Arijit Sinha is a new professor to Oregon State University and teaches in the College of Forestry.
Q: What was it like to receive your undergraduate at Delhi University in India?
A: Delhi University had a very competitive examination to go through to get into the university, and I managed to successfully complete that and the degree as a result of that. It was a really great feeling to be in your hometown and study where you've grown up. It was the best feeling to be in the university.
Q: What brought you here to OSU?
A: I came here to do my graduate studies. I came to do a master's in civil engineering and wood science engineering. I did a dual major and then liked Corvallis so much and the programs, so I decided to stay here and do a Ph.D. I got done with the Ph.D., and as luck or destiny, I got a job opportunity at OSU and now I'm a faculty member of wood science and engineering.
Q: Has the Oregon weather gotten to you yet?
A: Not really. I am not teaching as much this term. I'm just teaching one class and we meet every other week. So I didn't schedule a meeting time last week. The timing worked out pretty well and I'm hoping the weather will stay cloudy for the class this week.
Q: Describe some of your recognized work that has nationally won awards.
A: There are a couple of things that create quite a stir. One is a paper on how we characterize thermal degradation and wood composites, for which I won an award which is generally crowned by the Forest Product Society. The recognition of your work must be high quality. We created a different kind of model, an analytical model to analyze our thermal degradation and mechanical properties of wood composites and how the degradation takes place after exploited temperatures, so we kind of took a leaf out of the bottom composite and apply it to the material of wood.
That was one piece of work. I am currently doing work with bamboo. Bamboo is gaining some acceptance because it is a sustainable material and it's the whole buzz word, and the material is new and a lot is to be learned. I am teaching a class on bamboo and doing research on bamboo so media and society can gain some acceptance of it.
Q: College of Forestry is ranked No. 1 academically at OSU. What do you do to make sure College of Forestry stays that way?
A: Yeah, College of Forestry is No. 1 here at OSU and I am a proud faculty member of it. What is essential is that quality of scholarship; quality of work has to be top notch, and it has to be cutting edge research, cutting edge teaching. You have to be the best in the business to stay No. 1. The things I do are cutting edge and really applicable to society; it's not always for our intellectual pursuit, but how it can be applied to society.
The question for College of Forestry is how we can make society better in a randomly conscious way. How can we make more green buildings acceptable to society? How can we design more buildings? Questions like these is why I am here, and I want to be a lead researcher in that area, and that is how I would contribute to College of Forestry not only academically, but also by my outreach efforts.
Tony Santilli, staff reporter
737-2231 news@dailybarometer.com
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