IIT Bombay-Ohio State Frontier Center’s Fall 2021 Research Seminar

Video research presentations from Frontier Center Research Scholars. Opportunity to request meetings with research teams.

Opening presented by IIT Bombay Dean of Alumni and Corporate Relations Suhas Joshi, and Ohio State Director of the Institute of Materials Research Steven Ringel

Topic: Wide bandgap semiconductors and power electronics

Presented by:

Swaroop Ganguly, IIT Bombay

Prof. Swaroop Ganguly received the B.Tech. in 1999 from IIT Kharagpur, and M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He has worked at Freescale Semiconductor and Tokyo Electron Limited in the US, and IMEC in Belgium. He has been at IIT Bombay since 2009, where he is now Professor of Electrical Engineering and PI of the Nanoelectronics Centre. He has received the IBM-IUSSTF Fellowship in Nanotechnology, as well as IIT Bombay research and technology development awards. At IIT Bombay, he has been involved in several industrial R&D projects with global semiconductor companies. He has been a Visiting Scientist at IBM Research, and a Visiting Faculty at the National Chaio Tung University, Taiwan. He has published over 100 papers in international peer-reviewed conferences and journals, on the design and modeling of semiconductor devices.

Jin Wang, The Ohio State University

Suraj Rengarajan, CTO at Applied Materials India

Topic: Advanced manufacturing, materials, and processing

Presented by:

Alan Luo, The Ohio State University

Alan Luo is Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Integrated Systems Engineering (Manufacturing) at The Ohio State University (OSU). Prof. Luo is leading OSU Lightweight Materials and Manufacturing Research Laboratory (LMMRL) and on steering board of OSU Center for Simulation Innovation and Modeling (SIMCenter). Alan is an elected Fellow of American Society of Metals (ASM) International and Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) International. Prior to joining OSU in 2013, Dr. Luo was a GM Technical Fellow at General Motors Global Research and Development Center (Warren, MI, USA) with 20 years of industrial experience. An internationally recognized leader in lightweight materials and manufacturing, Alan has served as a technical leader in two National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) institutes, LIFT (Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow) and The REMADE (Reducing EMbodied-Energy And Decreasing Emissions).

Asim Tewari, IIT Bombay

Asim Tewari is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and a faculty member of the Center for Machine Intelligence and Data Science (C-MInDS) at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai. He graduated with a B. Tech degree from IIT Kanpur, followed by an MS and Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. His area of research is in mathematical models for microstructural-mechanics and applied machine learning. He has over 100 international journal & conference publications and ten international and four Indian patents. He has graduated thirteen Ph.D. students and more than fifty M.S. students. Over the last decade, he has secured research funding of over 12 million USD. At IIT Bombay, he has established several state-of-the-art facilities, including advanced machining excellence cell, fiber composite research laboratory, 4D x-ray microscopy laboratory, an experimental lab for thermo-mechanical simulation, and Nano-characterization texture laboratory. He has also established a Cyber-Physical Systems and Data analytics research group for applied research in manufacturing, transportation, and defense.

Anil Sachdev, General Motors Global R&D

Topic: U.S.-India technology partnering

Moderated by:

Ardeshir Contractor, The Ohio State University

Speakers:

Nandini Kannan, Executive Director at Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF)

Nandini Kannan is Executive Director, Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum. She brings leadership experience in academia and government, an understanding of the critical role that science and technology play in this global inter-connected society, and a deep commitment to education and workforce development.

Since 2014, Dr. Kannan has served as a Program Director at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) where her responsibilities included core disciplinary research, mathematical sciences research institutes, and workforce development programs in the Division of Mathematical Sciences as well as a number of cross-directorate and cross-agency activities. She has served as a co-chair for several Data Science related activities in support of Harnessing the Data Revolution, one of NSF’s 10 Big Ideas. Dr. Kannan also helped to create partnerships with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support collaborative efforts in biomedical data science.

She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Statistical Association (ASA) and an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute.

Craig O’Connor, Director of Renewable Energy, and Environmental and Infrastructure Finance in the Bank’s Project and Structured Finance Division at the Export-Import Bank of the United States in Washington, D.C.

I have served as a full-time professional for the Export-Import Bank of the United States in Washington, D.C. since January 1993. Currently I am the Director of Renewable Energy, and Environmental and Infrastructure Finance in the Bank’s Project and Structured Finance Division, where I work with global Fortune 1000 companies in the financing of environmentally-beneficial projects such as solar, wind, storage, and water treatment. In this role I direct and manage business development, advise U.S. environmental and sustainable technology exporters, as well as international customers and project sponsors, on the Ex-Im Bank’s approach to trade, project, and structured finance. Over the past few years I have represented the Bank on trade missions to China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa, Turkey, Mexico, Chile, and Vietnam, among other countries. I led the Bank’s efforts to promote renewable energy financing in India that resulted in Ex-Im Bank becoming the first international financial institution to finance a project under the Indian Government’s National Solar Mission (“NSM”). I worked extensively with Indian solar project sponsors, including Azure Power, Kiran Energy, Mahindra, and Reliance Power that resulted in Ex-Im Bank financing the first 9 projects under Phase 1 of the NSM totaling $400 million.

