As part of our Global Researchers series we’ve been in contact with Researcher users to learn more about their research, the challenges they face, and what benefits they’ve derived from Researcher.
Speaking with researchers to understand the reasoning behind their research is instrumental for publishers. These small insights aid the publishers of the paper in understanding how they affect the day to day lives of researchers, their colleagues and their research.
Having previously spoken with Hashim Muhammad Suleiman from Nigeria and Jefferson Bitencourt from Brazil, we recently spoke with Gaurav Singh from IIT Madras, India. Gaurav discussed his research in materials science and how Researcher helps him on a daily basis.
Tell us a bit more about yourself. What do you research — and why? Where do you conduct your research? Any other fun/interesting facts are most welcome!
I am Gaurav Singh, a PhD student in the Department of Engineering Design at IIT Madras, Chennai, India. My area of research is the structure-property correlation of metallic materials. I am working on nuclear applications to improve the properties of cladding materials like Zirconium alloys by understanding the microstructures of materials.
As a material science researcher, I am focusing on a lot of things like microstructures, mechanical properties and material characterisation techniques like X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy to improve the cladding materials behaviour.
Research in material science involves two frontiers: the first is understanding the properties of a material by focusing mainly on the applications. The other mainly focuses on engineering and the properties that make materials suitable for usage in different kinds of applications.
In my case, I research how the interaction between different kinds of defects, especially the interaction between vacancies and dislocations and that of different interfaces with both vacancies and dislocations, will influence void swelling tendencies in the presence/absence of segregating solute species during nuclear fission reaction.
In what ways does Researcher benefit your research?
Researcher makes it easier to discover important papers and it assists with defining thoughts for writing literature surveys. It’s a highly useful tool in our daily life as researchers.
Overall, the Researcher app helps me to stay informed about the recent scientific publications in my research areas.
What are the benefits of having a lot more of your friends and colleagues on Researcher?
I have shared Researcher with my friends and colleagues. This helps to share new research articles in the same research interest. The unique invite feature with the option to share my feed keywords with lab mates improves collaboration in research sharing and writing.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself, your research, the competition, and/or the Researcher app?
I would like to appreciate your efforts in doing a great job for the scientific community. I have been using this app for the last 1.5 years. I have a Facebook (Metallurgical Engineering) and Instagram page for material science and metallurgical engineering to gain knowledge about fundamentals and innovation. I have shared the app with the group and they are loving it and giving very positive reviews.
