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Principal investigator

Danny 2023.jpg

Experience

2024 - present

 


2018 - 2024


2017 - 2018

Assistant Professor, Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering, IIT madras


DST INSPIRE faculty, Dept of Chemical Engg., IISc Bangalore


Postdoctoral fellow, Dept of Chemical Engg., IIT Madras

Education

2011 - 2017
 
 

2007 - 2011

MS-PhD dual degree, IIT Madras.
Thesis: Drops as agents: understanding complex behaviour of droplets in 2D microchannels.
 
B.Tech, Dept of Chemical Engineering, AC Tech, Anna University. 
Project: Enhancing TiO2 based photo-catalysts for pollutant degradation under visible light irradiation (UGC funded).

I am an Assistant Professor at the Dept of Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering at IIT Madras. I work in the area of complex systems engineering where I study systems made up of many interacting entities or agents that exhibit collective phenomena.  During my PhD at IITM, I studied how droplets behave in 2D microchannels — from forming complex shaped arrangements to exhibiting avalanches of coalescence events that destabilised the system. And during my INSPIRE tenure at IISc, I diversified from looking at purely material systems and started exploring a range of different biological collectives. I have worked with cells, where the movement depends on both activity and hydrodynamics, social-animals, where motion is primarily behavioural, and humans, where the agents are capable of high levels of cognition. I collaborate with a wide variety of researchers from Biological sciences to Civil engineering. I also collaborate with industry — some of the work I do find applications in healthcare and diagnostics research. In general, I love studying collectives and group phenomena. Whenever I see an army of ants I like to perturb them to see how they respond or sometimes I just like to stare at the flow of vehicular traffic and observe the peculiarities of Indian traffic. I am also very much interested in music. I am a pianist by training, and have completed my grade 8 in Piano from ABRSM (Royal school of music) and some music-theory. Also, I have been a choir conductor in my church for more than a decade. As a complex systems guy, conducting a choir is a fascinating thing to do — since a choir is a collective. There are lot of interesting phenomena that happen as the choristers sing in a choir (check out my blog article "collective nature of choral singing"). Finally, I am someone who enjoyed my time during my PhD. God gave me a good set of friends with whom I could have meaningful and honest conversations on both research and about life and reality in general. I have often had my principles and world-views challenged which helped me become a better version of myself. Hence, I truly wish that every student who enters the IIT system gets a fulfilling experience (through the ups and downs) that shapes them into a fine individual, who is full of life, always aiming high, both in work and in behaviour.

Current members

Elambirai Ravichandran

PhD

Applied mechanics & biomedical engineering

I am a Mechanical Engineer by training with a penchant for robotics. I enjoy solving problems, in general, where I leverage my interdisciplinary skills to designing and building (robotics) systems. At CoPhe lab, I plan to work in the area of swarm robotics and bio-inspired algorithms to engineer intelligent collective behaviour. Outside academics I am a track and field athlete who is also interested in weight lifting.

Mano Ranjitham R

PhD

Biomedical devices (JDP)

Co-guide: Dr Mohan S Kamat (CMC Vellore)

I am a PhD scholar in Biomedical Devices and Technology, where I develop computational methods to infer sperm fertility from microscopy videos. My work bridges engineering, and biology to address challenges in reproductive health diagnostics. A tech enthusiast at heart, I am passionate about interdisciplinary problem-solving and creating impactful healthcare innovations. By combining biomedical imaging, data analysis, and machine learning, I aim to develop intelligent, scalable solutions that contribute meaningfully to clinical practice and advance biomedical research.

Kshitish Saurav

Masters

IDDD CSD final year project

I am pursuing a Dual Degree in Biological Engineering (Btech) and Interdisciplinary Dual Degree in Complex Systems Dynamics (Mtech) at IIT Madras. I am interested in studying the dynamics of ecological systems. Here, for my undergraduate research project, I study the nature of mixing in fish school systems.

Past students

Name
Position
Project title
Dept
Insti
Period
Collaboration
Kshitish Saurav
Undergrad
Mixing in an asynchronous Vicsek flock
Applied mechanics and biomedical
IIT-M
2025
Harish Sridhar
Masters
Modelling the early time settling dynamics during an ESR test
Applied mechanics and biomedical
IIT-M
2025
Ramakrishnan S
Balagopal Nair
Masters
Heterogeneous microscopic collectives
Applied mechanics and biomedical
IIT-M
2025
Rasheed S G M
Intern
Deriving equations from data for an intruder falling through a granular fluid
Applied mechanics and biomedical
IIT-M
2024
Ramesh Kumar P
Intern
Visualising the dynamics of collective motion
Applied mechanics and biomedical
IIT-M
2024
Divakar Badal
Project (during PhD)
A dynamic fluid landscape mediates the spread of bacteria
Department of bioengineering
IISc
2024
Varsha Singh, Aloke Kumar
Kiran Naik K
Masters
Entropy based crowd-risk prediction
Civil engineering
IISc
2023
Ashish Verma
Diksha Kumari
Intern
Optical flow algorithms for sperm cell motility assessment
Chemical engineering
IISc
2023
Rupesh Mahore
Project associate
Intelligent crowd movement & Sperm cell motility project
Chemical engineering
IISc
2023
Harishankar Muppirala
Project associate
Data-driven discovery of interdroplet interactions in microchannels; Tracking and analyzing sperm-cell motion.
Chemical engineering
IISc
2022
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