing, Image & Video Processing, Multimedia Forensics & Security Control Systems, Estimation Theory Power Systems and Smart Grid Photonic Sensors, Fiber Optics, Nanophotonics, Electromagnetic Metamaterials, Computational Electromagnetics High Performance Computing, GPU Computing
Mechanical Engineering	15	Experimental, Analytical and Computational Research in the areas of Solid Mechanics, Dynamics and Control, Wave Propagation, Robotics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, Energy Systems, Combustion & Energetic Materials, and Nanotechnology,
Materials Science & Engineering	10	Structure & property of material interfaces, Thin film solar cells, transparent conductors, electronic materials, investigation of optoelectronic properties, oxidation, Biomaterials, Nanotoxicology, Heat transfer and material flow modelling, Friction stir welding and processing of materials, additive manufacturing, Thermodynamic and kinetic modeling of material processes with experimental validation, Self-cleaning materials, Fusion peptides, Design of antibiotics, Drug delivery through cell-penetrating peptides
Mathematics	6	Algebraic Geometry; Analytic Number Theory; Commutative Algebra; Elliptic Partial Differential Equations; Group Theory; Nonlinear Analysis; Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes; Special Functions; Theory of Partitions and q-series.
Physics	3	Nano-science, Physics of Surface and Interfaces, Growth and Characterization of Nanomaterials and Organic Thin Films, Phase Transition and Structural Re-organization of Nanomaterials at Surfaces and Interfaces

Note: Category wise reservations on overall available seats will be followed as per Government of India norms.

Admission Procedure

Admission is generally offered on the basis of an interview, which is supplemented by a written test if necessary. The Institute will invite a limited number of candidates for a written test and interview based on the academic records, statement of purpose, etc. The final selection will be mainly based on academic credentials, written test and/or interview.

The written test is generally based on the topics related to general aptitude (logical reasoning, analytical and numerical ability, etc.), writing skills, and basic courses of various disciplines at undergraduate level. The candidates who do not qualify in the written test need not appear for interview. The reserved category candidates will be given due relaxation in cutoff marks as per the norms.

The candidates called for the Test / Interview will be reimbursed any amount exceeding Rs.750/- for to and fro single second-sleeper class railway fare by the shortest route from their place of residence to the Institute /venue of the Test / Interview. For example, in case of total railway fare of Rs.1400/- the candidate will be reimbursed Rs.650/-. It is required to produce evidence (railway ticket) in support of the claim.

In addition to the announced admission cycles with prescribed deadline of application, the Institute also considers applications any time of the year in case of exceptional candidates. Based on the qualifications of the candidates and the need of the discipline concerned, applications received are processed through duly constituted selection committees at regular intervals.

Important Dates

Application form submission deadline	-	October 5, 2017
Written test and/or interview	-	October/November 2017
Web announcement of list of selected candidates	-	November 21, 2017
Joining	-	December 2017

Application Procedure

All applications must be submitted online. If you are applying for more than one discipline, please submit a separate application for each discipline. After successful submission of the application form, you will receive an application number and a link to download the application form. Please save the application form. You need to furnish hardcopy of the application form and self attested copies of all the relevant documents at the time of interview. Incomplete applications will be rejected

• Application Fees: Rs. 100/- (SC/ST/PD Category), Rs. 200/- (Others)
• You NEED NOT send the hard-copy of the application form.

For further information, you may contact us at academics@iitgn.ac.in