Swetapadma Praharaj is currently working as Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, School of Applied Sciences, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. She obtained her M.Tech in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Roukela, and was awarded with the Institute's silver medal for her performance. Thereafter, she completed her PhD in Physics at KIIT, during which she honed her expertise on the development of lead-free piezoceramics and improvement of their figures of merit. To her credit, she has published in 30 peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Praharaj applies her expertise to best tailor the functionalities of eco-friendly ceramic materials that are the materials of choice in electronic components and hightech machines. She has a keen interest in developing high-strain and temperature-stable high Tc ceramics (applicable in actuators, sensors, and capacitors) by compositional engineering. She is proficient in evaluating the performance-based figures of merit of materials in terms of S-E, P-E, Dielectric, and impedance spectroscopy. Currently, Dr. Praharaj is working on designing energy storage and harvesting devices using lead-free piezoelectric and supercapacitor (electrode) materials. Dibyaranjan Rout is currently working as Associate Professor at the School of Applied Sciences (Physics), Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), Deemed to be University. He obtained his PhD in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, and subsequently took a postdoctoral position in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea. He also served as a Research Assistant Professor in the same institute for two years. To his credit, he has published more than fifty papers in peer-reviewed journals. Under his supervision, five PhDs and ten master's theses have been awarded. Dr. Rout's research interest encompasses the structure-process-property relationships exhibited by functional/ smart materials, particularly lead-free piezoelectric/multiferroic/high-Tc relaxor materials. He is keen to design and develop such novel and eco-friendly materials in the form of bulk ceramics, nanoparticles, nanostructures, thick films, fibers, and nanocomposites using ease and cost-effective processes (solid state, reaction, soft chemical, spray pyrolysis, electrospinning) with adequate figures of merit suitable for industrial applications (specially actuators, multi-layer ceramic capacitors, energy storage/harvesting, and dye degradation).
