2 PhD scholars from NIT Srinagar get prestigious internship at UFS, South Africa

 Director, Registrar congratulate scholars

SRINAGAR, May 07: Two PhD scholars of Department of Physics from National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar have been selected for a prestigious internship at the University of Free State (UFS), South Africa for the period of 1 year.

Research Scholars including Irfan Ayoub and Umer Mushtaq have been selected for the position of Research Assistant at the University of the Free State (UFS), South Africa.

They will work with Prof. Hendrik C. Swart. Prof. Swart who holds Research Chair in Solid State Luminescent and Advanced Materials. He is an NRF B1-rated researcher and is an internationally acclaimed researcher.

Prof. Swart’s group’s ongoing activities are closely related to their Ph.D. thesis. They will work on the synthesis and spectroscopic investigations of rare-earth, transitional metal ions doped nanomaterials, nanocomposites, and hybrid materials to achieve color-tunable emission in solid-state lighting and white light LEDs.

Director NIT, Prof. (Dr.), Rakesh Sehgal complimented both students and their mentor (Dr. Vijay Kumar) for bagging prestigious internship in one of leading institutes in South Africa and hoped that they would justify the fellowship with a quality research outcome.

“It is a proud movement for the entire Institute. Research is important and vital for any engineering institution. Without research and investigation, there will be no progress and we cannot stay relevant in a competitive market,” he said.

Institute’s Registrar, Prof. Syed Kaiser Bukhari extended his greetings to the Ph.D. scholars. He said this prestigious internship will provide them with exposure and would fulfil their professional aspirations.

He said there is no dearth of talent among the NIT Srinagar students, they need guidance at the right time. To support students on campus, we have developed state-of-the-art facilities for research and will continue to expand our activities in future, Prof. Bukhari said.

 Head Department of Physics, Dr M.A. Shah also congratulated both PhD Scholars for bagging the prestigious fellowship.

Dr. Shah said that it will provide them with excellent opportunities to gain research experience helpful for their completion of Ph.D. research. They will learn new techniques for the characterization of nano phosphor materials for various applications, he said.

Presently both Irfan Ayoub and Umer Mushtaq are currently pursuing PhD on “Improving luminescent materials for use in flat panel displays, solar cells, solid-state lighting, dosimetry, and thermometry under the supervision of Dr. Vijay Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, NIT Srinagar.

Mr. Irfan recently published a research paper in RSC Advances based on the work carried out at UFS. Their tenure will last for about one year at UFS.

In his message, Dr. Vijay Kumar said both research scholars are hardworking and passionate about their areas. I hope that this internship will help them in their future studies, he said