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Dr. Indrajith C. Senevirathne
Teaching
Courses that I regularly teach:
PHAP 300 Thin Film Science & Technology - A multi-disciplinary course that can be considered as a foundational course into nanotechnology/thin films. This course is both lectures and advance instrumentation laboratory based.
PHYS 350 Quantum Mechanics - An introduction Quantum Mechanics for juniors and seniors doing applied and traditional physics majors. This course lecture based.
PHYS 135 Meteorology - An introduction to meteorology and fundamentals of climatology. A general education course for all non science majors/science majors. This course is both lecture and laboratory based.
PHYS 101 Matter & Energy - An introduction to energy in its many forms and their applications in physics. A general education course for all non science majors and science majors. This course is both lecture and laboratory based.
PHAP 431 Advance Applied Physics Laboratory - A research course for Applied Physics majors and Nanotechnology minors. Students present their research in national/regional meetings/symposia. This has advance instrumentation and reseach.
PHYS 130 and PHYS131 Physics I and Physics II - Non physics, science majors introduction to physics with out calculus. This course is both lecture and laboratory based.
Link to My Teaching Videos at YouTube
Research
Surface, Materials and Bio Physics
Infectious diseases due to bacterial, fungal and viral pathogens put an enormous social and economic burden on individuals, families and communities across the world. Human kind always had a tragic and often educational, but at a colossal cost, encounters with these dynamical systems. One can recall Spanish flu pandemic (first H1N1 pandemic) in 1918 that cost United States alone about six hundred thousand (~600000) of its citizenry with global mortality numbers exceeding 50 million. Even with the modern arsenal of pharmacological agents and chemicals we have against microbes (which are also constantly evolving against such agents), there will be significant challenges as the global societies become increasingly mobile and highly inter dependent on many unavoidable factors. In United States, merely considering food borne diseases, in a given year 76 million fall ill, while 325000 are hospitalized and 5000 will succumb to death, according to World Health Organization (2005).
Efficient and effective techniques to identify, quantify and confine microbes on multitudes of environments can play a critical role in mitigating these episodes. As a solid state and biophysicist using techniques in nanotechnology how can we exploit material and structure specific properties of the device substrate towards this? How can we manipulate the bacterial/fungal surface and structure towards this end? How can we engineer devices utilizing novel properties of reduced dimensionality? How can we enable the development of devices that are reliable and efficient in detecting, quantifying and immobilizing microbial pathogens? These are the questions that drive my research. I am also interested in neural sensing devices that can have enormous benefit for neural prosthesis and BCI (Brain Computer Interfacing) systems.
To answer these questions my group focuses surfaces as well as micromechanical properties of such bio nano and micro scale systems. We also study inert metallic systems than can be hybridized with more bio like polymer systems. Final focus of our research is towards engineering devices that provide us with enhanced capacity at sensing and/or immobilizing, biological agents/signals.
Research of my group then can be divided into four (4) categories: 1. Self-assembly of nano and microstructures of noble metal and semiconductor based systems on substrate support, 2. Engineered vertical column conductive polymer/hybrid nano and micro scale systems for neural sensing and BCI systems, 3. Surface modification and engineering towards selective confinement of pathogenic/nonpathogenic bacteria/fungal systems, 4. Studying micromechanical properties of bacterial/fungal systems.
All thanks to my students as they make my venture into the unknown research world ever so interesting. They have been tremendously creative and it is wonderful to see the excitement and curiosity they bring to the research enterprise.
Link to Publications and Presentations by Senevirathne Group
Research Support:
NSF MRI: No: 0923047
PASSHE Faculty Professional Development Council (FPDC) (LOU # 2010-LHU-03)
LHU Grants
LHU Nano Science Program