Kushal Bagchi Bio

Kushal was born and raised in Bangalore, India. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore, in 2013 and his master’s degree in chemistry from Pondicherry University in 2015. He then moved to the U.S. and earned his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2020 under Prof. Mark Ediger. His doctoral research focused on molecular packing in vapor-deposited organic semiconductor glasses, particularly at buried interfaces, using synchrotron X-ray scattering and spectroscopy. Kushal then joined the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Paul Nealey, working closely with Prof. Juan de Pablo’s group. There, he used nanostructured surfaces to direct the self-assembly of photonic and charge-conducting liquid crystals. Kushal joined Rice University as an assistant professor in July 2024, where his group works on understanding crystallization from liquid crystals and glasses.