(Madhuchhanda Brahma attended the conference in May. In this blog she shares her thoughts pre attendance ahead of the launch of the 2019 travel grants)

I am a final year PhD student in the Centre for Nanoscience and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science. My research work involves the development of multiscale quantum mechanical tools to investigate transport physics in 2D material based nanoscale devices. Specifically, I focus on building a computational framework that couples semiconductor device physics to first principles-based 2D materials modeling.

As a PhD student, I always hoped to attend the IWCN conference. It includes topics from computational nanotechnology and is directly related to my research area. The conference has been held biennially since 1992 and is attended by top researchers globally in the field of semiconductor physics. My aim to attend the conference so far had remained unfulfilled due to lack of sufficient funds.

During the final year of my PhD, I came to know about the Early Career Travel Grant from my supervisor. I went ahead and applied for it. When I was selected eventually as one of the recipients, I was ecstatic and grateful at the same time. I would finally be able to attend the conference I had dreamt for so long!

In the conference, I look forward to presenting my work to the recognized researchers in my community. This would enable me to assess my position and value of my work. Being very close to graduation, I am extremely hopeful that this conference would be a great place to foster international collaborations and meet with key people in order to advance my career goals.

In my next post, I would discuss my experience and learnings during the conference.