Dr. Manoj Kumar Jena is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India (since February 2025). Prior to this role, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan (November 2024 – January 2025), and at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia (October 2022 – September 2024). During his tenure as a postdoc, he was also affiliated with the Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded Training and Research Centre for the Transformation of Australia’s Biosolids Resources, a collaborative initiative involving RMIT University, Melbourne.

Dr. Jena obtained his Ph.D. from Curtin University, Perth, Australia, in association with the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India (September 2022). His doctoral research focused on insights into the kinetic compensation effects and kinetic parameters during the gasification of low-rank coal char. He completed his Bachelor of Technology and Master of Technology in Chemical Engineering from Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang, Odisha, and the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad.

Recognized for his outstanding research contributions, he received the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (IIChE) Ambuja Young Researcher’s Award in 2017 during his masters studies. Additionally, Dr. Jena has four years of industrial experience as an engineer, working on computational projects at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Pvt. Ltd., India. He has published several research and review articles as the first, corresponding, and co-author, and has actively presented his work at national and international conferences, and symposiums. In 2024, Dr. Jena authored the book titled on Gasification Technology: Transforming Waste into Clean Energy published by Springer Nature Switzerland.

His research interests include:

o         Clean technologies

o         Advancement of thermal conversion processes

o        Waste valorization, bioenergy, and biofuels

o          Smart carbon materials synthesis and characterization

o           Destruction/capture of emissions and contaminants (CH₄, Tar (VOC), SOₓ, NOₓ, Hg, and PFAS)

o           Kinetics of solid-gas heterogeneous catalytic reactions

           Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=dwAnfQsAAAAJ&hl=en