Dr. Ankita Das is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Chemical Sciences at South Asian University (an international university established by the SAARC nations), New Delhi, India. Prior to joining South Asian University, she worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), USA, where her research focused on Developing new theory to understand structure, dynamics, and ion transport in polymerized ionic liquids used for solid-state battery electrolytes.
She obtained her Ph.D. in
Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, where her
doctoral research focused on the theoretical study of quantum supercooled
liquids using Mode-Coupling Theory. During her doctoral research, she developed
a perturbative theoretical approach to investigate the effects of quantum
fluctuations on the dynamics of supercooled liquids.
Her postdoctoral research at UIUC has
focused on developing microscopic theoretical approaches to understand ion
transport, activated ion hopping, polymer segmental dynamics, and glass
formation in polymerized ionic liquids and polymer electrolytes. Her research
combines concepts from statistical mechanics, liquid-state theory, polymer
physics, and activated dynamics to establish connections between
molecular-scale interactions and macroscopic transport properties.
She has worked on collaborative
research involving theoretical and experimental groups across multiple
universities as part of an Energy Frontier Research Center.
Research Experience
Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA 2023–2026
Teaching Experience
TA-ship 2018 for 1 semester UG students at IISc: Introductory Chemistry