Debmalya Ray

Debmalya Ray is from Malda, West Bengal, in the northeast part of India. He is a fifth-year graduate student working with Professor Laura Gagliardi.

Like many scientists, Debmalya’s interests were sparked by mentors who guided him along the way. 

“During my high school I met my chemistry teacher, Dr. Bidhan Bhattacharya, whose way of teaching motivated me to study chemistry. Then I joined Presidency College, Kolkata, which is one of the oldest colleges in the country, where I had some great teachers and classmates who encouraged me to pursue chemistry as my career,” said Debmalya. “That is when I started thinking about getting a doctorate in chemistry.” 

As a computational chemist, Debmalya’s general research interest is based on using supercomputers to solve chemistry and materials science problems. Currently, he is involved in variety of projects and his major research focus is to find low-cost, non-toxic, and earth-abundant materials for solar energy related applications. In addition, Debmalya is involved in projects related to metal organic frameworks for various application such as electrical conductivity, catalysis and gas separation. He is also studying basic bonding and spectroscopic properties of molecules containing Uranium and transuranium elements.

Debmalya received an honorable mention in the department’s Graduate Student Research Symposium.