DST-INSPIRE Faculty, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, INDIA
I am a young nanotechnologist working in the field of nanomaterials, materials science for designing energy devices, and chemo-sensory systems for the detection of heavy metals in potable water. Presently, my research is focused on the development of novel nanostructures (MXenes, MBenes, TMDs, 0D/1D materials for green energy devices (conversion & storage) and environmental applications.
Women constitute just 20 % of green hydrogen research careers. As a young nanotechnologist, I work on green hydrogen technologies by engineering materials. I am interested in Women in Green Hydrogen (WiGH) as it is a network of ambitious women with the goal of connecting, empowering, and boosting the visibility of women in the green hydrogen sector.
Dr. Anupma Thakur is currently a DST-INSPIRE Faculty in the Department of Materials Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. Before joining IISc., she conducted her postdoctoral research as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, USA. She earned her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Nanoscience and Nanotechnology from the Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research (AcSIR) at Council of Scientific and Industrial Research–Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIR-CSIO), India, in August 2021. She was awarded gold medals for academic excellence during both her Master of Technology and Bachelor of Technology degrees in India.
Dr. Thakur is an early-career researcher with expertise in advanced nanomaterials (including two-dimensional (2D) MXenes, XBenes) and materials engineering, focusing on applications such as clean hydrogen energy generation, carbon capture and utilization, chemical sensing, photo/electrocatalysis, materials for extreme environments, sensors, and actuators. She has authored ~ 75 high-impact international publications, contributed to > 25 book chapters, filed four patents (with one granted), and edited one book. In addition, she has delivered ~ 80 oral talks, and her work has received over 2650 citations (h-index of 28 and i-index of 48) to date. Dr. Thakur aspires to continue her career in academia, with a passion for contributing to the advancement of science and technology on a global scale.
Selected honors and awards:
1. University Gold Medal 2025 for Alumni Excellence from Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
2. Postdoctoral Mentor Award, Purdue University, USA, 2024
3. Young Engineer Award-2022 in Metallurgical and Material Engineering from The Institution of Engineers, India (IEI)
4. Technologist of the Year-2022 award from the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE).
5. Best Ph.D. Thesis Award 2022 from the International Society for Energy, Environment and Sustainability, IIT Kanpur, India
6. Distinguished Alumni Excellence Award 2022 from Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
7. Finalist, Top 50 Women in Engineering 2022: Inventors and Innovators
8. Young Women Researcher in Material Science and Engineering, Venus International Foundation-2022
9. Green Technology Award at IEEE YESIST 12-Youth Endeavours for Social Innovation using Sustainable Technology, IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technology Conference
10. BRICS-Young Scientist Award: Russia Conclave-2020
11. Champion award at Science Stand-Up Battle at BRICS Young Scientist Forum-2020, Russia Conclave
12. India Synthesis Award-2020 from Anton Paar, India
13. National academic excellence at Indo-Global Education Summit from Govt. of India, 2013
14. >10 awards in Science as Art competitions and >25 best research poster, oral and paper presentation awards at international/national conferences and workshops
1. Shelly Singh, Senthil K, Anupma Thakur, Sudeshna Bagchi, Neena Jaggi and Pooja D., “Synthesis and Characterization of TiO2 nanostructures/Biohybrid Electrodes for Catalytic Water Splitting and Quantification of Hydrogen”, International Conference in Recent Trends in Materials and Devices (ICRTMD-2019), Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India, 18-19 December, 2019
2. Anupma Thakur, Tavishi, Praveen Kumar, R.K. Sinha and Pooja D., “Organic Waste derived Carbon Nanolights and their Plasmonic Nanostructures as Feedstock to Sustainable Energy & Environmental Pollutant Monitoring”, IEEE International Conference on Energy, Environment & Material Sciences (ICE2M-2019), MMMUT, Uttar Pradesh, India, 1-3 December, 2019
3. Anupma Thakur, Praveen Kumar, R.K. Sinha and Pooja D., “Value added Transformation of Organic Waste to Solar Driven Quantum Leaf for Catalytic and Sustainable Hydrogen Fuel”, National Workshop on Catalysis for Clean Energy and Safe Environment, Panjab University, Chandigarh, November 16, 2019
4. Shelly Singh, Senthil K., Anupma Thakur, Sudeshna Bagchi, Neena Jaggi and Pooja D., “Synthesis and Characterization of TiO2 nanostructures/Biohybrid Electrodes for Catalytic Solar Hydrogen Production”, National Workshop on Catalysis for Clean Energy and Safe Environment, Panjab University, Chandigarh, November 16, 2019
5. Shefali Saini, Anupma Thakur and Pooja Devi, “Biomedical Applications of Green Synthesized Carbon Quantum Dots from
Citrus Limetta Organic Waste”, International Society for Nanomedical Science Conference, New-Delhi, January 7-10,2019
6. Anupma Thakur, Pooja D., Sudeshna Bagchi, R. K. Sinha and Praveen Kumar, “Plasmonic Nanostructures/Carbon Dots Decorated TiO2 Nanofibers: A Solar Driven Leaf for Water Splitting”, Young Scientist Colloqium, Kolkata Chapter, IACS, Kolkata, September 20, 2018
7. Anupma Thakur, Pooja D., Abhishek Kumar, S. Bagchi , R. Jain , R.K. Sinha and Praveen Kumar,"Enhanced Photocatalytic and Photoelectrochemical Behaviors of Au@Carbon Quantum Dots Anchored TiO2 Nanofibers", 6th National Conference on Nanoscience and Instrumentation Technology (NCNIT-2018) March 29-30, 2018.
