Prof. Nidhi Jain | Faculty Profile | IIT Delhi Abu Dhabi

Biosketch

Nidhi Jain is a Professor of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India. Prior to joining IIT Delhi as a full-time faculty in December 2010, she worked as a post-doctorate fellow at the University of Rhode Island, USA where she worked on chemical carcinogenesis of arylamine-DNA adducts.

Prof Jain's research group at IITD has contributed significantly to the field of C-H bond functionalization in organic synthesis and developed methods to engage them in late-stage functionalization. Economical and sustainable strategies for construction of C-C, C-N, C-O and C-S bonds assisted by palladium and copper catalysts, hypervalent iodine reagents and photocatalysis in visible light have been developed. All these methods allow access to molecules of high synthetic and commercial value. The scientific contributions have transpired into more than 80 research papers in international journals of repute (ACS, RSC, Wiley) with a total of more than 3900 citations and h-index 25. 10 Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) students have graduated from her research group, 8 are currently in progress and 40 masters students have been trained. She hasdelivered online lectures under IIT-PAL program which are available on YouTube under Swayam channel.

Prof Jain has been actively involved in institute building as Professor in charge-UQIDAR (2020-2021), coordinating with international academics and served as Associate Dean Faculty (2021-2024). She has also promoted welfare in IIT Delhi as member of ICC and am on several other committees working on women equality at workplace. She has actively contributed to her department in various capacities as seminar in-charge, NMR in-charge, MTech and Master of Science (M.Sc.) coordinator.

Awards, Recognitions and Professional Service
  • National Award to Teachers (NAT) for HEIs from MoE, 2024
  • Kishan and Pramila Gupta Chair Professor IIT Delhi, 2024-2027
  • Member of Early Career AdvisoryBoard, Science of Synthesis, 2022-2024
  • Council Member CRSI, 2023-2026
  • CRSI Bronze Medal from Chemical Research Societyof India, 2022
  • Invited Speaker, GordonResearch Conference on Heterocycles, USA 2019
  • D.K. Banerjee MemorialAward: IISc Bangalore, 2017
  • Teaching Excellence Award for UG teaching IIT Delhi, 2014
  • Outstanding Young Faculty Fellowship IIT Delhi, 2011-2013
  • DST Young Scientist Award 2012
  • Tetrahedron award for the top 50 most cited articles in 2007-2008
  • Best poster award at 232nd ACS meeting, SFO, USA, Sept 2006
  • University topper in Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) (H) Chemistry, Delhi University, 1995-1998
  • T.R. Sheshadri Memorial Award in Chemistry 1999.
Recent Publications
  • Oxidative organic transformations photocatalyzed by NDI in visible light, Anirban Datta, Ritu, Sharvan Kumar, Sonam Chorol, Pritam Mukhopadhyay, and Nidhi Jain, Org. Lett., 10.1021/acs.orglett.4c02558 (2024).
  • 1O2 mediated synthesis of carbonyl substituted quinoline-2,4(1H,3H)-diones in visible light: 4CzIPN as a reusable photocatalyst, Harsha, Rohit Kumar, and Nidhi Jain, Chem. Commun., 60, 5646-5649 (2024).
  • Visible light-mediated, acid-catalyzed, C-N cross dehydrogenative coupling of quinoxalin-2(1H)-ones with carbazoles and amides: Access to fluorescent probes featuring aggregate induced emission, Vikas Dixit, Pooja, and Nidhi Jain, Adv. Synth. Catalysis, 365, 4684-4691 (2023).
  • Photocatalyzed dehydrogenation of aliphatic N-heterocycles releasing dihydrogen, Ritu, Saikat Das, Ya-Ming Tian, Tobias Karl, Nidhi Jain, and Burkhard Konig, ACS Catalysis, 12, 10326-10332 (2022).
  • Visible light mediated in situ generation of disubstituted p-quinonemethides: Construction of a sterically congested quaternary stereocenter. Arun Sharma, Vikas Dixit, SharvanKumar, and Nidhi Jain, Org. Lett., 23, 3409-3414 (2021).