Prof. P. B. Sunil Kumar Department of Physics
Prof. P B Sunil Kumar
Chair Professor
Former Director IIT Palakkad
Former HOD Department of Physics
Ph.D., Raman Research Institute, Bangalore University, 1994
M.Sc., Calicut University, 1987
B.Sc., Calicut University, 1985
Welcome to Complex Fluids and Biological Physics Laboratory at the Department of physics, IIT Madras.
We are also part of the Centre of Excellence in Soft and Biological Matter (CBSM) at IIT Madras.
Academics
Fellowship of the academies
Fellow of the Indian academy of sciences, Jan 2016
Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, October 2022
Administrative Responsibilities
Director, IIT Palakkad: 2017- 2022
Professor in Charge, IIT Palakkad:
2015-2017
Head, Department of Physics,
IIT Madras:
2012-2015
Chairman, Computer Centre,IIT Madras : 2012 January – 2012 May
Head, Department of Physics, IIT Hyderabad: 2009-2012
Professor in Charge,
High Performance
Computing Environment, IITM: 2007-2014
Other Academic Responsibilities
JSPS invitation fellowship 2015
Associate Member: MEMPHYS center
for physics of biological membranes
University of Southern Denmark:
July 2007-July 2014
Post Doctoral Fellow, IMSc. Chennai,
India: 1995-1997
Post Doctoral Fellow, Raman Research
Institute, India: 1994-1995 Research Fellow, Raman Research
Institute, India: 1988-1994
Post Doctoral Fellow, Max Planck
Institute ,Teltow, Germany: 1997-1999
Research
Computational
Physics
Soft Condensed
Matter
Statistical
Physics
Multi-Scale Simulations
Large Scale Parallel Computing
Awards & Recognition
Notable Awards
Prof M V Pylee Award for the distinguished academician of India in 2019, instituted by the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT)
Membership in societies
Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Member of the Biophysical Society
Teaching
Courses
Courses taught for undergraduate and graduate students
- Electrodynamics
- Statistical Physics
- Classical Mechanics
- Simple and Complex Fluids
- Computational Physics and Numerical Methods
- Parallel programming using OpenMP, MPI and CUDA
Research Supervision
- Supervised 14 doctoral theses and currently guiding 3 more
- Directed numerous Master’s level research projects
- Expertise in areas ranging from Physics, chemical engineering, biotechnology and engineering physics
Publications
- Papers in International Journals -83
- Books chapters – 4
- Book edited : Rheology of Complex Fluids – Springer 2010
Video course
- Video course on Numerical methods and programming
- NPTEL course
- 38 lectures
- Viewed 100,000+ times
- Co-authored an NPTEL web course on Numerical methods and programming
Science Outreach Activity
Active participation in popularizing science for children
Delivered numerous seminars at high schools and junior colleges on science and technology.
Active member of the Tamil Nadu Science Forum, a state level non profit volunteer organization for dissemination of science
Editor for the science magazine for high school children – Jantar Mantar, published by Tamil Nadu Science Forum