8. Rishabh Jain, Anupma Thakur, Manish Kumar, Praveen Kumar and Pooja D, “Electrochemical Synthesis of Au/ZnO Modified ITO Electrode for Sensitive Detection Selenite in Water”, 6th National Conference on Nanoscience and Instrumentation Technology (NCNIT-2018) March 29-30, 2018
9. Anupma Thakur, Shefali, Pragati, Rishabh Jain, Praveen Kumar, R. K. Sinha and Pooja D., “Green and Facile Synthesis of Citrus limetta Waste derived Highly Luminescent Carbon Dots: Biological and Photocatalytic Applications”, ACS on Campus, IISER Mohali, 9th February, 2018(Poster Presentation)
10. Anupma Thakur, Lovepreet Singh, Rishabh Jain, Praveen Kumar, and Pooja D., “Organic Waste Derived Carbon Dots for Total Chromium detection”,3rd Nanoscience Day Chandigarh Region Innovation & Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC), CSIR- CSIO, Chandigarh, 29th August, 2017 (Poster Presentation)
11. Rishabh Jain, Pooja D, Anupma Thakur, R. K. Sinha and Praveen Kumar, “Efficient & Durable Modified InGaN/Si Photoelectrode for Water-Splitting”, 3rd Nanoscience Day Chandigarh Region Innovation & Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC), CSIR-CSIO, Chandigarh, 29th August, 2017 (Poster Presentation)
12. Pooja D, Anupma Thakur and Praveen Kumar, “Light Harvesting Nanowall Network for Photoelectrochemcial Hydrogen Production from Water”, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Kurukshetra, Haryana, March 5 - 6, 2017 (Oral Presentation)
13. Anupma Thakur, Pooja D., Rishabh Jain and Praveen Kumar, “Green Synthesis of Highly Photo luminescent 0-D Carbon Quantum dots from Carica papaya Recycled Pulp and its chemosensory application towards Cr(III) ion detection”, National Conference on Advanced Materials: Processing and Characterization, National Institute of Technology (NIT),Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, February 27-28, 2017(Oral Presentation)
14. Rishabh Jain, Pooja D., Anupma Thakur and Praveen Kumar, “Green Synthesis & Characterization of Highly Photoluminescent 0-D Carbon Quantum dots from Citrus limetta Recycled Pulp”, National Level Conference on Green Nanotechnology–II (GNATE-16), Chandigarh University, November 15,16,2016 (Oral Presentation)
15. Gurvinder Kaur, Anupma Thakur, Praveen Kumar and Pooja D., “Facile and Green Synthesis approach towards Highly Photoluminescent Carbon Quantum dots derived from Dairy Waste”, International Conference on Advances in Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, 4th -5th November 2016 (Oral Presentation)
Publications: Dr. Anupma Thakur
1.Anupma Thakur, and Pooja Devi. “Paper-based Flexible Devices for Energy Harvesting, Conversion and Storage Applications: A Review." Nano Energy (2022): 106927.
2.Anupma Thakur, Praveen Kumar, Sitaramanjaneya Mouli Thalluri, R. K. Sinha, and Pooja Devi. "Flexible polypyrrole activated micro-porous paper-based photoanode for photoelectrochemical water splitting." International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2021).
3.Devi, Pooja, Anupma Thakur, Neha Jindal, Ki-Hyun Kim, "Nanostructures Derived from Expired Drugs and their Applications toward sensing, security ink, and bactericidal material." Science of The Total Environment (2021): 144260.
4.Anupma Thakur and Pooja Devi, “A Novel Fluorescent ‘Turn-Off’ Probe for Selenium (IV) Detection in Water and Biological Matrix” Transactions of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (2021).
5.Anupma Thakur, Dibyendu Ghosh, Pooja Devi, Ki-Hyun Kim, and Praveen Kumar. "Current Progress and Challenges in Photoelectrode Materials for the Production of Hydrogen." Chemical Engineering Journal (2021): 125415.
6.Anupma Thakur, Praveen Kumar, Devinder Kaur, Nagaraju Devunuri, R. K. Sinha, and Pooja Devi. "TiO2 Nanofibres decorated with Green-Synthesized PAu/Ag@CQDs for the Efficient Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Dyes and Pharmaceutical Drugs." RSC Advances 10, no. 15 (2020): 8941-8948.
7.Pooja D., Kenneth N. Hipp, Anupma Thakur, and Rebecca Y. Lai. "Waste to Wealth Translation of E-waste to Plasmonic Nanostructures for Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering." Applied Nanoscience (2020): 1-9.
