Sunil Kumar is Palakkad IIT director

Thiruvananthapuram: President Pranab Mukherjee has approved the appointment of directors to five IITs including the one at Palakkad with professor P.B. Sunil  Kumar being appointed as its director.

Apart from Mr Sunil Kumar, Professor Seshu Pasumarthy for IIT Dharwad, Professor K.N. Satyanarayana for IIT Tirupati, Professor Rajat Moona for IIT Bhilai-Durg and Professor B.K. Mishra for IIT Goa are the other newly appointed directors.

Prof Sunil Kumar completed his MSc in physics from Calicut University in 1987 and PhD from Raman Research Institute, Bangalore University in 1994. He was a Research Fellow at Raman Research Institute, Bangalore from 1988 to 1994. Post Doctoral Fellow of Raman Research Institute from 1994 to 1995, Post Doctoral Fellow, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai from 1995 to 1997, Post Doctoral Fellow Max Planck Institute for KG Golm, Germany from 1997 to 1999, Assistant Professor of Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras from 1999 to 2004, Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras from 2004 to 2006, Professor, Department of Physics from 2006 till being appointed to IIT, Palakkad.

He has dome research in biological physics and soft matter in the Department of Physics of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai with current interests are in the fields of active systems, polyelectrolyte’s, membranes and rheological properties of micellar solutions and worked in two groups which are closely related to the theoretical work in Dynamical Systems and Atomic and Molecular Physics here at IIT Madras.