About Me

Howdy!

My name is Vraj Chauhan. I am native of the vibrant town of Vadodara in the state of Gujarat, India.

At present, I am a Ph.D. candidate in Rimer Group, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston, Texas. My area of research is focused on Crystal Engineering – Inorganic Crystallization, particularly focused on Pathological Crystallization of Kidney Stone Crystals. My interest lies in understanding the stone pathogenesis at the molecular level.

Prior to joining UH, I worked as a Junior Research Fellow at the Advanced Technology Development Center, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. There, my work was focused on microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS), Thin Films, and 2D materials.

I pursued Master of Technology in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, India. My graduate research focused on developing anisotropic wrinkled surfaces and studying the droplet evaporation dynamics. Additionally, an investigation on replicas of bio-inspired surfaces has been studied in the presence of applied potential.

I spent the summer of 2018 at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), Berlin, Germany working on a Lab-on-a-chip project. We, at BAM, have developed a microfluidic chip for chlorine sensing in Water. I worked on microfabrication, analytical chemistry, optics, lab-on-a-chip assays.

Besides research, I enjoy reading(here is my reading list), travel, and hike in state parks.