Saptarsi Mondal Ultrafast & multidimensional IR spectroscopy
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Teaching and mentoring

From Spectrometer to Theory: A Practical Teaching Approach

Teaching philosophy

Teaching physical chemistry and spectroscopy requires balancing conceptual rigour with practical experience. My approach combines a solid theoretical foundation, quantitative problem-solving, and direct connections between classroom concepts and real experimental systems.

The connection to experiment is particularly important. A spectrum in a textbook has already been cleaned, assigned and interpreted. Raw experimental data may instead contain baseline drift, overlapping bands, or apparently meaningful features that prove to be artefacts. Working through those ambiguities helps students move beyond memorising selection rules toward understanding how scientific conclusions are actually established.

I want students to leave my courses understanding both what a measurement can establish and where its limitations lie. Learning to evaluate evidence critically, rather than allowing a single technique to support an entire scientific claim, is central to the way I approach both teaching and research.

Mentoring

  • Research mentoring of graduate students

    Research mentor Center for Molecular Spectroscopy and Dynamics, Korea University Doctoral and master's students 2019–2023

    As a research professor I worked alongside doctoral and master's students on the centre's shared ultrafast spectroscopy instruments, training them in 2D IR and pump–probe measurement, guiding data analysis and fitting, and co-authoring the resulting publications. Several of these papers had a student as first author.

  • Collaborative supervision across research groups

    Research mentor Doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers 2019–present

    In collaborations with materials chemistry and electrochemistry groups in India and Korea, I contributed the spectroscopic and computational work and worked directly with the students who led those projects on experiment design, calculation and interpretation.

Proposed new electives

Courses I would like to develop from my research, pairing lectures with simulation-based assignments, analysis of real measurements, and instrument demonstrations.

  • Nonlinear and Ultrafast Spectroscopy

    Advanced undergraduate and postgraduate

    Principles and applications of pump–probe and two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy, fluorescence upconversion and transient absorption. Lectures paired with simulation-based assignments, real data-analysis exercises and instrument demonstrations, so that students see how a spectrum becomes a dynamical quantity.

  • Polaritonic and Quantum Chemistry

    Postgraduate

    Strong light–matter coupling and its implications for chemical reactivity — including the parts of the field that remain contested, which makes it a good setting for teaching students how to weigh conflicting experimental evidence.

  • Interfacial Electrochemistry

    Postgraduate

    Linking surface science, spectroscopy and energy conversion: the electric double layer, operando spectro-electrochemistry, and how interfacial structure sets catalytic selectivity.

Academic service and outreach

I intend to contribute to curriculum design and academic committee service, and to organise scientific workshops and outreach programmes with local schools and communities.