Prof. Anirban Pathak (FNASc, FIETE), the current Head of the Department of Physics and Materials Science & Engineering at JIIT is an esteemed theoretical physicist. He completed his PhD from Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan followed by a post-doctoral research at the Freie University, Berlin. Since joining JIIT, Noida in 2002 Prof. Pathak has been actively involved in teaching and research related to several aspects of quantum optics and quantum information with a focus on quantum cryptography. 

Prof. Anirban Pathak is a fellow of The National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI), the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering (IETE), and the Optical Society of India (OSI). He is also a visiting scientist at Palacky University, Czech Republic besides being an associate editor of the Quantum Information Processing, Springer-Nature. Throughout his career, he has guided over 6 PhD students and several Post-Doctoral Fellows. 

At present, he leads a research group focused on quantum optics and quantum information with a specific interest in quantum cryptography. He has also completed several DST and DRDO-funded projects and at present and has ongoing projects funded by DST. Moreover, he is involved in active research collaboration with different research groups in India and abroad. In recognition of his efforts, he received the 2017 Shri O. P. Bhasin Award in the field of Electronics and Information Technology.

JIIT Noida

Being a Faculty of the Department, what are your roles and responsibilities towards the students?

My role as the HOD is quite simple, I talk to my students to show them a dream, expose them to great possibilities, and challenging open problems which are waiting for them in their chosen field. I try to open the gates of possibilities and work with the students in a collaborative mode to make them ready to achieve their goals with a very strong analytical mindset and experimental training in physical and computational science. Furthermore, I chair the grievance cell of the Department and it’s my responsibility to listen and address the grievances of the students. 

How do you tend to establish healthy relations with the students and fellow faculty?

Personally, I believe in making a conscious effort to create a genuine long-lasting relationship with my students and colleagues. We strongly believe that Jaypee Institute of Information Technology (JIIT) is a family, and whatever is expected to be done by a family member to another family member we do that. There must be an environment of mutual love and respect to ensure that the best comes out of all parties. A good practice of the institute is that any student can come to the office of any faculty at any time to discuss his/her doubts and academic/personal problems. This simple practice automatically establishes a healthy relationship built on trust.

What are the best practices offered by the department to the students which help them gain necessary skills?

My department primarily provides an exciting learning environment that encourages learning by doing. Specifically, the department encourages project-based learning and learning through research. We offer several electives which provide a large number of options to students. For instance, an MSc (Physics) student can select a specialization and also electives. Similarly, a BTech student may decide to study physics courses on Quantum Computing, Plasma Physics, Nanotechnology, Mechatronics, etc.

To make students industry ready each course has a project-based learning component and to make them ready for the higher studies, we provide enough scope to perform research-based projects in our state-of-the-art research labs. In addition, the department has many externally funded projects where a good number of JRFs, SRFs, and Post-Docs work. There is free interaction between the UG/PG students and the PhD students of the department and that helps the UG/PG students to know more about avenues of research and possibilities in higher studies. 

Further, the department regularly organizes journal club talks, alumni talk and interaction, invited lectures, lectures under the women in science lecture series, and outreach programs. Through these activities, students not only learn the subjects and obtain information about the technical skills required for industry and higher education. They also learn how to organize and manage a program from start to finish.

Another good practice is that the institute provides scholarships to all full-time PhD students. It also provides scholarships (up to 50% waiver on the tuition fees) to MSc students based on merit. 

How do you strategize the curriculum and how often does it get updated to make it befitting for the students?

At JIIT, we have a very strong feedback mechanism where we regularly take feedback from all the stakeholders of the institute. Based on the feedback received, we introduce new courses and modify existing courses. This is a regular exercise-To analyze the curricula and to discuss possible changes to be made in the courses, a Departmental Board of Studies (BoS) meeting takes place every semester. Further, while designing the curricula, we always follow the guidelines provided by AICTE and/or UGC as applicable, and try our best to fit it with the requirement of related industries and upcoming areas of research. In short, our curriculum is strategized in a way that the graduated students are well-trained for the industries as well as for the top universities where the students can easily bag their dream job and higher education, respectively.

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What are your views on the placements and higher education about the students from your department or How does your department prepare students for Higher education?

To answer this question, I’ll restrict myself to the courses offered by my department. For our MSc (Physics) students, we organize special classes for the examination like NET, JEST, and GATE. We also provide advice for GRE preparation and how to write SoP. Other departments perform similar exercises for their courses as well. Each of our courses has a project-based learning component and the MSc students do a research project in their final year. The training and exposure obtained through these efforts along with the most modern curriculum with the required amount of interdisciplinary nature makes them ready for placements and higher studies. 

