About us

Welcome To C-mAIn

Information about C-mAIn

Anna University being the leading technical university in India, harnesses research talents in various domains like information science & technology, computational materials science, renewable energy technology, energy storage materials, biotechnology, etc. Therefore, it is envisaged to bring the competences of these experts together to achieve major advances in materials research relevant to the field of renewable energy, environmental protection, healthcare, medical applications, nanotechnology etc. The Centre of Materials Informatics (C-mAIn) is a confluence of faculties and researchers from the Department of Physics, Department of Chemistry, Department of Computer Science, Institute of Energy Studies, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Civil Engineering at present. It shall spread its wings to further domains as it expands in the future.

Vision of C-mAIn

The C-mAIn aims to be a Centre of Excellence for performing cutting-edge research activities by combining the modern field of informatics with the well-established field of materials science and technology. It envisages to become a truly-interdisciplinary research hub where materials and their properties can be predicted by informatics and verified by various computational and experimental methods. C-mAIn shall provide high-quality consultancy, training, and teaching services to the industries,student and research centres in the emerging field of Materials Informatics.

Mission of C-mAIn:

The C-mAIn shall enhance the eminence of Anna University by

Carrying out trans-disciplinary research activities leading to quality publications in high- impact journals, national and international patents.

Discovering new materials by informatics that are useful for renewable energy, environment, healthcare and agriculture, thereby providing socially-relevant processes and products.

Undertaking consultancy work to the industries and other research organizations.

Conducting training programs, short-term courses, guest lectures to students, research scholars, faculties and professionals at industrial and research labs.

Hosting subject experts from renowned labs and research institutions in India and abroad for short-term stays to enhance collaboration.

Providing support to the academic activities on Materials Informatics

Organizing national and international symposiums and conferences.

Dr. R. Vidya

Director i/c

Dr. Vidya Ravindran had started her research career at University of Oslo, Norway in 2000. Her core expertise is Modelling of Materials using Density-Functional Theory (DFT) based computations. She has acquired her Ph.D degree with Honors (Known as Doctorum Scientarum – Dr. Scient.) in December 2005 from University of Oslo, Norway. Her Ph.D thesis work was on charge and orbital ordering in mixed-valent transition-metal oxides (especially perovskites) and included 25 research articles; she was the first author in 15 of them. She was involved in developing tools for visualizing charge and orbital ordering in manganites, which are structurally related to the high-Tc superconducting cuprates. She has been focussing on the multi-functional characteristics of materials such as: magneto-optical, magneto-electrical, magneto-resistive, and transparent-conducting etc.

From 2005 till 2014, she worked as Post-Doctoral Researcher and Senior Researcher at the Centre for Materials Science & Nanotechnology, University of Oslo, Norway and worked on defect energetics in semiconductors also.

She has been carrying out teaching as well as research activities at Anna University since 2014. Currently her group works on a wide variety of materials relevant for renewable energy, oxides with magnetic characters, materials for bio-medical applications, radiation dosimeters, drug- delivery systems, and photocatalysts for dissociation of pollutant gases. They provide a thorough understanding on the fundamental properties of materials, so that their application domain is expanded. They have started utilizing the latest developments in the field of Informatics, viz Machine-learning and deep-learning algorithms for their Materials research. With the founding of Centre for Materials Informatics – this cross-disciplinary endeavor shall flourish further.

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