R.K. (Ranjita) Bose, Prof
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
06/2022 – present, Associate professor
Associate professor in Polymer Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen (ENTEG), University of Groningen (UG), The Netherlands
2023 - present, Programme Director BSc Chemical Engineering (UG)
06/2017 – 05/2022, Assistant professor (tenure track)
Department of Chemical Engineering, Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen (ENTEG), University of Groningen, The Netherlands
03/2012 – 05/2017, Postdoctoral researcher
Novel aerospace materials, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Topic: Self-healing polymers – Synthesis, molecular mechanisms, dynamics, macroscopic behavior, and structure-property relationships
Supervisors: Prof. Sybrand van der Zwaag, Dr. Santiago J. Garcia Espallargas
EDUCATION
09/2006 – 12/2011 Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA
Thesis title: Initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition for Synthesis of Polymer Thin Films and Coatings for Biological Applications.
Supervisor: Prof. Kenneth Lau
06/2002 – 06/2006 B.E. (Bachelor of Engineering) in Chemical Engineering, Gujarat University, India
AWARDS & GRANTS
Circular Plastics–Purification of food grade PE with scCO2 from Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO) and the Province of Groningen on Recycling of PVC: €300,000
Just Transition Funds (JTF) from Northern Netherlands Alliance (SNN) and the Province of Groningen on Recycling of PVC: €400,000
SNN Subsidy North Netherlands on CIrcular Furniture 2021: €200,000
ERC FET-Open 2019 on Functional & Dynamic 3D Nano- MicroDevices by Direct Multi-Photon Lithography 2020: €547,000
Northern Netherlands Alliance (SNN) on supercritical CO2 for industrial applications with industrial partner Foamplant 2019: €300,000
2025 UG Best Practice Award in teaching, Runner up: €2500 Game-based project that I developed for a 3rd year BSc course to encourage learning via gamification. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtVUH0ojFM0
Drittmittel Fähig 2013: €8000 A competitive personal grant awarded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under their self-healing materials special priority program (SPP) 1568 for young researchers to enable them to pursue independent research.
George Hill Jr. Fellowship 2008, Drexel University: $5000 The George Hill Jr. endowed fellowship was established in 1991 and is awarded for academic excellence to Ph.D. candidates showing an inclination for a career in academia.
CITATION METRICS
Google Scholar (March 2026): Total citations 3342; h-index 30
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MWuz_BwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
Scopus (March 2026): Total citations 2780; h-index 28
https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=27267581700
RESEARCH EXPERTISE & CONTRIBUTIONS
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Polymer thin films and surface chemistry with a focus on structure property relationships.
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Developed methodologies to quantify self-healing in polymers and relate the chemical reversibility to mechanical property recovery.
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Synthesized ultrahigh molecular weight polymer thin films and coatings using with controlled radical polymerization.
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Kinetics of vapor deposition polymerization
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Optimized synthesis and purification of candidate polymers based on application requirements.
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Developed surface coatings (acrylate and fluorinated polymers) on micro- and nano- scale substrates for applications of controlled release, super-hydrophobic surfaces, biomaterial implants and moisture barrier properties.
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Characterization techniques: NMR, FT-IR, UV-Vis, HPLC, GPC, DSC, TGA, DMA, rheology, XRD, ellipsometry, and surface analysis using optical microscopy, confocal microscopy, AFM, XPS, SEM and EDS.
INVITED TALKS
2026 Polymer Networks Group conference, Dresden, Germany
2026 Conference on Hot Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition, China
2025 MACRO International Conference, IIT Kharagpur, India
2025 Lecture series on Polymer Science, Martin Luther University, Halle Germany
2025 Workshop, Recent Advances in Elastomers and Composites, Kharagpur, India
2023 Conference on Hot Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition, Germany
2022 GEBC, R&D Playground for Universities and Industries Meeting, NL
2022 European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) Spring Meeting, Online
2020 Distinguished alumni lecture. Nirma University, Gujarat, India,
2018 EMPA Swiss Federal Lab. for Materials Science and Technology, Switzerland
2013 Keynote talk. Euromat annual conference, Seville, Spain
SERVICE AND OUTREACH
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2020-2022, Board member of Young Science and Engineering Network (YSEN), the tenure track society of FSE at UG
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2020-2022, Member of ENTEG PhD reviewing committee ENTEG
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2018-2020, Member of Program Committee Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) IEM
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2019- 2023, Member of Program Committee Chemistry/Chemical Engineering (Ch/CE) Ch/CE
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Guest editor of journal Polymers for a special issue on Self-healing Polymers to be published in December 2020.
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Supervising the final year science project on conductive polymer films of high school VWO (highest variant of secondary school education in the Netherlands) students Mart Deinum and Bram Elderman from Maartenscollege in Haren, September 2019 to March 2020.
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Zpannend Zernike demonstration on art meets chemistry https://zpannendzernike.nl/video-2024/
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Outreach lectures and experiments on self-healing polymers for high school students during the event “Student for one day” at the University of Groningen, 2019 and 2020.
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Member of the local scientific organizing committee for the European Polymer Federation Conference 2025
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Member of the scientific organizing committee for the International Conference on Self-Healing Materials 2024
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Scientific committee member for the Symposium on “Polymer and hybrid thin films from innovative deposition techniques to functional devices” – EMRS Spring Meeting 2018, Strasbourg France.
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Organized 3rd year PhD seminar day for chemical engineering to foster cross disciplinary communication and promote timely finishing of PhD thesis 2020, and 2024.