Dr. Arkita Chakrabarti

I was born and raised in the north-eastern state of Tripura in India. I majored in Chemical Engineering and earned a Bachelor of Technology degree from National Institute of Technology, Agartala, India. I moved to the US in 2016 to pursue a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Buffalo and to hone my research skills in the lab of Prof. Marina Tsianou where I studied the effect of polymeric inhibitor molecules on the crystallization dynamics of calcium oxalate. I carried on with my interest in material science during my doctoral research in Prof. Aaron Fafarman’s lab at Drexel University where I studied the structural and optoelectronic properties of halide perovskites for photovoltaic applications. My dissertation involved employing metal oxide nanoscaffolds as a route to physically imposing nanostructure and strain on cesium lead iodide to thermodynamically stabilize its perovskite phase for optoelectronic applications. I earned my PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2023 and began a post-doctoral position in the DEfECT Lab soon after. Outside of lab, I enjoy reading fiction, painting, gardening, playing board games, and being fascinated by nature.