Komal Agarwal
Job description
My experience spans academia and innovation, including roles as a researcher at UiT Norges Arctic University and principal investigator for multiple commercialization projects. I have 20+ publications, 25+ conferences, and 2 patent applications, and have secured several commercialization, research, and societal impact calls. My research is diverse, covering topics like bio-inspired materials, nanofiber fabrication, and acoustic microscopy for biological imaging.
The 50 latest publications is shown on this page. See all publications in Cristin here →
Publications outside Cristin
Peer-Reviewed Publications:
- Ghosh, B., Agarwal, K . , Habib, A., Agarwal, K., and Melandso, F. Label-free acoustic and optical microscopy of live tumor spheroids in hydrogel for high-throughput 3D In-vitro drug screening. bioRxiv, 2024-08 (2024). https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.08.28.610181.abstract
- Agarwal, K ., Ojha, S., Dalmo, RA, Seternes, T., Shelke, A., Melandsø, F., and Habib, A. Uncertainty analysis of Altantic salmon fish scale's acoustic impedance using 30 MHz C-Scan measurements. Ultrasonics, 142, 107360, (2024). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041624X24001227
- Ojha, S., Agarwal, K. , Shelke, A., and Habib, A. Quantification of impedance and mechanical properties of Zeonor using scanning acoustic microscopy. Applied Acoustics, 221, 109981, (2024). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003682X24001324
- Agarwal, K. , Habib, A., and Melandsø, F. Acoustic Velocity Estimation of Salmon Fish Scales Using Acoustic Microscope. Proceedings of IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), 2023. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10308251
- Ranjan, A., Agarwal, K. , and Melandsø, F. Photoacoustic and Ultrasound Imaging of Caridea for Quantification of Pigments and Hardness Measurement. Proceedings of IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), 2023. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10308042
- Agarwal, K. , Sahay, R., Baji, A. and Budiman, AS Biomimetic Tough Helicoidally Structured Material Through Novel Electrospinning Based Additive Manufacturing. Materials Research Society (MRS) Advances, 4 (43), (2019). https://doi.org/10.1557/adv.2019.313
- Agarwal, K. , Zhou, Y., Ali, A., Parveen, H., Radchenko, I., Baji, A. and Budiman, AS Additive Manufacturing Enabled by Electrospinning for Tougher Bio-Inspired Materials. Advances in Materials Science and Engineering, (2018). https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/8460751
- Agarwal, K. , Habib, A., and Melandsø, F. Adhesive-Free Zinc Oxide Polymer Transducers for Acoustic Microscopy. 46th Scandinavian Symposium on Physical Acoustics (SSPA), 2023.
- Agarwal, K. , Rizvi SAH., Shekle, A., Melandsø, F. and Habib, A. Visualization of ultrasonic waves in piezoelectric materials. Proceedings of Symposium on Ultrasonic Electronics, 2022. https://doi.org/10.24492/use.43.0_1Pb3-5
- Agarwal, K. , Sahay, R., Baji, A. and Budiman, AS Impact Resistant and Tough Helicoidally Aligned Fiber Reinforced Composite with Tunable Mechanical Properties. American Chemical Society (ACS) Applied Polymer Materials, 2, no. 8 (2020): 3491-3504. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsapm.0c00518
- Agarwal, K. , Sahay, R., Subramani, A., Raghavan, N., Budiman, AS and Baji, A. Helicoidally Arranged Polyacrylonitrile Submicron Fiber-Reinforced Strong and Impact-Resistant Thin Polyvinyl Alcohol Film Enabled by Electrospinning-Based Integrated Additive Manufacturing. Polymers, 12 (10), (2020). https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12102376
- Agarwal, K. , Sahay, R. and Baji, A. Tensile Properties of Composite Reinforced with Three-Dimensional Printed Fibers. Polymers, 12 (5), (2020). https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12051089
- Agarwal, K. , Fernandez, J., and Baji, A. "Tough and Impact-Resistant Helicoidal Electrospun Fiber-Reinforced Composites." Singapore University of Technology and Design, 2020
