Individual Fellow
Dr Sundar Rathnarajan is a POLONEZ BIS fellow funded by National Science Centre (NCN), Poland, and co-founded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant. He is employed at the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, and his project is mentored by dr. hab. Inz. Pawel Sikora, Associate Professor, ZUT.  He received approximately 1 million PLN for executing the NanoSeaCon Project.  Dr. Sundar Rathnarajan completed his Ph.D. in civil engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai, India.  He acquired expertise in concrete durability and service life estimation of concretes with SCMs exposed to chloride-induced and carbonation-induced corrosion.  He received Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Civil Engineering from Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, affiliated with Anna University, Chennai. He received the best presentation awards in paper and poster competitions at national and international conferences during his Ph.D. period. In the last five years, he co-authored 8 Scopus-indexed articles and a few articles among those in very-high impact journals relevant to concrete technology and materials science.
Project Supervisor
Dr hab. inż. Paweł Sikora, prof. ZUT since 2021 he is a Head of the Department of General Civil Engineering (kbo.zut.edu.pl) at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin.  His main research areas are additive manufacturing, nanotechnology, radiation shielding materials, light-weight concretes as well as supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). He has lead numerous national and international research projects, including cooperation with industrial partners. He has co-authored more than 40 papers in the last 5 years. He is a former Marie Curie-Skłodowska Actions Postdocotral Fellow at TU Berlin and is actively involved in the work of RILEM and fib. He is currently PI of an international research project Recycl3D: Recycled aggregates for 3D printed concrete structures (ERA-MIN 3 Joint Call 2021, Horizon2020).
Beneficiary Institution
West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin (www.zut.edu.pl) is a state university established on 1 January 2009 as the result of a merger between the University of Agriculture in Szczecin and Szczecin University of Technology (both established in the 1950s). The University consists of 11 faculties. Within the University’s walls ca. 6,500 students follow programmes at bachelor, master and PhD levels under the guidance of ca. 760 academic teachers. The doctoral programmes are offered in the following areas: agriculture and horticulture / animal husbandry and fisheries / architecture and urban planning / automatic control, electronics and electrical engineering / chemical engineering / civil engineering and transport / environmental engineering, mining and power engineering / food and nutrition technology / information and communication technology / materials engineering / mechanical engineering. The University offers also numerous courses of continuing education and cooperates actively with its business environment. Since international cooperation is recognised as an important factor enhancing the quality of research and teaching, the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin is an institution open to all kind of projects stimulating internationalization processes and introducing an international dimension to its educational and research activities. The University holds the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education 2021-2027 and is an active participant in Erasmus+ projects and activities (both Action KA1 and KA2). ERASMUS+ mobility projects are based on ca. 200 Inter-Institutional Agreements with higher education institutions including partners from countries not associated with the Programme (currently Georgia, Ukraine and Viet Nam). Apart from ERASMUS+ initiatives international cooperation activities result also from bilateral agreements on research and/or educational cooperation signed with 89 institutions worldwide. The University has also been active in numerous research projects under Framework Programmes and Horizon2020. The university’s research potential, its educational offer and location make it an attractive place of study for ambitious young people ready to invest into their career and willing to build innovative, knowledge-based society in future.
Industrial Partner
Betotest Polska sp. z o.o. is part of the BARG group (a nationwide network of accredited construction and road laboratories), are construction diagnostics, repair and strengthening of constructions and testing of prefabricated components. The company is responsible for assessing the compliance of waste materials in construction applications and preparation of the construction products to obtain serviceability certificates. In the NanoSeaCon project, Betotest will support Postdoctoral Fellow with corrosion/durability evaluations of developed concrete mixtures.