Profile

PKP born at Berhampur, the southern city of Odisha (also known as silk city) located on the eastern coastline of India. He has started his schooling from a small school (Belgadia M. E School) at the northern city of Baripada. He returned to Berhampur to continue his education for class VIII at the Municipal High School, Court Peta. Again he moved back to Baripada to complete his matriculation (class X) from the Maharaja Krushna Chandra (M. K. C.) High School in 1985.

Subsequently, he went to Bhubaneswar (Odisha) to study +2 Science at the Maharshi College of Natural Law (1987) and joined Prananath (P. N.) College, Khurda for his B. Sc. in Chemistry (Honours). After spending about a year there, he moved to the erstwhile Buxi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar (B. J. B.) College (presently B. J. B. Autonomous College) under Utkal University to complete his B. Sc. (1990).

His eventual interest in Chemistry led him to pursue his M.Sc. degree at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur (1992). During his masters dissertation (Title: Anthraquinone linked Porphyrins) he was introduced to the exciting research area of Porphyrin Chemistry by Prof. T. K. Chandrashekar. Subsequently, he went on to join the group of Prof. V. Krishnan at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for his doctoral research and obtained his Ph. D. (Title: Studies on Meso-substituted Octamethoxyporphyrins) in 2002.

Then he moved to South Korea (Kangwon National University), to join Prof. Chang-Hee Lee group as a post-doctoral fellow (May 2002 - May 2005), where he worked on anion binding (in particular calixpyrrole-porphyrin conjugates) and expanded porphyrins, especially sapphyrin. Next he moved to Japan (Kobe University) to join Prof. Jun-ichiro Setsune group to explore super-expanded porphyrin systems, first as post-doctoral fellow (June 2005 - March 2006) and then as a JSPS fellow (April 2006-December 2006). During his tenure he got an opportunity to come back to India and start his independent research career at the School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad, where he joined as an Assistant Professor (January, 2007). Since then he is leading his research group to explore newer avenues in the Porphyrinoid chemistry. Presently, he is working as an Professor (December 2015 onwards) in the School.