Dr Rama Kanta Layek has been working as an Assistant Professor (tenure track) in biopolymers and their utilizations at the Department of Separation Science, LUT University, Finland since January 2021. He has received Docentship in biopolymer composite at LUT University for a period of 1.10.2022-30.9.2027. Before that, he was working at Tampere University as an Academy Postdoctoral Researcher. He has completed a PhD from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (Jadavpur University), Kolkata, in 2013. He has performed his postdoctoral research at Chonbuk National University, South Korea and worked as a guest scientist at Leibniz Institute for polymer research, Dresden, Germany. He has supervised a couple of master dissertation work and instructed doctoral dissertation work. He has published 50 research articles in internationally reputed scientific journals and presented his work in reputed scientific conferences. He has engaged in broad areas of polymer/biopolymer science and material chemistry. His main research focuses are synthesis, processing and characterization of novel biopolymers and their composites, surface modification of biopolymers for biomedical applications, surface functionalization of multifunctional fillers such as graphene, boron nitride, MXene nanosheets and nanocellulose fibres for fabrication of high-performance polymer/biopolymers composites, the structure-property relationship of polymer/biopolymer composites, valorisation of lignocellulosic biomass-derived biopolymers, antibacterial biopolymers and textiles, gas barrier property of biopolymers and their composites for packaging application, surface coating of nano-biocomposites for demanding applications.
