Members

Postdoctoral Researcher

Email: m-goddati@oist.jp

Dr. Mahendra Goddati, Ph.D., is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Energy Materials and Sustainability Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), Okinawa, Japan, working under the national Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)–supported EXPERT-J program. He received his Ph.D. in 2025 from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at Chungnam National University, Republic of Korea, where he conducted research at LEELAB under the BK21 and NRF research initiatives. He obtained his M.Sc. in Physics from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, India, in 2018. During his early research career, Dr. Goddati focused on the development of metal oxide-based thin films for supercapacitor and battery applications. His current research investigates “Chiral Chelated Single-Metal Sites as Interfacial Reaction Gates for Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation.” More broadly, his work centers on designing and fabricating advanced materials and self-assembled nanostructures to enhance water-splitting efficiency through electrochemical and photoelectrochemical processes for sustainable hydrogen production. Dr. Goddati has extensive experience in nanomaterial synthesis, magnetoplasmonic nanoparticles, chiral and achiral nanostructures, thin-film fabrication, and plasma-assisted processes. His research also spans a wide range of energy conversion and storage systems, including photoelectrochemical water splitting, seawater splitting, photocatalytic CO₂ reduction, wastewater treatment, photodegradation, supercapacitors, and batteries.

Postdoctoral Researcher

Dr. Novitasari Sinambela earned both her Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) and Master of Science (M.Sc.) degrees in Chemistry from the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB), Indonesia, where she specialized in the development of homogeneous catalytic systems. She pursued her doctoral studies at the University of Ulm, Germany, where she completed her Ph.D. in Photochemistry. Her doctoral research centered on artificial photosynthesis, a field that seeks to mimic natural photosynthetic processes to convert sunlight into chemical energy. Following the completion of her Ph.D., she continued in the same research group at the University of Ulm as a postdoctoral researcher, further advancing her work on photochemical energy conversion and catalytic materials. In April 2026, she joined the Energy Materials and Sustainability Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) as a postdoctoral researcher. Her current research focuses on "Light-driven Heterogeneous Catalysis for Sustainable Fuel Production." Through her work, she aims to contribute to the advancement of sustainable energy solutions by bridging photochemistry, catalysis, and materials science.