8.Sheena, Anupma Thakur, Aditi Sharma, Pooja D and Anupriya Minhas. “Bactericidal activity of
Cannabis sativa phytochemicals from leaf extract and their derived Carbon Dots and Ag@Carbon Dots.” Material Letters(2019)
9.Rishabh, Anupma Thakur, Pahuljot, Ki-Hyun Kim, and Pooja Devi. "Advances in Imaging-Assisted Sensing Techniques for Heavy Metals in Water: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities." TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry (2019): 115758.
10.Pooja D., Anupma Thakur, Dibyendu Ghosh, E. Senthil Prasad, S. M. Shivaprasad, R. K. Sinha, and Praveen Kumar. "Boosting photoelectrochemical performance of GaN nanowall network photoanode with bacteriorhodopsin." International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2019).
11.Anupma Thakur, Praveen Kumar, Sudeshna Bagchi, R. K. Sinha, and Pooja Devi. "Green synthesized plasmonic nanostructure decorated TiO2 nanofibers for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production." Solar Energy 193 (2019): 715-723.
12.Anupma Thakur, Pooja Devi, Shefali Saini, Rishabh Jain, Ravindra Kumar Sinha, and Praveen Kumar. "Citrus limetta Organic Waste Recycled Carbon Nanolights: Photoelectro Catalytic, Sensing, and Biomedical Applications." ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 7, no. 1 (2018): 502-512.
13.Pooja, D., Anupma Thakur, Prachi Rajput, KH Kim and Praveen Kumar. “Recent advances in carbon quantum dot-based sensing of heavy metals in water” TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry (2019).
14.Pooja D., Lovepreet Singh, Anupma Thakur, and Praveen Kumar. "Green synthesis of glowing carbon dots from Carica papaya waste pulp and their application as a label-free chemo probe for chromium detection in water." Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical 283 (2019): 363-372.
15.Pooja D., Anupma Thakur, Rebecca Y. Lai, Sonia Saini, Rishabh Jain, and Praveen Kumar. "Progress in the Materials for Optical detection of Arsenic in Water." TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry (2018).
16.Rishabh, Anupma Thakur, Praveen Kumar, and D. Pooja. "Au/ZnO nanocomposites decorated ITO electrodes for voltammetric sensing of selenium in water." Electrochimica Acta (2018).
17.Pooja D., Anupma Thakur, Sanjeev K. Bhardwaj, Shefali Saini, Prachi Rajput, and Praveen Kumar. "Metal ion sensing and light activated antimicrobial activity of aloe-vera derived carbon dots." Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics (2018).
18.Pooja D., Anupma Thakur, Shweta Chopra, Navneet Kaur, Praveen Kumar, Narinder Singh, Mahesh Kumar, Sonnada Math Shivaprasad, and Manoj Kumar Nayak. "Ultra-sensitive and Selective Sensing of Selenium Using Nitrogen Rich Ligand Interfaced Carbon Quantum Dots." ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2017).
19.Pooja D., Anupma Thakur, Sonia Saini, Baban Kumar, Sachin Tyagi, and Manoj K. Nayak. "A “Turn-On” Thiol Functionalized Fluorescent Carbon Quantum Dot based Chemosensory System for Arsenite Detection." Journal of Hazardous Materials (2017).
20.Pooja D., Anupma Thakur, Gurvinder Kaur, Navneet Kaur, Anita Grewal, and Praveen Kumar. "Waste Derivitized Blue Luminescent Carbon Quantum Dots for Selenite Sensing in Water." Talanta (2017).
21.Akansha, Pooja D., Anupma Thakur, and Soumen Basu. "Enhanced photocatalytic water splitting by gold carbon dot core shell nanocatalyst under visible/sunlight." New Journal of Chemistry 41, no. 11 (2017): 4573-4581.
22.Pooja, Rishabh Jain, Anupma Thakur, Manish Kumar, Nitin K. Labhsetwar, Manoj Nayak, and Praveen Kumar. "A systematic review and meta-analysis of voltammetric and optical techniques for Inorganic Selenium Determination in Water." TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry (2017).
23.Naushin, Salwa, Viren Sardana, Rajat Ujjainiya, Nitin Bhatheja, Rintu Kutum, Akash Kumar Bhaskar, Shalini Pradhan, Anupma Thakur et al. "Insights from a Pan India Sero-Epidemiological survey (Phenome-India Cohort) for SARS-CoV-2." Elife 10 (2021): e66537
24.Anupma Thakur, Tavishi Chopra and Pooja D. “Green Synthesized Cu@Carbon Quantum Dots for Histidine and Arsenate Sensing” IEEE Sensors Journal (2021).
25.Manpreet Kaur, Pooja Devi, Anupma Thakur, Ki-Hyun Kim, Preeti Kukkar, Kamalpreet Kaur, Deepak Kukkar and Harsimran Kaur. “Conjugate of Graphene Quantum Dots and Glutaminase for the Sensing of L-glutamine: Electrochemical vs. Fluorescent Sensing Approaches” Inorganic Chemistry Communications (2021)
26.Prateek Singh, Rajat Ujjainiya, Anupma Thakur et al. " A machine learning-based approach to determine infection status in recipients of BBV152 whole virion inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for serological surveys” medRxiv (2021).