The S.K. Rangarajan Graduate Student Award was established in 2017 to assist a deserving student in India to pursue a career in disciplines related to electrochemistry and solid state science and technology. The award consists of a certificate, a $500 (US) prize, and a complimentary one-year ECS membership. Each year, the section recognizes the award winner at its acclaimed India School which is a weeklong teaching program in electrochemistry for young researchers. The recipient may be invited to speak at that meeting about his or her work or on another topic of interest to the mentioned field.
Farjana J. Sonia is a PhD research scholar in the department of metallurgical engineering and materials science at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay under the supervision of Amartya Mukhopadhyay and M. Aslam. Her research mainly focuses on understanding the electrochemical Li-ion and K-ion storage in two-dimensional materials via performing extensive structural/electrochemical investigations, in-situ experimentations, and computational studies. The part of this work which involves simulation based on density functional theory is done in collaboration with Priya Johari of Shiv Nadar University. Prior to this, Farjana pursued a Master of Science degree in physics, also from IIT Bombay (2013) and a Bachelor of Science in physics (with honors) from Jadavpur University (2011).
Farjana has published/coauthored 12 research papers in international peer-reviewed journals. Her research work has also been recognized and awarded by the Materials Research Society of India and the Materials Research Society of Singapore. Farjana’s other major achievements in India include the prestigious Ministry of Science & Technology, Department of Science & Technology Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research Fellowship, a West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education scholarship, and international travel support through the India Science and Engineering Research Board. She is also a recipient of the Gordon Research Conference Carl Storm International Diversity Fellowship and has won best poster awards in various national and international conferences.
The award namesake, Sarukkai Krishnamachari Rangarajan (SKR), was an exceptional scientist whose diverse research investigations ranged from functional analysis and stochastic modelling to ion transport across membranes and bipolar cells. Thank you to all of our donors who supported the creation of the award. The goal is to increase the award prize to include travel and conference registration so that future award winners are recognized at the ECS biannual meeting. If you would like to help us grow the fund, please consider making a gift here (choose ECS Fund and then in the recognition section chose “In honor of” and write SKR.