We have a strong presence on the international research map where we are involved in an active research collaboration between faculty members and their counterparts in the institutes/universities of international repute. This model works smoothly in that even the students of the first batch of MSc (physics) are successfully doing PhD in Germany. 

PhD students are trained well with the help of state-of-the-art laboratories and research activities in emerging areas like quantum computing, quantum communication, and nanotechnology. They frequently receive prestigious fellowships like JSPS and NPDF. The involvement of faculty members in research and the presence of so many active PhD students, post-docs, JRFs, and SRFs, in the department that exposes BTech and MSc students to life in higher studies and makes the interested students ready to continue in that direction.

How do you help your student to cope up with the competition being so high in the outside world?

We help our students in many ways to make them competitive. To list a few approaches that we adopt, we train them well to be ready for the outside world and we are constantly communicating with our students. They, including alumni, are always welcome to visit us at the office to discuss their problems. We carefully listen to their issues, share our own experiences, and try to find a solution together. At times, we also connect them with other fellow students and alumni for advice from an individual of the same age group. There is also a professional counselor in the institute and she helps our students to become mentally strong. We have numerous clubs & hubs and sporting facilities. These are perfect windows for de-stressing and learning new life skills like teamwork.

Do you have any extracurricular activities/ programs to enhance the skills of the students or expose them to real-world challenges?

We do have numerous extracurricular activities in campus. There are technical clubs, like the robotics club, micro-controller club, which are perfect for students who aspire for a career in robotics and related areas. Some of the active students of robotic clubs have even become faculty of related areas in top US universities and CTO of European companies making robots. Robotics, an area of my personal interest, has many success stories associated specifically because of these clubs and hubs. It is also due to these extracurricular activities that students are able to select careers outside of engineering as they discover new passions and interests.

What are the challenges you faced/ are facing to uplift the quality of education of your department?

As far as our department is concerned, we offer two postgraduate degrees (M.Sc and PhD). For all of our programs, we wish to become a leader and the desired destination for students who love Physics and wish to carve out a career in it. To some extent, we have been successful in this direction as many students from leading Indian institutes like DU, IITs, and IISERs have joined us for higher education/training. We do, however, wish to attract international students from countries with an excellent academic track record, especially in Science. It’s also a challenge to bring more externally funded projects. Currently, we have ongoing projects worth INR 3.8 crores and we have completed projects of INR 3.2 crore in the past. 

How does the curriculum of your department/college ensure the best practice of the industry?

As mentioned above, we regularly take feedback from the alumni who are working in the industry, other industry experts, and the representatives of different industries who visit our campus for campus interviews. The feedbacks are used for designing and updating our curriculum. In the process of designing or updating a course, it requires to be approved by the Board of Studies of the Department and the Academic Council of the Institute. In both the committees, there are senior members from the industry. Thus, advice and feedback from the representatives of the industries are taken at many stages to ensure that our curriculum is in line with the best practices of the industry. 

How does the department/ college/University enhance the skills of the faculty and prepares them according to the industry standards?

We have in-house faculty development programs that are arranged regularly. Faculty members are encouraged to participate in faculty development programs, training programs, seminars, and workshops organized elsewhere. Teachers can pick up new teaching methods and skills to better communicate with the students. In addition, our department regularly organizes conferences, workshops, and seminars. One can network at these events, find help with research and collaborate ideas with like-minded people.

What are the interventions and approaches you bring in apart from the curriculum to train/teach the students?

We strongly encourage research and promote an active startup or entrepreneurial culture on campus. Our institute has a dedicated Research, Innovation, and Development (RID) cell that promotes innovation and research among students. The cell holds sessions to help the students to shape their ideas, and train and educate them to become able-bodied, capable leaders of their companies. 

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What do you see as the department’s/ college’s greatest strengths and how it can be enhanced?

Our department’s greatest strength is its students and faculty. We have 25 faculty members all holding PhD degrees from institutes of repute like JNU, PRL, IITD, Visva-Bharati, and Stony Brook. Most of them also have post-doctoral experience and all are active researchers. A relatively large number of faculty helps us to keep the class sizes small and to provide one-to-one attention to the students. It also helps to offer many courses having several options for students to choose from. Further, in our MSc (Physics) program, we ensure that expert researchers involved in research are teaching classes in their subject area. For example, it ensures that only an atomic physicist teaches a course on atomic physics and only a particle physicist teaches a course on particle physics. There is always scope for enhancement and we are in the process of recruiting more faculty members.

What valuable advice would you like to the students for them to have a prosperous career ahead?

I would advise my students to always listen to their brains, and to try to do what they love. It’s important to enjoy the subject you learn and practice. This would ensure that one is able to not get burnt out and have a sustainable long career in the field. Develop both technical skills and soft skills as the latter is the way to get noticed by employers and stay ahead. Always keep learning and keep updating to keep up with the times.