IIT Gandhinagar PhD Admissions 2019-I in Biological Engg/Life Sciences

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	Minimum Duration	Maximum Duration	Expected Duration
B.Tech., BE or equivalent 4-year bachelor’s degree	64	52	120	3 years	7 years	4 years
MSc, MA or equivalent 5-year Master's degree	44	52	100	3 years	7 years	4 years
M.Tech., M.E, Two Years' M.PH. or M.Phil.	32	52	88	2 years	6 years	3 years

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 I (2019-20)]

Discipline	Broad Areas of Research	Tentative Intake
Biological Engineering	Epigenetics, DNA Regulatory Mechanisms, Quadruplex Nucleic Acids in Disease Regulation, Biomolecular Simulations, C. elegans neuronal transport, Molecular motors and intracellular transport system, Kinases involved in DNA Damage/Repair pathways: cellular mechanisms & novel Cancer therapeutics, Targeted therapeutics for Helicobacter pylori and related pathogens, Nanobiocatalysts with new architectures and scope of application, Neuroscience, Biomechanics, Neural Control of Movement, Movement Disorders, Rehabilitation, cellular response to bio-nanomaterials,Biomedical engineering and Instrumentation, Structural DNA Nanotechnology, Stem Cells Programming and regenerative medicine, Cellular and Chemical Biology, Protein Aggregation in Neurodegenerative Disorders, small molecule & macromolecular crystallography and structural biology of proteins	12
Chemical Engineering	Process Safety, Chemical Reaction Engineering, Multiphase reactions, Nanotechnology, Biomedical Engineering, Pharmaceutical Engineering, Polymer Processing, Polymer Gels, Polymer Blends, Shape memory polymers, Smart Polymeric Materials, Polymer Ionic Liquids, 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	18
Chemistry	Computational Chemistry, Molecular Dynamics; Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery: Infectious diseases ( H pylori) and Cancer (Kinases); Anti-Inflammatory, anti-glaucoma and epilepsy; Chemical Biology of Cancer: Targetting DNA damaging mechanism involving Kinases, Chemical Biology of Nucleic Acids: DNA interacting dyes; Asymmetric Supramolecular catalysis / Asymmetric Organocatalysis; Synthesis of photoresponsive π-conjugated materials; Bio-inorganic chemistry, elctrochemistry, enzyme-inspired catalysts design, small molecule activation for renewable energy research; spectroscopy of gold nanoparticles, plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy; Bio-conjugates of porphyrins and Boron-dipyrromethene days for chemosensing and bio-imaging applications; Chemical crystallography, cryo crystallography of liquids, structural chemistry of drug like molecules, polymorphism of drugs.	18
Civil Engineering	Critical Infrastructure resilience, Complex System Modeling, and Physics Guided Data Sciences for Hydrology, Performance-based earthquake design of masonry and concrete structures, and non-structural components; Blast-resistant design; 3D Concrete printing;Analysis and design of structures under fire; Assessment of fire behaviour of green building envelopes; Multi-physics analysis of systems; Complex and Tall structures; Structural health monitoring; Constitutive modelling of frictional materials; Numerical Modelling of Geotechnical Structures; Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering; Liquefaction and Cyclic instability; Geotechnical behaviour of problem soils; Experimental studies on Strain Localization; Seismic hazard and ground motion characterization for Structural Design;High performance fibre reinforced concrete; Geosynthetics; Reinforced earth structures; Modelling of hydrologic extremes (droughts and floods); Real time flood/drought monitoring; Climate change impacts on water resources; Water resource management; Large scale hydrologic modelling; River engineering; Transients in pipes; Transients in open channels; Dam and levee breach; Urban drainage.	4
Cognitive Science	Motor learning and memory, Visual attention, Psychoacoustics, Decision making, Neuroinformatics, Brain Computer Interface, Affective Computing, Rehabilitation Robotics, Curiosity	4
