Nidhi Jain is a Professor of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India. She joined IIT Delhi as full-time faculty in December 2010, following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Rhode Island, USA, where her work centered on the chemical carcinogenesis of arylamine–DNA adducts.
At IIT Delhi, Prof. Jain's research group has made significant contributions to C–H bond functionalization in organic synthesis, with a particular emphasis on harnessing such bonds for late-stage functionalization. The group has devised economical and sustainable routes to C–C, C–N, C–O and C–S bonds using palladium and copper catalysis, hypervalent iodine reagents, and visible-light photocatalysis — approaches that open up access to molecules of considerable synthetic and commercial value. This body of work has resulted in over 90 papers in leading international journals (ACS, RSC, Wiley), attracting more than 4,500 citations and an h-index of 28.
Prof. Jain has also played an active part in institution building. She served as Professor-in-Charge of UQIDAR (2020–2021), where she coordinated with international academic partners, and as Associate Dean, Faculty (2021–2024). A member of the Internal Complaints Committee and several other committees advancing gender equality in the workplace, she has been a consistent advocate for welfare at IIT Delhi. She currently serves as Vice Provost, Faculty Affairs at IIT Delhi–Abu Dhabi.