Associate professor

Biography and Research interests

Brijitta Joseph is currently working as an Associate Professor in the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Sathyabama University, Chennai, India. She leads a small team of budding researchers and is actively engaged in developing polymer-based materials for heavy metal removal, pollutant removal and oil-spill clean-up. From 2017-2019, she was on deputation to Lund University, Sweden as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Peter Schurtenberger, Division of Physical Chemistry (ERC-339678-COMPASS). Here she was involved in understanding the phase behaviour of neutral and ionic thermo/pH-responsive microgels from dilute to over-crowded conditions. Her proposals for analysing the samples in large scale facilities were funded by EUSMI (cSAXS - X-ray Scattering and Imaging at Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland, Proposal ID-E190500286), ILL (D11 beamline, Small-Angle Neutron Scattering at Institut Laue–Langevin, Grenoble, France, Proposal ID-9-11-1891) and JNCS (KWS2 beamline, Small-Angle Neutron Scattering at Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ), Forschungszentrum, Germany, Proposal No’s 15491; 14728). Before joining Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology (2012), she was a research associate in the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, India (2010-2012), she also completed her PhD from the same institute (2011). Her PhD was on the “Phase Behaviour of Thermoresponsive Poly(N-Isopropylacrylamide) Microgels: A Light Scattering and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopic Study”

Her research focuses on understanding the fundamentals of soft matter systems, in particular, Stimuli-Responsive Polymers. In her group, research is extensively carried out in the following areas: stimuli-responsive microgel etalons for making colour tunable devices, self-assembly of zwitterionic stimuli-responsive microgels and the role of surface charges, light scattering and rheological behaviour of stimuli-responsive block co-polymers, organogels, and application of block co-polymer and organogel systems for pollutant removal/adsorption. Much of her research relies on tools based on Scattering techniques and Microscopy, in particular, Static and Dynamic Light Scattering (SLS & DLS), Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS), Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM).