Dr. Gunasekaran welcomed all the guests and addressed the audience. He introduced the university by recalling its infrastructural dominance, mentioning the eminent faculty, and discussing the collaborations with the University of California, Berkeley where students are sent for semester abroad programs. He also emphasized on the exposure offered to the students through international and national internships. “Our university encourages the young researchers through UROP where the students individually or in a group take up mini-projects under the guidance of our faculty. “Our faculty has published more than 120 journals in the last one year, along with 23 sponsored projects and 64 proposals that await funds from the agencies. SRM University AP, Andhra Pradesh is also collaborating with Indian Railways to build Hydrogen Trains, and Amara Raja Group on Energy Storage”, Dr. Gunasekaran pronounces. He also expresses his gratitude to the distinguished guests and assures to extend extensive support from the university’s end.

The Asian Consortium on Computational Materials Science (ACCMS) was set up in 2000 to promote research and development activities in computational materials in Asian countries. Prof. Yoshiyuki Kawazoe says “Computational materials was not a coined term in Japan when we started off this organization 20 years back. We merely had 7-8 participating nations who met on virtual platforms regularly or at conferences once in a while. In order to optimally utilize our resources and manpower, it is widely felt that we should have a ‘real’ organization to steer young researchers towards computational research. It is envisaged that the conduct of the International Conference on Material Genome at SRM University AP, Andhra Pradesh will lay the foundation for an active center of ACCMS on campus.”

He further addresses that the purpose of ACCMS is to solve large probabilistic problems through Quantum Mechanics based calculations followed by Machine Learning (QM/ML). “We are aiming at developing language and characters prior to the western nations and secure a superior position for Asian countries”. Few themes to be covered in this chapter of ACCMS conference includes “Machine Learning for materials”, “High-throughput Computation”, “Polar Magnetic Materials”, “Thermoelectric Materials”, etc.

Fracmeet conferences are being organized for over a decade to focus on an aspect of Material Science – “Mechanical Properties of Complex Materials.” The multidisciplinary collaborative meetings of this organization welcome scholars from Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering domains, along with people from the industry. Prior to this, the annual conferences and meetings of Fracmeet were held at IMSc., Chennai, where Fracmeet was initiated. For the first time, SRM University AP, Andhra Pradesh, having exceptional infrastructure and facilities, is hosting this conference in collaboration with IMSc. This year, Fracmeet is aiming at discussing “Micromechanics of failure in disordered material” in this conference.

The conferences will be held in parallel sessions for 3 days, from 5th to 7th February 2020, where delegates will be presenting their papers and discussing important issues to develop unique solutions for addressing challenges.