• Surface Chemistry
• Nanotoxicology
• Plasmonics Sensing
• Computational Electrodynamics
• Environmental Policy
• Climate Change Pedagogy
• Environmental Chemistry

She has worked at the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) in the US-Food and Drug Administration (US-FDA) as a scientist developing engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) for radiotherapy enhancement and tumour targeting before joining the University. Her work was focused on understanding structure-function relationships of engineered nanomaterials in complex biological environments. Much of this work was targeted towards the development of regulations for nanoparticle cancer therapeutics.

She has interest in regulatory policy developed during a two year Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) fellowship with the Princeton Environmental Institute and Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy in graduate school. She worked on developing a toxicological risk assessment framework using machine learning during this time. In her doctoral and post-doctoral research at Princeton University, she carried out research aimed at understanding light-matter interactions in ENMs and developed a sensing platform to study surface chemical dynamics in solid catalysts using both computational methods and nanofabrication and surface engineering.

She is now developing low cost field methods for the detection of environmental pollutants using nanostructured sensing platforms. 

Outside the Chemistry lab, Aahana was part of a team that developed a new undergraduate Climate Science interdisciplinary study program at the University. She is now involved in a collaborative research project developing a people’s pedagogy for youth-led climate action in the Indian Sundarbans.