Siddharth Pandey Named Asst. Prof. of Chemistry

SOCORRO, N.M., October 26, 2000 -- Siddharth Pandey recently was appointed to the full-time, tenure-track position of assistant professor of chemistry at New Mexico Tech.

Prior to assuming his new position at New Mexico Tech, Pandey spent the past two years working as a post-doctoral research fellow and instructor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Pandey earned his master of science in a five-year integrated program at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India, and attained his doctoral degree in chemistry at the University of North Texas in Denton.

This fall semester at New Mexico Tech, Pandey is teaching "Quantitative Analysis," an undergraduate-level chemistry class. He also currently is serving as one of the faculty advisors to the Tech Chemistry Club.

"I have two major goals I'd like to accomplish in the near future," Pandey relates. "One is to do a good job of teaching my classes, and the second is to establish a research lab, including a collaborative research group, which would focus on research in my specialty, which is optical spectroscopy.

"Basically, optical spectroscopy occurs when you shine light on things and observe what happens," he explains. "The research I do in that field deals mainly with its environmental aspects,
but optical spectroscopy also has several practical applications in pharmaceuticals and energy-related topics, as well."

Pandey has written or co-written over 50 research publications in his career and has made nearly 30 presentations on his research at various scientific conferences.

"The quality of students here is really good," says Pandey. "I've been favorably impressed with the students I've been teaching in my class and also with the ones I've been advising."

Pandey says he and his wife, Shubha, " . . . were tired of living in big cities" and are now fitting in well to the pace of life in a small town.

"Although we don't do too much in the way of outdoor activities, we like this place very much," he says.