The Science Academies of India under their Focus Area Science Technology Summer Fellowship -2019 (FAST-SF) program invited UM-DAE-Centre for Excellence of Basic Sciences (UM-DAE CEBS), Mumbai to organize and host a six-week summer school. Accordingly, UM-DAE CEBS organized the summer school during 6 May to 14 June, 2019 on ‘Science of Materials’ (SSM-2019).  More than 500 applications for participation in the School were received from all over the country out of which around 25 students and 5 teachers were selected.  The participants were from different academic backgrounds such as BSc-third year, MSc-first year in

chemistry, physics and biology including third year B. Tech. /B.E. students from certain engineering streams.  Out of the 30 selected participants, 26 could attend the school and additional 2 students were nominated by the local institutes. The faculty (61 Nos) for the school was inducted from TIFR, BARC, IIT(B), ICT (Mumbai) Poona University and also from CEBS. A notable feature of the summer school was the breadth of topics related to material science ranging from properties of materials, methods of preparation and characterization of special materials, smart-materials, organometallics, biological materials, nuclear and strategic materials, materials for electronics, superconducting, magnetic and transport devices, optical, opto-electronics, photonic materials and applications, etc. These topics were covered in 80 lectures.

The program was organized in such a way that besides classroom lectures, the participating students engaged in hands-on experiments in the form of practical laboratory classes in each of the Departments of CEBS (7 Nos). The School of Physical Sciences conducted specific experiments in Ferroelectrics, Shaped-memory materials, Curie-Weiss laws, lab automation, etc. along with many live demonstrations. The School of Chemical Sciences conducted experiments on synthesis of nanoparticles of CdS and Demonstration of Zn-Cu alloy formation, etc. School of Biological Sciences conducted laboratory experiments on detection of cysteine using silver nanoparticles, etc. In addition, scientific visits to premier research labs in TIFR, BARC and IIT(B) were also organized to give an exposure to students about advanced research facilities in the contemporary research fields.