Editor Biographies

Nikhil K. Singha is a Professor in the Rubber Technology Centre and Associate Faculty in the School of Nano Science and Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, India. Prof. Singha received his BSc from Calcutta University, MSc from IIT Kharagpur, MTech from IIT Kharagpur and PhD degree from IIT, Bombay while doing most of his research work in the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune, India. He spent about seven years doing research at DSM Research, the Netherlands, the Dutch Polymer Institute, Eindhoven University of Technology and TNO Industries, the Netherlands before joining IIT Kharagpur in 2003. Prof. Singha was Chair of the Rubber Technology Centre during 2016–2019.

His research interests include synthesis of tailor-made polymers, block, graft and star copolymers, thermoplastic elastomers, functional polymers and elastomers having dynamic linkages using different “click” reactions leading to self-healing, shape memory and bio-applications, sustainable materials and processes. He was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship (worked in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA with Prof. Jimmy Mays as Host Professor, 2013) by the USA and India Education Foundation (USIEF), the Prof. M. Santappa Award (in 2013) by the Society of Polymer Science India, the Materials Research India (MRSI) Medal (2013), the Fifth Polymer Foundation Award (2012) by the Prof. S. Maity Polymer Foundation, and a DAAD Fellowship (2011). He has been a visiting scientist at a number of institutes/universities: Purdue University, USA (June 2023), University of Alberta, Canada (July, 2022), Leibniz Institute of Materials Interfaces (DWI), Germany (June 2018), Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research (IPF), Dresden, Germany (May–July 2011 and May–July 2008) EPFL, Switzerland with a fellowship from the Swiss Federation (May–July 2009), and the University of Sheffield, UK (May–July 2006, with a fellowship from the Royal Society Chemistry). Prof. Singha has more than 200 publications (with 10 000+ citations) in different peer-reviewed journals and he is listed as inventor of 20 patents. He is an Editorial Board member of European Polymer Journal (EPJ), SPE Polymers, and Frontiers in Chemistry (Polymer Section), and a Guest Editor for EPJ on the special issue on “Functional Polymers”. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK and a Fellow of West Bengal Academy of Science & Technology.

After his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Chemistry from Vidyasagar University, India, Dr Prantik Mondal obtained his PhD degree from IIT Kharagpur, India. He took CSIR-UGC-NET and GATE exams and was awarded a (JRF/SRF by CSIR) fellowship to pursue his PhD. His doctoral research activities were focused on the execution of dynamic “click” chemistry in generating smart, functional tailor-made polymer materials. During his doctoral tenure, Dr Mondal had a brief stint at the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research (IPF) Dresden e. V., Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Dr Brigitte Voit and Dr Frank Böhme. Presently, Dr Mondal is working as a postdoctoral fellow in the field of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and polymer–MOF hybrids in the laboratory of Prof. Seth M. Cohen at the University of California, San Diego, USA.

Prof. Richard Hoogenboom heads the Supramolecular Chemistry (SC) group at Ghent University that was founded based on his appointment as an Associate Professor in 2010; he was promoted to full Professor in 2014. He obtained a PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology under the supervision of Prof. Ulrich S. Schubert and performed postdoctoral research with Prof. Martin Möller (RWTH Aachen) and Prof. Roeland Nolte (Radboud University Nijmegen). Prof. Hoogenboom has published more than 500 refereed scientific articles that have received 25 000+ citations (h-index 78) and he is listed as an inventor on 21 patent families. He is currently Editor-in-Chief for European Polymer Journal and an Associate Editor for Australian Journal of Chemistry. Prof. Hoogenboom is the recipient of the inaugural RSC Polymer Chemistry Award (2015), the PI IUPAC Young Investigator Award (2016), the ACS Macromolecules/Biomacromolecules Young Investigator Award (2017), and the ACS Carl S. Marvel Creative Polymer Chemistry Award (2021). He is an elected fellow of the RSC, the Young Academy of Europe and the POLY division of the ACS. In January 2018, Prof. Hoogenboom was the cofounder of Avroxa BVBA, which commercializes poly(2-oxazoline)s as Ultroxa®.