- Singh, H., Agarwal, K. , Ahmad, A., Shukla, K., Wagle, S., Melandsø, F. and Habib, A. Digital Refocusing in Acoustic Microscopy Images Using Adversarial Autoencoders. Proceedings of IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), 2023. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10306752
- Budiman, Arief Suriadi, Rahul Sahay, Agarwal, K. , Rayya Fajarna, Fergyanto E. Gunawan, Avinash Baji, and Nagarajan Raghavan. "Modeling Impact Mechanics of 3D Helicoidally Architected Polymer Composites Enabled by Additive Manufacturing for Lightweight Silicon Photovoltaics Technology." Polymers 14, no. 6 (2022): 1228. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14061228
- Zhang, W., Wang, H., Hongtao, W., Chan JYE, Liu, H., Zhang, B., Zhang, YF, Agarwal, K. , Yang, X., Ranganath, AS, Low, HY, Ge, Q., and Yang, J. Structural multi-colour invisible inks with submicron 4D printing of shape memory polymers. Nature Communications 12, 112, (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20300-2
- Budiman, AS, Sahay, R., Agarwal, K. , Illya, G., Widjaja RG, Baji, A. and Raghavan, N. “Impact-Resistant and Tough 3D Helicoidally Architected Polymer Composites Enabling Next Generation Lightweight Silicon Photovoltaics Module Design and Technology.” Polymers 13, no. 19 (2021): 3315. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13193315
- Baji, A., Agarwal, K. and Oopath, SV Emerging Developments in the Use of Electrospun Fibers and Membranes for Protective Clothing Applications. Polymers, 12 (2), (2020). https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12020492
- Thakur, N., Ranganath, AS, Agarwal, K. and Baji, A. Electrospun Bead-On-String Hierarchical Fibers for Fog Harvesting Application. Macromolecular Materials and Engineering, 302 (7), (2017). https://doi.org/10.1002/mame.201700124
Book Chapters
- Agarwal, K. , Sahay, R., Budiman, AS, Baji, A. Development of strong and tough electrospun fiber reinforced composites. Electrospun Polymers and Composites (2021), Woodhead Publishing. ISBN: 9780128196113. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819611-3.00009-1
Conference Presentations
- Agarwal, K. , Ojha, S., Agarwal, C., Melandsø, F., Agarwal, KRA., Habib, A., and Ghosh, B. Acoustic properties of chitosan-GelMA composite hydrogel. The 45th Symposium on UltraSonic Electronics (USE), 2024, Tokyo, Japan.
- Ghosh, B., Agarwal, K. , Melandsø, F., and Agarwal, KRA Scanning Acoustic Microscope for Visualizing 3D Cell Clusters Embedded in Hydrogel Systems. The 45th Symposium on UltraSonic Electronics (USE), 2024, Tokyo, Japan.
- Khan, MSA., Ojha, S., Agarwal, A. , Shelke A, Ahmad, A., and Habib, A. Coded Signal Scanning Acoustic Microscopy. The 45th Symposium on UltraSonic Electronics (USE), 2024, Tokyo, Japan.
- Ojha.S, Agarwal, K. , Khan MSA., Shelke, A., and Habib, A. Specific acoustic impedance mapping of shrimp scale using scanning acoustic microscopy. The 45th Symposium on UltraSonic Electronics (USE), 2024, Tokyo, Japan.
- Agarwal, K. and Ghosh, B. Influence of GelMA-Chitosan Composite on In Vitro Fibroblast Cell Proliferation. Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS), 2024, Seattle, US.
- Agarwal, K. , Senthilkumar, SH, Habib, A., and Melandsø, F. Polarization of Zinc Oxide Doped Polyvinyldene Fluoride Films for Bio-imaging Using Acoustic Transducers. 9th International Conference on Metal-Organic Frameworks and Open Framework Compounds (MOF2024).
- Agarwal, K. , Habib, A., and Melandsø, F. Biomechanical Properties Estimation of Salmon Fish Scales using Acoustic Microscope. IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Montreal, Canada, 2023.
- Ranjan, A., Agarwal, K., and Melandsø, F. Photoacoustic and Ultrasound Imaging of Caridea for Quantification of Pigments and Hardness Measurement. IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Montreal, Canada, 2023.
- Corrio, C., Le Gac, J., Schulte, LW, Ghosh, B., and Agarwal, K. GelMA-Chitosan-Polyethylene Oxide Composite Enhances Proliferation of Fibroblast Cells In-Vitro. European Research Materials Society (EMRS), Warsaw, Portugal, 2023.
