Sid Das
Sid dreams to liberate man-made systems from reactivity-stability (i.e. un-reactivity) inverse relationship.
Siddhartha (Sid) was born in Calcutta, India. Sid attended Bidhan Nagar Govt. High School for twelve years. Pursued B.Sc. in Chemistry at Presidency College (Presi), Calcutta and an M.S. in Chemistry at Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur (IIT-K). During this time he worked on developing DFT based computational chemistry (with Prof. Sourav Pal) and novel synthetic strategies for modified porphyrins (with Prof. T.K. Chandrashekar).
In 2002, Sid arrived the US to attend Yale for Ph.D. Mentored by Gary Brudvig and Robert Crabtree, Sid embarked on the decades-long unsolved challenge of regio- and stereoselective C-H bond oxidation with a robust and cheap catalyst. By 2008, Sid successfully completed the project and graduated from Yale with a strong passion for addressing long term challenges. To learn how to emulate nature's complexity and diversity in synthetic materials, he did a postdoc with Omar Yaghi, the then, at UCLA.
During Fall 2011 – Spring 2014, Sid, as a faculty member at Utah State Univ, spearheaded independent research on material-based catalysts for light-driven water splitting. With the help of a bunch of extremely bright young minds, the group could design and synthesize material as a solution to the fundamental stability problem with catalysts for water oxidation – The only example that defies the notion that man-made systems could be either reactive or stable.
In early summer, 2014 Sid moved to San Francisco. Where he continued his teaching at University of San Francisco and his active research at UC Berkeley (on light-weight battery materials) and at UCSF (protein matrix for sensing and drug delivery).
In late 2017, Sid joined IBM Research, Almaden as a materials scientist and led the development of novel sensing technology and high-throughput testing instrumentation for evaluation of materials for applications including memory devices.
In 2020, Sid embarked on his long time dream of starting his own company that will use his creativity and scientific knowledge in true betterment of humanity.
Sid believes freeing man-made materials from reactivity-stability compromise is fundamental for the progress of humanity in this and in coming centuries. This would help to utilize reactive catalysts, reactive energy-dense ions, and reactive photo-absorbing/emitting materials (e.g. quantum dots) for an indefinitely long period, store and deliver high-density high amount of charge in and from a material, and lower the potent drug dose, among numerous goals.
Sid loves to be active in endurance sports (like Marathon, Ironman) as well as socio-political matters. Check out his blog page thinkrunthink.com.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
Rising Star in Crystal Engineering, Royal Society of Chemistry, London, UK, 2012
The Richard Wolfgang Prize Outstanding Doctoral Work in Chemistry, Yale University, 2008
The John Addison Porter Prize for Best Scholar in Entire University, Yale University, 2008 (Only STEM person to be awarded in 35 years)
Invited presenter at several major events, including the Conference on Natural and Artificial Photosynthesis, NY (2011), the Department of Chemistry at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2014), the American Chemical Society Symposium, San Francisco, CA (2014), the Energy Science Institute and Dept. of Chemistry at Yale University (2014), Sandia National Lab (2014), Molecules Materials for Artificial Photosynthesis Fusion Conference, Cancun (2014), the NanoGe Solar Fuels Conference, Montreal, Canada (2014) and the American Chemical Society Symposium, Boston, MA (2015). Reviewer of several journals, including JACS, Advanced Materials, Energy & Environ. Science, etc. and Federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Petroleum Research Fund etc.
Siddhartha (Sid) was born in Calcutta, India. Sid attended Bidhan Nagar Govt. High School for twelve years. Pursued B.Sc. in Chemistry at Presidency College (Presi), Calcutta and an M.S. in Chemistry at Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur (IIT-K). During this time he worked on developing DFT based computational chemistry (with Prof. Sourav Pal) and novel synthetic strategies for modified porphyrins (with Prof. T.K. Chandrashekar).
In 2002, Sid arrived the US to attend Yale for Ph.D. Mentored by Gary Brudvig and Robert Crabtree, Sid embarked on the decades-long unsolved challenge of regio- and stereoselective C-H bond oxidation with a robust and cheap catalyst. By 2008, Sid successfully completed the project and graduated from Yale with a strong passion for addressing long term challenges. To learn how to emulate nature's complexity and diversity in synthetic materials, he did a postdoc with Omar Yaghi, the then, at UCLA.
During Fall 2011 – Spring 2014, Sid, as a faculty member at Utah State Univ, spearheaded independent research on material-based catalysts for light-driven water splitting. With the help of a bunch of extremely bright young minds, the group could design and synthesize material as a solution to the fundamental stability problem with catalysts for water oxidation – The only example that defies the notion that man-made systems could be either reactive or stable.
In early summer, 2014 Sid moved to San Francisco. Where he continued his teaching at University of San Francisco and his active research at UC Berkeley (on light-weight battery materials) and at UCSF (protein matrix for sensing and drug delivery).
In late 2017, Sid joined IBM Research, Almaden as a materials scientist and led the development of novel sensing technology and high-throughput testing instrumentation for evaluation of materials for applications including memory devices.
In 2020, Sid embarked on his long time dream of starting his own company that will use his creativity and scientific knowledge in true betterment of humanity.
Sid believes freeing man-made materials from reactivity-stability compromise is fundamental for the progress of humanity in this and in coming centuries. This would help to utilize reactive catalysts, reactive energy-dense ions, and reactive photo-absorbing/emitting materials (e.g. quantum dots) for an indefinitely long period, store and deliver high-density high amount of charge in and from a material, and lower the potent drug dose, among numerous goals.
Sid loves to be active in endurance sports (like Marathon, Ironman) as well as socio-political matters. Check out his blog page thinkrunthink.com.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
Rising Star in Crystal Engineering, Royal Society of Chemistry, London, UK, 2012
The Richard Wolfgang Prize Outstanding Doctoral Work in Chemistry, Yale University, 2008
The John Addison Porter Prize for Best Scholar in Entire University, Yale University, 2008 (Only STEM person to be awarded in 35 years)
Invited presenter at several major events, including the Conference on Natural and Artificial Photosynthesis, NY (2011), the Department of Chemistry at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2014), the American Chemical Society Symposium, San Francisco, CA (2014), the Energy Science Institute and Dept. of Chemistry at Yale University (2014), Sandia National Lab (2014), Molecules Materials for Artificial Photosynthesis Fusion Conference, Cancun (2014), the NanoGe Solar Fuels Conference, Montreal, Canada (2014) and the American Chemical Society Symposium, Boston, MA (2015). Reviewer of several journals, including JACS, Advanced Materials, Energy & Environ. Science, etc. and Federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Petroleum Research Fund etc.