Soumik Mitra

Current Affiliation: Senior Research Scholar at Indian Institute of Science Education

and Research (IISER), Kolkata, India
Address: Department of Physical Sciences, IISER-Kolkata, Mohanpur,
PIN-741246, West Bengal, India
Phone (Office): +91 33 66340000 x.1401
Mobile: +919748356447
email: sm13ip032@iiserkol.ac.in
alternate email: m.soumik91@gmail.com
Skype ID: ssoumik91

Academic Qualification
2015-Present Ph.D. student in theoretical soft-condensed matter physics at IISER-
Kolkata.
2013-2015 Master of Science at IISER Kolkata under the Integrated Ph.D. program.

2010-2013 Bachelor of Science from University of Calcutta, Kolkata

Research Experience
Graduate Student with Dr. Arindam Kundagrami
Thesis: Equilibrium and kinetics of charged polymers; role of charge in Polyelectrolyte solu-
tions and relevance to biological systems.
• Explored the kinetic properties and temporal profiles for a single poylectrolyte chain
proposing a new minimalistic model.
• Equilibrium coil-globule collapse transition in poleyelctrolyte solutions; charge and ac-
tivity induced collapse dynamics.
• Studied the equilibrium process of complex formation in a sytem of two polyelctrolyte
chains of opposite charge, using a stable free energy formalism, to investigate the driving
force that lead to complexation.
• Stochastic description of the kinetic pathway for a complex formation between two flex-
ible charged polymers, through master equation theory and numerical Monte Carlo sim-
ulations, studying the temporal aspects of the process and quantifying a definitive time
scale for the process.

Current Research Projects

• Studying the quantitative kinetics of complex formation; modeling the stochastic kinetics
in a complexation process using master equation technique.
• Studying the equilibrium crumpling/folding transitions of a polymerized charged-membrane,
using Edwards’ Hamiltonian for a manifold with inclusion of charge interactions.
• Temporal behavior of crumpling of a charged polymer and the effect of active forces on
the concurrent dynamics.
Expertise
• Analytical solvability of variational Hamiltonians(e.g. Edwards’ Hamiltonian) in con-
structing exact free energy of charged polymer chains as well as polymerized membranes.
• Modeling temporal kinetics in systmes of polymer chain or many chains in solution;
kinetics of macroscopic variables for single chain and uniform density for many chain
systems.
• Classical Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations; applications to generating
configurations of polymer chains.

Research Interests
• Equilibrium properties and phase transitions in charged polymer systems; charged in-
duced collapse transition polyelectrolytes.
• Interacting polyelectrolytes and the physics of formation of complex coacervates in op-
positely charged polymers.
• Stochastic dynamics of polymer systems using Langevin/generalized Langevinb eqau-
tion(GLE) under the light of Rouse/Zimm model.
• Edwards’ Hamiltonian formalism for charged polymerized membranes; role of surface
charge in the folding/crumpling of membranes.

Publications
Published manuscripts
1. “Kinetics of Swelling and Collapse of a Single Polyelectrolyte Chain” Soumik Mitra
and Arindam Kundagrami, Macromolecules 50, 2504 (2017). Macromolecules

Manuscripts under preparation: Preprint available

1. “Polyelectrolyte Complexation of Two Oppositely Charged Symmetric Polymers: A Min-
imal Theory .” Soumik Mitra, and Arindam Kundagrami, Manuscript under peer-
review, pre-print available: arXiv.
2. “Complex formation in two partially ionized asymmetric polyelectrolytes: Role of charge
density in dictating complexation drive” Soumik Mitra and Arindam Kundagrami,
Manuscript under preparation.
2. “Stochastic kinetics of complex formation in two oppositely charged polyelectrolyte
chains” Soumik Mitra and Arindam Kundagrami, Manuscript under preparation.
For any recent updates, please visit my Google scholar page.
Scientific Presentations
Nov. 2017 Poster Presentation in National conference SMMA at IISER Kolkata.

Feb. 2018 Poster Presentation in National conference ISPCM 2018 at ICTS Ban-
galore.

Jun. 2018 Poster Presentation in National conference SMYIM 2018 at Shimla.

Dec. 2018 Poster Presentation in National conference Macro 2018 at IISER Pune.

Feb. 2019 Poster Presentation in National conference ISPCM 2019 at ICTS Ban-
galore.

May. 2019 Poster Presentation in National conference SMYIM 2019 at Shillong.

Dec. 2020 Oral presentation[virtual] in National conference CompFlu 2020, IIT

Bombay.

Mar. 2021 Oral presentation[virtual] in International conference APS March Meet-

ing 2021, USA.

Dec. 2021 Oral presentation[virtual] in National conference CompFlu 2021, IIT

Gandhinagar.

Schools and conferences attended

Dec 2016 Conference on “Complex Fluids (CompFlu 2017) at IIIT-Hyderabad.

Feb. 2018 Indian Statistical Physics Community Meeting (ISPCM) at International

Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bangalore

June 2017 Summer school “Bangalore School on Statistical Physics” at , Interna-

tional Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bangalore.

Jun. 2018 Conference on Soft Matter “Soft matter Young Investigator’s

meet(SMYIM) 2018” in Shimla.

Dec. 2018 International Conference on Polymers “MACRO-2018” at IISER Pune.

May. 2019 Conference on Soft Matter “Soft matter Young Investigator’s

meet(SMYIM) 2019” in Shillong.

Dec. 2020 Virtual Conference on “Complex Fluids(CompFlu) 2020”, IIT Bombay.

Mar. 2021 Virtual Conference “APS March Meeting 2021”, USA.

Dec. 2021 Virtual Conference on “Complex Fluids(CompFlu) 2021”, IIT Gandhi-

nagar.
Teaching
July-Dec 2018 Teaching Assistant for ‘Waves and Optics’ course involving 150 students
for 3hrs./week under Dr. Ayan Banerjee.

July-Dec 2017 Teaching Assistant for ‘Basic Quantum Mechanics’ course involving 150
students for 3hrs./week under Dr. Siddharth Lal.

July-Dec 2016 Teaching Assistant for ‘Intermediate Classical Mechanics’ course involv-
ing 70-75 students for 3hrs./week under Dr. Arindam Kundagrami.

Professional Recognitions
1. MHRD (IISER Kolkata) Institute PhD Fellowship 2013-19
2. Best Poster Award in Smart Materials Methods and Applications (SMMA) 2017 at
IISER Kolkata
3. Best Poster Award in Soft Matter Young Investigators Meet (SMYIM) 2019 in Shillong

Other Skill Sets

• Expertise in Fortran, Mathematica, MS-Excel, MS-Word, MS-PowerPoint, LATEX
• Intermediate Knowledge in Python, Matlab, Linux
• Mentored MS and Junior Research students working in our group during their research.
References
1. Dr. Arindam Kundagrami, Ph.D.
Department of Physical Sciences,
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, India
email: arindam@iiserkol.ac.in

2. Dr. Anandamohan Ghosh, Ph.D.

Department of Physical Sciences,
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, India
email: anandamohan@iiserkol.ac.in

3. Dr. Priyadarshi De, Ph.D.

Department of Chemical Sciences,
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, India
email: p[underscore]de@iiserkol.ac.in