Vaidhegi Kugarajah
Name: Vaidhegi Kugarajah
Qualification: M.Tech Biotechnology
Designation : Research Scholar
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Institute name : Anna University, CEG Campus, Chennai -25
College address : Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Central Workshop, College of Engineering (CEG Campus)
Anna University, Chennai - 25
Award for : Research Excellence Award
Publication title: Journal
Paper Title : Investigation of a cation exchange membrane comprising Sulphonated Poly Ether Ether Ketone and Sulphonated Titanium Nanotubes in Microbial Fuel Cell and preliminary insights on microbial adhesion
Journal Name : Chemical Engineering Journal
Volume : 398
Month of publication : October 2020 (Published online 21 May 2020)
Year : 2020
Page no. : 125558
ISSN : 1385-8947
About Vaidhegi Kugarajah
I, K. Vaidhegi, am currently a Research Scholar working on Microbial Fuel Cells under
guidance of Dr. D. Sangeetha, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, CEG Campus, Anna University, Chennai. My research experience begins with August 2016, when was recruited as a Junior Research Fellow in a DBT sponsored project entitled, “An investigation on a scalable and sustainable Microbial Fuel Cell for continuous electricity production from waste biomass”. As a knowledge seeker, I worked in many multidisciplinary fields. For instance, I began my
carrier in Biotechnology pursing an integrated six-year course on Biotechnology (2010-2016) for which I was the First Rank Holder of the batch. Through my course we had to complete three projects, for which I worked on Bioinformatics (Docking studies of G-protein coupled receptor) on minor and Environmental Science for both majors on Biosorption and Flotation of Phenol using microbes. I also obtained honour code certificates through edx in top Universities such as Harvard, Davison, Rice and University of Queensland for online courses related to biological science. I always
like to learn something new everyday and believe in hard work, my motto being, “Victory is the reap of hard work”. Upon recruitment in the DBT project, I am now working on material science upon polymers and nanofillers for synthesizing novel membranes for Microbial Fuel Cell in addition to the investigation of the miniature microbes involved in bioelectricity generation. Being the fourth year of
my research carrier at Anna University, I have published four papers in high reputed journals and one book chapter. I have placed and participated in many national and international conferences, quizzes etc. I am highly motivated in exploring science with my role model being late Steve Irwin. My passion being to contribute to the society through environmental science. I always think that sharing research, collaboration and exploring wide areas are the key to accomplishing a good research. I am an out of the box person, who explores and works hard to learn about anything I find interesting. In addition, I am interested in classical music and Bharatanatyam for which I have an experience of 15 years with four years of teaching experience. In a nut shell, knowledge is an ocean and I am still exploring pebbles.