Dr. Sivakumar Vaidyanathan obtained his Bachelor and Master degree in chemistry from Muthurangam Govt Arts College - affiliated to University of Madras. After working for one and half years as a research fellow/synthetic chemist in the field of fuel cells/organic synthesis, Dr. Sivakumar moved to Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM), to pursue doctoral studies. In 2007, he received his Doctoral degree under the supervision of Prof. U. V. Varadaraju. His doctoral thesis focused on Lanthanide luminescence in mixed Metal Oxides and Silicates.

After completing Ph.D. in 2007, he worked as a Brain Korea 21 Post Doctoral Research fellow at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea from April 2007 to March 2009 in the field of Molecular materials for display and lighting applications and then, from April 2009 to April 2010 worked in the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA), Saclay, France in the field of OLEDs (Synthesis and optoelectronic properties of lanthanide containing Molecular complexes and Metallo polymers for organic or polymer light emitting diodes). His doctoral work was adjudged the best thesis in Inorganic/Analytical Chemistry for the year 2007 by IIT-Madras and awarded Prof. Alfred Werner medal. After spending a year in NIT Calicut as a Faculty in the Department of Chemistry, he moved to Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology Rourkela.

Expertise: His research interests are in the fields of organic electronics, Lanthanide luminescence and light emitting diodes.