OK! This is the toughest part of it all - description of my research work! Well, I have always been associated with the Microwave labs in Physics departments and have always studied liquids. I study dielectric liquids, but not the varieties that would excite an electrical engineer. Rather, these are liquids that are likely to be the coffee time conversations between a biology grad student and his physico-chemistry counterpart.

The liquids that I speak of are rather simple polar and non-polar organic liquids such as the alcohols, amines, nitriles, ketones, acids etc. These liquids are important since they interact with one another by means of some interesting bonds, the best of which is the yet controversial hydrogen bond. Hydrogen bonds are the backbones of many a biologically important process including the DNAs and the unique properties of water.

So what do I do? I mix two or more liquids in known concentrations and allow the molecules to interact such that they still retain their individual identities, interacting only by the means of weak bonds. Now I try and understand these weak interactions. I use various techniques such as dielectric measurements, different spectroscopic methods and computational moleular methods to arrive at the end results.

Over the last few years, I have been working on "confined liquids" - the same old simple liquids, but now confined to micro and nano pores and other such structures. I should say that it is a facinating world out there with totally unexpected results at every corner!

I also perform a large number of simulations - molecular and electromagnetic, using comercially available software. I am trying to learn to write my own code, lets see!