Staff Scientist at Moffitt Cancer Center for Dr. Robert A. Gatenby, Nov 2012-2018 
Project:  We analyze the physics behind autocatalytic reactions that probably led to the formation of simple early life.  The goal is to elucidate the evolutionary pressures that operated on self-replicating heteropolymers and utilize them to understand the structure and function of DNA. Broken symmetries, which underlie structure formation during early universe and explain fascinating observations such as superconductivity, also seem to explain multiple disparate fundamental observations about the structure and function of nucleotides in DNA.

Research Assistant for Dr. Jong E. Han, SUNY Buffalo, 2009 - 2012
Project:  A longstanding unexplained experimental observation in the dilute magnetic semiconductor Ga(Mn)As has been its uniaxial magnetic anisotropy. It is not expected from simple symmetry considerations, since the crystal is cubic. We built a model which showed that there is symmetry breaking near Mn impurities in the crystal, resulting in local Jahn-Teller distortions. With the inclusion of growth strain, these distortions explain the observed anisotropies and transitions between different magnetization directions as hole density is varied.

Teaching assistant in the department of physics, SUNY Buffalo, 2008 - 2009 
Handled lab and recitation sessions to help undergraduate students understand the concepts in Electricity and Magnetism introduced in the classroom.  This is done through demonstration of relevant experiments and personal guidance, and through problem-solving sessions.  

Research Assistant for Dr.  Jong E. Han, SUNY Buffalo, 2007 - 2008
Project:  We theoretically studied the interaction between two magnetic ions placed near the surface of a semi-infinite jellium using perturbation theory (up to fourth order).  We found RKKY oscillations in both charge and spin density and interference due to the presence of the semi-infinite surface.

Research Assistant for Dr.  Jong E. Han, SUNY Buffalo, 2004 - 2007
Project: We numerically explored the effect of macroscopic geometric frustration in a symmetric soft-hard magnetic system in the presence of exchange, dipole and Zeeman interactions. We performed micromagnetic simulations and showed that the sytem behaves qualitatively differently in different regimes parametrized by the magnitude of the external Zeeman field, and has multiple degenerate energy minima, associated with the underlying structural symmetry. A rotating Zeeman field facilitates transitions between these degenerate minima within a given regime. We propose that this system can be used as a ternary logic device.

Teaching assistant in the department of physics, SUNY Buffalo, 2003 - 2004
Handled lab and recitation sessions for Mechanics, and Electricity and Magnetism courses. The work included individual student contact through office hours, and proctoring and grading. 

Research  assistant  for  Dr. Prasanta K. Panigrahi,  Physical  Research  Laboratory, Ahmedabad, India, 2002 - 2003
Project:  Proposed a novel image binarization algorithm that brings out local details by dividing the image into subimages and introducing continuity constraints between contiguous subimages. Initiated performance analysis and comparison with other known techniques.

Research assistant for Dr. V. Ravikumar, National Chemical laboratory, Pune, India, 2002
Project: Developed a reactor analysis toolkit in Matlab for Pacol chemical reactor at Reliance Industries. It measures performance of the reactor over time and predicts future behavior using multi-dimensional scaling technique.  Wrote extensive MATLAB code and documentation for the toolkit.