IIT Ropar Postdoctoral Fellow Mechanical Engineering 2026

IIT Ropar Postdoctoral Fellow Recruitment 2026: Overview

Indian Institute of Technology Ropar (IIT Ropar) is recruiting a Postdoctoral Fellow (Research Associate-I) in Mechanical Engineering for the ANRF-funded ARG project, Investigations into moisture response and aerodynamics of small insects, with Dr. Chander Shekhar Sharma as principal investigator and Dr. Navaneeth K Marath and Dr. Manish Agrawal as project team members. The project connects insect flight with the development of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), focusing on how these lightweight flying systems respond when atmospheric moisture reaches their surfaces.

Fog and dew are central to the research problem: because insects and insect-inspired vehicles have very little mass, moisture can create a particular challenge for flight across different atmospheric conditions. You will join an interdisciplinary research team with advanced laboratory facilities, working in a project that brings together experimental observations and numerical investigations to understand moisture response, drop-surface interactions and flight aerodynamics within the same study.

Service Conditions and Caveats

• Project appointment: This is a contractual research engagement linked to the named ARG project. The notice identifies the position as both Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Associate-I, so these labels refer to the same opening.
• Initial tenure: Your first appointment will be for one year. Renewal depends on your performance, so the overall project duration does not mean an automatic appointment for the entire period.
• Overall limit: The engagement can continue for three years or until the project finishes, whichever happens first. Keep that project-linked limit in mind when considering the appointment and its renewal terms.

• Study how atmospheric moisture affects small flying insects.
• Characterize surfaces involved in moisture interactions.
• Use high-speed and microscopic imaging to examine drops on surfaces.
• Observe insect flight aerodynamics during experimental investigations.
• Analyse data from the experimental study.
• Carry out numerical investigations to complement the experiments.