Computer Science & Engineering	Theoretical Computer Science, Algorithms, Computational Complexity, Game Theory, Data Mining, Social Networks, Data Science, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, Computer Systems, High Performance Computing, Natural Language Processing, Computational Sustainability, Internet of Things (IoT).	7
Earth Sciences	Earth Surface Processes, River Science, Remote Sensing and GIS, Climate Change, Water Quality, Contaminant Transport in Freshwater System, Micro & Emerging pollutants, Hydrogeochemistry, Urban pollution and sustainability, Metal speciation and Remediation techniques; Seismology, Engineering Seimology, Seismic Hazard Analysis.	6
Humanities and Social Sciences	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, Psychoanalysis and Literature, Modernist Studies, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Death Studies, Body and Sexuality studies, Posthumanism, World Literature, History of North East India, Democracy and Civil Society, Social Action and Policy, Biodiversity conservation, human-animal relations, ecotourism, indigenous peoples, India’s protohistory, early history, society and cultural heritage; history of science and technology in premodern India, Ancient Indian Technologies, Ethnoarchaeology, Sociolinguistics, Endangered/minority language documentation, Semiotics, Writing systems, Media studies	6
Electrical Engineering	1. Nanoelectronics, Semiconductor Devices, Nanotechnology 2. VLSI Design, Asynchronous Circuits, Computer Architecture 3. Biomedical Engineering, Human Computer Interaction 4. Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition 5. Signal Processing, Soft Computing, Image & Video Processing, Multimedia Forensics & Security 6. Control Systems, Estimation Theory 7. Power Systems and Smart Grid 8. Fiber Optics, Photonic Sensors, Nanophotonics, Electromagnetic Metamaterials, Computational Electromagnetics 9. Deep Learning, High Performance Computing 10. Cyber Physical Systems 11. Electrical Machines and Power Electronics	10
Mechanical Engineering	Experimental, Analytical and Computational Research in the areas of: 1. Solid Mechanics - Bone Mechanics; Hierarchical Lattice Material 2. Biomechanics - Human Biomechanics and Controls; Neurorehabilitation; Human movement analysis 3. Fluid Mechanics - Low Reynolds Number Hydrodynamics; Transport in porous media; Reactive Mixing; Hydrodynamic Stability and Transition; Flow Control; Acoustics. 4. Heat Transfer and Thermofluid sciences 5. Energy Systems - Experimental and Numerical studies in energy systems; Water-Energy systems 6. Combustion, Energetic nanomaterials 7. Dynamics & Controls 8. Robotics - Controls; Drones 9. Non-linear Dynamics, Elastostatics & Elastodynamics - Nonlinear dynamics and vibrations, experimental structural dynamics; Linear and nonlinear wave propagation in discrete and continuum media 10. Manufacturing - Laser based manufacturing.	18
Materials Science & Engineering	1. Optoelectronic materials, Solar cell, Transparent conductor 2. Antibiotic polymers, Self-cleaning materials, Nanoparticles for drug delivery	4
Mathematics	Algebraic Geometry; Algebraic Number Theory; Analytic Number Theory; Commutative Algebra; Partial Differential Equations; Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes; Nonlinear Analysis, Non-commutative geometry	2
Physics	1. Van der Waal's material based membranes for desalination. 2. Graphene laminates based nanofluidic channels for gas separation. 3. Theoretical High Energy Physics:Strongly interacting hot QCD matter. 4. Small-scale active matter, Intracellular particle dynamics, Smart nano bio sensors. 5.Quantum Optics and Nanophysics, Ultracold Atomic Physics, and Quantum Thermodynamics	4-5

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.

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.

Important Dates

PhD admission: Phase 1

• Application Deadline: 12 February (Tuesday)
• Announcement of Shortlist: 22 February (Friday)
• Written Tests and/or Interviews (tentative): 15-17 March (Friday to Sunday)

PhD admission: Phase 2

• Application Deadline: 2 April (Tuesday)
• Announcement of Shortlist: 12 April (Friday)
• Written Tests and/or Interviews (tentative): 7-9 May (Tuesday to Thursday)