- Agarwal, K., Sahay, R., Subramani, A., Baji, A., and Budiman, AS 3D Biomimetic Thin Film Composite Design for Tougher Material. International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies, Singapore, 2019
- Agarwal, K., Baji, A., and Budiman, ASBiomimetic, Strong yet Tough Composites through Electrospinning as an Additive Manufacturing Methodology. International Reliability and Stress Related Phenomena (IRSP), Singapore, 2018
- Subramani, A., Agarwal, K., Sahay, R., and Budiman, AS Low-Velocity Impact Testing of Damage-Resistant Bio-Mimetic Composite Structures Manufactured with Electrospinning. International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies, Singapore, 2019
- Agarwal, K., Habib, A., and Melandsø, F., Focus on Microscopy Conference, Porto, Portugal, 2023.
- Agarwal, K., Habib, A., and Melandsø, F., 46th Scandinavian Symposium on Physical Acoustics (SSPA), Geilo, Norway, 2023
- Agarwal, K., Habib, A., and Melandsø, F., TNNN conference and Norwegian nano symposium 2022, Trondheim, Norway, 2022
- Agarwal, K., Rizvi, SAH, Shelke, A, Melandsø, F., Habib, A., The 43rd Symposium on UltraSonic Electronics (USE2022), Kyoto, Japan, 2022
- Agarwal, K., Melandsø, F., Habib, A., Norwegian Electro-optic (NEO) Meeting, Røros, Norway, 2022
- Agarwal, K., Sahay, R., Baji, A. MRS Advanced Materials Conference (AMC), Singapore, 2020
- Agarwal, K., Sahay, R., Baji, A., and Budiman, AS Materials Research Society Fall Meeting, Boston, US, 2019
- Agarwal, K., Sahay, R., Budiman, AS, and A Baji. Materials Research Society Spring Meeting, Phoenix, US, 2019
- Singh, H., Agarwal, K., Ahmad, A., Shukla, K., Wagle, S., Melandsø, F. and Habib, A. IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Montreal, Canada, 2023.
- Habib, A., Shukla, K., Ahmad A., Agarwal, K., Melandsø.F, 46th Scandinavian Symposium on Physical Acoustics, 2023.
- Sahay, R., Agarwal, K., Baji, A. MRS Advanced Materials Conference (AMC), Singapore, 2020
Patent Applications and Invention Disclosures
- Fiber resolution targets (FiRsT), Invention disclosure in Dec 2021, UK International Patent Application 2309111.9 filed on 16th June 2023.
- DOFI on MarGel, Invention disclosure in Sep 2024.
Research interests
Functional and structural polymers for optical microscopy calibration tools, structural significance, and ultrasonic transducers; Advanced materials for cancer drug discovery assays and wound healing scaffolds; biomimetic materials for artificial tissue scaffolds.
Teaching
Biomedical Instrumentation and Imaging @UiT, Engineering physics, SUTD (Summer 2018), Nanomechanical characterization lab, SUTD (April 2019), Engineering economics, HMSIT, India (Fall 2013), Machine design Laboratory HMSIT, India (Fall, 2013)
Member of research group
CV
Education
Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering Product Development) 2016-2020 Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Singapore. Thesis title: "Tough and Impact-Resistant Helicoidal Electrospun Fiber-Reinforced Composites".
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Javier G. Fernandez & Asst. Prof. Avinash Baji
Publication summary
- Journal articles (international peer reviewed) − 20
- Conference articles − 10
- Conference presentations - 25+
- Book chapters − 1
- Patent applications − 1
- Invention disclosures - 2
Honors and Awards
- Selected in EIC Tech to Market Pioneer Program for Cymoplive
- Selected in EIC Tech to Market Venture Building Program for Cymolive
- Singapore University of Technology and Design's PhD Fellowship, 2016-2021
- Gold Medalist - highest undergraduate course average at the institution level
Research Experience
1. Researcher June 2024- present
Principal investigator of the NFR commercialization verification project - Fiber Resolution Targets for Optical Nano and Microscopy.
