Ms. Neha Kaushal is a Ph.D. candidate at the Material Science and Sensor Application department of CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO), Chandigarh. Her doctoral research primarily focuses on the design and characterization of nanocarbon based heterojunctions for the photocatalytic degradation of endocrine disrupting chemicals in water. She is an awardee of the prestigious DST-Inspire Fellowship since 2019.
Ms. Kaushal gained her bachelor’s degree in non-medical (2016) from Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya College, Punjab. For her bachelor’s thesis, she worked on a project titled, “Kinetics and Thermodynamic Study of Adsorption of Cr (VI) on the Low-cost Leaf Powders” under the DST-STAR grant of Department of Biotechnology. Her master’s degree is in physics (2018) from Lovely Professional University, Punjab, where she was awarded a gold medal for securing first rank in the university. Here, she explored the NIR spectroscopy and Aqua-photomics for the detection of various adulterants in milk as her master’s thesis project and gained publications in the same. Apart from research, she has a keen interest in arts and crafts.
As a Fullbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Ms. Kaushal is targeting successful development of new photocatalytic materials for the degradation of organic pollutants in water. She believes these materials could have energy harvesting applications.