Dr. Murarka pursued his PhD from WWU Münster under the supervision of Prof. Armido Studer. After completing his Ph.D. (2013), he worked as a Max-Planck postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Herbert Waldmann at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Dortmund (2013-2016). Following a year-long stay (2016-2017) as a Team Leader in a reputed pharmaceutical company, Syngene International Limited, he decided to return to academia. In May 2017, he joined the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, India, as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to the post of Associate Professor in June 2022.

He is a recipient of the prestigious ‘Institute Senior Researcher Award (Science Category)’ by IIT Jodhpur, ‘The Early Career Research Award’ by SERB, Government of India, ‘The Thieme Chemistry Journal Award’ by Thieme, and ‘The Merck Young Scientist Award’ by Merck. He is an Early Career Advisory Board Member (ECAB) of several journals, such as ChemistrySelect (Wiley-VCH), Chemistry an Asian Journal (Wiley-VCH), and Organic Chemistry Frontiers (RSC). He is also a Fellow of the Indian Chemical Society (FICS) and a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC).

Dr. Murarka’s current research activities include the study of novel activation modes and the development of chemoselective and sustainable synthetic transformations. His research group utilizes sustainable chemical tools, such as base-metal catalysis, photocatalysis, and electro-organic synthesis, to convert feedstock chemicals to value-added compounds and pharmaceutically relevant molecular architectures. The thrust areas of research in his group include:

• Radical Chemistry
• Photoinduced Synthetic Transformations
• Electrochemistry in Organic Synthesis
• Transition Metal Catalyzed Cross-Couplings
• C-H Functionalizations
• Medicinal Chemistry