 |
| Leena studied Chemistry at the University of Rajasthan and Polymer Science & Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. She completed a PhD in Polymer Chemistry in 2010 from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. She has received several awards and scholarships during her studies, including a DAAD scholarship to undertake a Master thesis at the Technical University Dresden, Germany, and a Faculty of Engineering Scholarship from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. After the completion of her PhD, she worked as a Senior Scientist from 2011 till 2015 at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, USA. In 2015, Leena joined the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) as an Assistant Professor where she has been promoted to Associate Professor in 2020. She received a Faculty Research Award in the Early Career Category (2020) from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi for her contributions in functionalized porous materials. She has served as an Academic Editor at PLOS One since August 2018. She is an expert committee member in several panels at the Department of Science and Engineering, India as well as served as a reviewer for several international peer-reviewed high impact journals, for example, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, Polymer Chemistry, Journal of Materials Chemistry B, etc. Since she joined IITD, she has been a frequent visiting academic at Australian Universities, including University of New South Wales and University of Sydney. She has been collaborating with eminent researchers based in India, USA, Germany, Australia, and Taiwan. |
Read Leena’s Emerging Investigator article Polymer grafting on nitrone functionalized green silica via “grafting from” and “grafting to” approaches through enhanced spin capturing polymerization and a 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction, DOI D3PY00712J.
Check out our interview with Leena below:
How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?
Polymer Chemistry is one of the premier journals to publish research work directed towards polymer synthesis, its mechanism and application. For the currently published manuscript, Polymer Chemistry was my first choice for submission and we are grateful to the Editor and reviewers for finding the work suitable for publication in Polymer Chemistry. I am very lucky to have hard a working graduate student like Lukkumanul Hakkim N. This is the first Polymer Chemistry publication from my group, Surface and Macromolecular Chemistry Laboratory, and we are wishing for many more.
What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?
The most exciting and challenging part of my research is to design scalable hybrid materials through the combination of nanomaterials and polymers for a wide variety of applications.
Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?
If you really want something, be patient and work towards it. I have waited 13 years to get my first Polymer Chemistry publication, which was a dream since I was a graduate student when the Polymer Chemistry journal was launched in 2010.
Find out my about Leena’s research on her lab’s web page or follow her on LinkedIn or twitter @Nebhani_IITD.
