Dr Anuradha R. Pallipurath

Profile

I am a Royal Society Olga Kennard fellow (2022 – 27), a chemist by training with a B.Sc. (University of Madras) and M.Sc. (VIT University) in chemistry from India. 

Following a summer placement at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (Bangalore) and Indian Institute of Technology Madras, as well as a Master’s dissertation at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, I moved to the UK for my doctoral studies. 

I received the Benefactor’s scholarship from St John’s College Cambridge and was awarded my PhD in Physical chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 2013. 

Combining my love for science and arts, I developed spectroscopic techniques together with multivariate analysis to study artwork at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. My thesis explored the use of non-invasive techniques such as Raman spectroscopy, Fibre optic reflectance spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to understand the origins of pigments and more importantly the organic binding media in several illuminated manuscripts. 

One such manuscript was ‘The book of hours’ belonging to the Scottish princess Isabella Stuart. We studied the changes in wealth and status through the pigments they paid for and the changes to the coat of arms depicted.

I then took up a teaching fellowship at NanoDTC at the University of Cambridge (Lent 2014) and moved to the National University of Ireland, Galway to take up my first post-doctoral position. 

As part of the Synthesis and Solid state Pharmaceuticals Centre, I explored the structure-property relationships in batches of industrial excipients with variable properties using Raman spectroscopy and multivariate analysis. 

I also trained in crystallography, crystal growth and production of stable amorphous pharmaceutics. Polarised Raman spectroscopy captured my interests as a means to study organic crystal faces in more detail.  Having established links with the Diamond Light Source, I also began exploring the use of variable temperature and variable pressure crystallography to study polymorphic phase change.

Subsequently, I moved to the University of Bath in 2017 to develop non-ambient spectroscopic and crystallographic techniques as part of the Metastable materials project. As part of this exciting project, I was able to analyse a range of materials from organic thermochromics, photovoltaics, co-ordination polymers, pincer complexes, pharmaceutical co-crystals and their polymer based coatings, using a variable temperature solid state UV-visible reflectance spectroscopic technique I developed. 

I have also been involved in the development of time resolved crystallography at Beamline I19, Diamond Light Source. I also trained in flow crystallisation methods and was able to develop non-invasive monitoring of segmented flow crystallisation using Raman spectroscopy.

In 2018, I moved to the University of Leeds as a Research fellow, working as part of the EPSRC Future manufacturing Centre (CMAC), to develop X-ray synchrotron based techniques to characterise flow crystallisation. We used X-ray Phase Contrast Imaging (XPCI) to visualise the events during crystallisation and X-ray Pair Distribution Function analysis to study the structural dynamics of the process. Understanding intermolecular and non-covalent interactions captured my interests as a means to control processes and material stability. I have been studying them in liquids (XPDF) and in solids (quantum crystallography) using density functional theory and molecular dynamics.

Research interests

My Research Interests are in the following: 

1. Understanding inter-molecular and non-covalent interactions to develop metastable therapeutics 
2. Developing Angle Resolved Polarised Raman Spectroscopy (ARPRS) for the study of particle surfaces 
3. Developing X-ray Pair Distribution Function (XPDF) analysis for the study of soft matter systems
4. Developing correlative imaging, scattering and spectroscopic methods to study soft matter systems (in-house and synchrotron based) 
5. Employing Machine Learning Methods (MLMs) to improve data quality, temporal resolution and to mine for information from ARPRS and XPDF datasets

I have two PhD studentships on offer at the minute. Please get in touch if you are interested. 

https://phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/1535-predictive-control-of-crystallisation-through-correlative-studies-of-molecular-fragments 

https://phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/1801-mechanistic-understanding-of-the-formation-of-squaric-acid-based-functional-organic-multi-component-materials 

Qualifications

• PhD (Physical chemistry, University of Cambridge)
• M.Sc Chemistry (VIT university Vellore,India)
• B.Sc. Chemistry (Ethiraj College for Women, Chennai,India)
• MRSC
• Dipl. Software Engineering (NIIT Ltd.)

Professional memberships

• British Crystallography Association
• American Crystallography Association
• Royal Society of Chemistry

Student education

I currently teach a second year module on air quality and pollution prevention.