From 2001-2007 I served as the Director of Business Development – Latin America, Europe, and Turkey, where I led the Bank’s efforts to grow its business in the regions. From 1995 to 2001, I directed business development on a global basis for the Bank’s Environmental Exports Program, including creating a $30 million Environmental Credit Facility with the Polish Bank for Environmental Protection. From 1993 to 1995 I was the Loan Officer for the Middle East and North Africa in the Bank’s Export Credit Insurance Division.

Ivan Saha, Chief Technology Officer at ReNew Power

• Over 25 years of experience in semiconductors, solar and MEMS design, development, mass manufacturing and reliability
• Heading manufacturing Business Unit and P&L at Vikram Solar, India’s largest Tier1 manufacturer of PV modules
• Worked as Head of Technology, in Moserbaer Photovoltaic Ltd. (MBPV), India (www.moserbaersolar.com) as part of the top management team. Responsible for solar cell and module efficiency improvement and cost reduction through continuous innovations, process improvements in production lines (cell and module), technology differentiation and choice, product reliability, certification from external agencies, concentrator photovoltaic module development, PV system level design, new product development, commercialization and minimizing the time to market.
• Earlier worked as a Head of Advanced Sensors Development with Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) (www.isro.org) with primary responsibility to lead technology development programs in solar cells, MEMS and semiconductor optoelectronics for the space industry. I led a pan-India ISRO program to indigenize manufacturing of miniaturized semiconductor sensors and actuators including high efficiency silicon solar cells for space applications.

Closing remarks

Opening remarks

Topic: Energy transition

Presented by:

Matt Campbell, CEO & Co-founder at Terabase Energy Inc.

Experienced solar industry manager focused on driving innovation to enable economically competitive utility-scale solar power plants around the world.

Balasubramaniam Kavaipatti, Faculty Member in the Department of Energy Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

Research Interest:

Vish Palekar, Worldwide Partnerships and Sales, Sales Operations, at Bloom Energy

– Seasoned Silicon Valley based global executive with extensive experience at the nexus of clean energy, decarbonization and tech. Strong commercial and operational experience on both supply (solar, storage, fuel cells) and the demand side (EV mobility, automation, water treatment) and tech (IOT, software stacks, SaaS based digital platform).
– Incubated and grew several startup businesses to market leadership. Diverse experience over 26 years growing new businesses, developing ideas to product release, and managing P&Ls within large and small corporations.
– Proven Skills in Strategic Planning, Sales & Marketing, Partnerships, Program Management, Product Development, Financing and Operations. Consistently delivered on customer and operating metrics and financial targets.
– Strong customer champion, deal maker, ecosystem builder with execution excellence. Ability to optimize product-market fit, business model, product/solution capabilities and supply chain competitiveness for scale.
– Experience leading hardware and software technical teams, large scale product launches and lean enterprises.
– Ability to build/manage high performance teams in diverse environments, strong communication/people skills.

Specialties: Fuel Cells, Clean Energy, Solar, Storage, Batteries, Sustainable Energy, Transportation, Electric Vehicles, Connected Mobility, Digital Applications, API, OLTP Databases, Automation, Business Management, CXO Experience, Innovation, Fund raising, Finance, Cost Management, Power Industry, Process Engineering, Sales, Sales Management, Marketing, Strategy, Product Management, Technology, Program Management, Operations, EPC, Six Sigma.

Tulsi Tanti, Svagos Technik

Tulsi Tanti is the Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Suzlon Group, an Indian MNC and a prominent player in the global renewable energy sector. A visionary and a world renowned expert on clean energy, he is passionate about championing the cause of affordable and sustainable energy to tackle the paradigm of economic growth and climate change. He conceptualized end-to-end solutions model creating realistic avenues for businesses and envisioned importance of R&D to optimize available wind resources & minimize LCoE. Suzlon has become global conglomerate under his able leadership and emerged as a prominent player in global renewable energy market. 

He is also the Chairman of Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association (IWTMA), Chairman of CII Renewable Energy Council and also active member of various CEO Forums. 

He is credited with the establishment of the renewable energy market in India and has been conferred with numerous awards including ‘Champion of the Earth’ by the United Nations, ‘Entrepreneur of the Year 2006 by Ernst & Young, ‘Hero of the Environment’ by TIME magazine and many more. 

Closing remarks

Scheduled, one-on-one meetings with Frontier Center Research Scholars and professors