Dr. Akhil Datta Gupta

Dr. Akhil Datta Gupta received distinguished Alumnus Award for research and academic excellence from IIT (ISM) Director Dr. Rajiv Shekhar during annual Basant function at IIT (ISM) Dhanbad on February 2, 2020. Dr. Akhil Datta-Gupta is Regents Professor, University Distinguished Professor and holder of the L.F. Peterson ’36 Endowed Chair in the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University. He is a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Honorary Member (the highest honor bestowed by the society) and received two of the top three technical awards (Carll Award, 2009; Uren Award, 2003) given by the society for his contributions related to petroleum reservoir characterization and 3-D streamline simulation. In addition to his SPE awards, he is recipient of the SURA (Southeastern Universities Research Association) Distinguished Scientist Award (2019) and the U.S. Department of Energy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Basic Research in Geosciences (2008). Dr. Datta-Gupta has published over 100 peer reviewed articles and 4 books. His research program is funded by NSF, DOE and oil companies world-wide. Dr. Datta-Gupta was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas in 2012.

Dr. Deblina Sarkar

Dr. Deblina Sarkar received distinguished Alumnus Award as a young achiever from IIT (ISM) Director Dr. Rajiv Shekhar during annual Basant function at IIT (ISM) Dhanbad on February 2, 2020. Deblina Sarkar is an assistant professor at MIT and AT&T Career Development Chair Professor at MIT Media Lab. She heads the Nano-Cybernetic Biotrek research group. Her group carries out trans-disciplinary research fusing engineering, applied physics, and biology, aiming to bridge the gap between nanotechnology and synthetic biology to develop disruptive technologies for nanoelectronics devices and create new paradigms for life-machine symbiosis.

Deblina is the inventor of the world’s thinnest channel (six atoms thick) quantum-mechanical transistor, which overcomes fundamental thermal limitations, could lead to energy reduction by more than 75%, and allows dimensional scalability to beyond the silicon-scaling era. Her research also showed for the first time that employment of atomically thin flexible 2D-materials and quantum mechanical transistors can lead to low-power nanoelectronics biosensors with both extremely high sensitivity and the potential for single-molecular detectability—greatly beneficial for wearable/implantable biomedical devices and point-of-care applications.

Apart from low-power electronic computation, Deblina is also passionately curious about biological computational systems—especially the brain—which can be thought of as an ultimate example of a low-power computer. She has developed the technology which achieves super-resolution mapping of the biomolecular building blocks of brain, using conventional optical microscope and allows deciphering of nanoscale structure of biomolecules, which are not otherwise accessible with existing technologies. This technology can help in elucidating the fundamental codes of brain computation.

Deblina’s long-term goal is to achieve seamless integration of nanoelectronics into biological systems to incorporate functionalities, not otherwise enabled by biology, and thus, transcending us beyond our biological limitations. Sarkar received her B. Tech in electronics engineering at IIT (ISM), Dhanbad; her MS and PhD in electrical and computer engineering at UCSB.