About

Prahlad K. Routh is a Materials Scientist and currently a postdoctoral researcher at Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering at Stony Brook University. He was a Science Fellow and Lecturer in Discipline of Physics at Columbia University from 2016 to 2019. His research work is focused on investigating structure and its relationship with catalytic activity as well as optoelectronic properties of nanoparticles and functional hybrid nanomaterials using synchrotron and advanced optical spectroscopy methods with most recent focus on developing machine learning (ML) assisted data analysis methods for analyzing X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS).

Research Interests

X-ray Spectroscopy; Machine Learning; Catalysis; Sustainability; Materials characterization; 2D Materials, 0D-2D hybrids; Single Molecule Spectroscopy; Nanophotonics; Non-Linear Microscopy; Organic Photovoltaics; Functional Nanomaterials.

Current Research Activities

Structure and Dynamics of Applied Nanomaterials (SDAN) Group

  • Physico-chemical properties of nanocatalysts, structure-property function relationships in disordered systems, mechanisms of catalytic reactions, mechanisms of work of electromechanical materials.
  • Use of synchrotron-based techniques in materials characterization (x-ray absorption (XAFS) and x-ray diffraction). Development of new in situ/operando techniques for studies of functional nanomaterials.
  • Use of advanced optical spectroscopy techniques (ultrafast photodynamics characterization) for investigating structural, optical and electronic properties of materials such as semiconducting polymers, nanocrystals, 2D materials and their hybrids.
  • Development of Machine Learning based approaches for “inversion” of XAFS spectra (an end-to-end approach using simulation guided data generation and autoencoder based algorithms) to the atomic level structural information from nanocatalysts.

Academic Appointments

Postdoctoral Associate (ML Team Lead) Department of Materials Science & Chemical Engineering,
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY		 2021 – 2024
Lecturer & Science Fellow Department of Physics,
Columbia University, New York, NY		 2016 – 2019
Research Assistant Center for Functional Nanomaterials,
Brookhaven National Lab, Upton, NY		 2016 – 2019
Senior Research Fellow Industrial Consultancy & Sponsored Research,
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Chennai, India		 2009 – 2010

 

Education

  • Ph.D. (Materials Science & Engineering) Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY      2016
  • M.S. (Materials Science & Engineering) Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY        2013
  • B.Tech. (Metallargical Engineering & Materials Science) IIT Madras, Chennai              2009

Featured Works