2. Post-Doctoral Research Fellow April 2021 - June 2024
UiT Norges Arctic University (The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø)
• Live and fixed (genetically modified organisms (GMOs), fish embryo heart, fish skin and scales, and shrimp skin and scales) label-free acoustic microscopy imaging for tracking biological
activities and determining biomechanical properties
• Develop special functionalized Polyvinyldene Fluoride (PVDF) polymer and copolymers (PVDF- TrFE) thin-film for acoustic transducers for integration in the photo-acoustic microscopy (PAM) and scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM)
• Developing acoustic sensors for integration in microfluidic devices (IP protected). Working on this patent as technology developer, not as inventor
• Develop synthetic nanofibers of different refractive indices for optical microscopy (IP protected) - as an inventor
• Fabricating carbohydrate nanofibers (cellulose, chitosan) for protein matrix gels for developing 3D organotype for various applications
3. Ph.D. Associated Research Projects: Jan 2016 - Jan 2021
• Fabrication methodologies of UV curable polyurethane based on Gecko inspired adhesive polymer base for wall climbing robot prototypes
• Automatic fiber placement robot optimization for developing Polyimide/carbon fiber composites
• Bio-mimicking helical and other complex geometrical fibers and composite prototypes for developing tough and impact-resistant bio inspired materials
• Reducing fiber size while maintaining complex geometrical architecture of the fiber scaffolds
• Free-standing carbon electrode made via carbonization process of the polyacrylonitrile electrospun membrane
• Spider-web inspired electrospun bead-on-string hierarchical fiber prototypes for fog harvesting
• Nanomechanical quantification (indentation and scratch tests) of Copper Graphene ( few atomic layers) film vs copper film. Nanoindenation, thermal and mechanical analysis for various polymers and mineralized biomaterials
• Development of chitosan films and membranes and their molecular alignment characterization
4. Research Internship
- Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), Singapore Summer 2016
- SUTD-MIT International Design Center (IDC), Singapore Fall 2015
Funding Profile
1. Proof-of-concept commercialization grant - RCN Summer 2024
Fiber Resolution Targets for Optical Nano & Microscopes (FiRsT) PI- Komal Agarwal, Workpack age leader- Biswajoy Ghosh.
2. Impact call- Digital Life Norway (DLN) Summer 2024
Farm-a-see: Non-invasive, non-destructive sensing of Fish & hydroponics farms using acoustic sensing in the Arctic- Komal Agarwal (leader), Biswajoy Ghosh (event organizer and members).
3. Innovation supplementary funding- UiT Summer 2024
Refractive Index Contrast Prototypes for Fiber-based Optical Microcopy Calibration Targets - Inventor & PI: Komal Agarwal, Co-inventor: Biswajoy Ghosh & Krishna Agarwal
4. Innovation Qualification Grant- Research Council of Norway Spring 2023
Versatile resolution targets for optical microscopy - Inventor: Komal Agarwal, Biswajoy Ghosh & Krishna Agarwal
5. Transdisciplinary Grant for Young Researchers- DLN Fall 2021
Photo-acoustic & acoustic microscopy enables determination of biomechanical properties: implications
in fish tissue imaging- PI: Komal Agarwal & Laura Shulte Werning.
Work Experience
1. Project Manager April-July 2023
Project management of my own DLN transdisciplinary grant for young researchers including buying equipment, consumables, travelling, invoicing, recruitment of services and more.
2. Supervision April-July 2023
Supervised a bachelor of science intern Camille Corrio (in collaboration with Institut Universitaire de Technologie de Rennes (IUT, Rennes, France) in Gelatin and carbohydrate 3D matrices for cell culture.
3. Instructor/Trainer or Scientific Equipment 2017 - Jan 2021
Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
Trainer/ Charpy impact tester, drop impact tester, nanoindenter, electrospinning, DSC, TGA, DMA, FTIR, XRD, universal testing machine, other basic material fabrication and characterization instruments
4. Teaching UiT
The Arctic University of Norway and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Singapore
Biomedical Imaging and Materials, Engineering physics, Nanomechanical characterization lab. Engineering economics and Machine design Laboratory at HMSIT ,
India January -September, 2018
Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
3 high school students for fabricating electrospun smoke filtration membrane, funded by Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE). 4 undergraduate students in fabricating material for sensors, SUTD. 3 undergraduate students to shape the memory smart metal for using as an underwire in brassieres to avoid permanent deformation due to washing and drying.
6. Content Research Analyst May - September, 2015
Apex CoVantage Pvt. ltd, Hyderabad, India
Role: Content research and online catalog for connectors and parts of automobile and heavy machinery
Skills: Project management, Research and Innovation in material sciences, applications of material science in bioimaging and cancer drug screening.