Prof. Karishma Jain is Teaching Professor of Sustainability and Innovation, at the Department of Physics, University of Cambridge. She has a strong interest in postgraduate education, and at the intersection between science, technology and sustainability. Prof. Jain looks to combine thinking from the Humanities and Social Sciences with the so called ‘hard sciences’ for a more holistic view of sustainability and innovation in education and research.

Prof. Jain teaches a science based innovation module to Masters students with Physical Sciences and Engineering backgrounds and an elective module on innovation for Part III Physics students. She also co-teaches a module on entrepreneurship and innovation to students on the Data Intensive Sciences MPhil at the Department of Physics.

Prof. Jain is Deputy Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (NanoDTC), and Director of the MRes in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Before her move towards postgraduate education and interdisciplinary work at the intersection between science, technology and sustainability and innovation, Prof. Jain did a PhD in Applied Physics (Nuclear Acoustic Resonance) at the University of Cambridge and before that she did a degree in Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and an Masters in Micro- and Nanotechnology Enterprise at the University of Cambridge.

She has been strongly involved with science-based startups throughout her career, initially through her work at a US-based Nanotechnology Venture Capital firm and more recently as a mentor for several startups emerging from research ongoing at the NanoDTC and as Scientific Advisory Board member for a scale-up working on terahertz technologies and water.