The
profile
Dr.N.Kannan’s interests include the transport and fate of industrial
contaminants and hormone disruptors such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs),
nonylphenols, polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), polychlorinated dibenzo
dioxins (PCDDs) and pesticides in terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
He is familiar with modern sampling techniques for analysing organic
contaminants in water, sediments, particles and organisms; clean-up methods and
high resolution determination and risk assessment. His four years association
with Prof.S.Tanabe, Ehime University, Japan has resulted in the awakening of
non-ortho coplanar PCB studies. He spent his last 10 years with a group
of marine/environmental analytical chemists lead by Prof.Dr.J.C.Duinker at IFM
(Institute for Marine Research) Kiel. His
other interests includes application of structure activity relationship (SAR) in
understanding the Bio transformation of these chemicals in organisms and the
usage of anthropogenic trace contaminates as bio geochemical indicators of
marine processes.
He
has published his works in scholarly journals and presented in international
conferences. This amounts to more than 80 citations. He has keen interest in
public education and was motivated by environmental movements in USA and
Germany. His undergraduate and Masters research work show his early attempts in
the field of environmental toxicology. He obtained his first PhD in Madurai
Kamaraj University, India with a research title “Chemo dynamics of pesticides
in plants - movement and dissipation in plants and surroundings”. As a
Mombusho scholar, he worked at Ehime University,
Japan and obtained a second PhD in the field of
ecotoxicology and environmental chemistry with the research title
"Coplanar PCBs in humans and wildlife: Congener specific analysis,
occurrence, behaviour and toxic evaluation".
Dr.Kannan has travelled widely in Asia, Europe and USA and lived in
multicultural environment. He has teaching experience at undergraduate and
graduate levels. He has guided M.Phil and PhD students as well. He has
experience in writing grant proposals. In the field of public education he has
given several radio talks on the impact of science on society and on the
changing landscape of science. He writes often on these topics in popular
magazines as well. He was born in Southern India in the year 1952 and has
acquired German citizenship. He is fluent in English and has good comprehension
of German and Japanese. He enjoys travel, music and creative writing.
He is familiar with Mac OS, Windows, Java Scripting, ASP, HTML, DHTML,
Internet software und Protocol (TCP/IP, FTP), Microsoft office, Adobe products,
statistical packages. He is currently the Chairman of International Forum for
Information Technology in Tamil (INFITT)-Europe.