Ashutosh Sharma, PhD '88

Ashutosh Sharma obtained a Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1982, his MS degree from the Penn State in 1984 and PhD from the University at Buffalo in 1988 working with Eli Ruckenstein, where he was also a research faculty in ophthalmology until he joined chemical engineering at Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur in 1990. He became a full professor in 1997 and was the Head of Chemical Engineering (2003-06). He is currently an Institute Chair Professor, J. C. Bose National Fellow and Coordinator of the Nanoscience Center at IITK. He has held visiting appointments at University of Texas at Austin, University of Western Ontario, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and Yeungnam University, South Korea as a World Class University Professor.

Ashutosh’s research group works at the intersections of mechanics, materials and manufacturing on micro and nano-scales with emphasis on self-organization and instabilities; nano-patterning; carbon nanocomposites; wetting/adhesion; and functional multiscale interfaces for applications in energy, environment and health. He has authored or coauthored around 300 peer-reviewed publications in these areas with ~ 900 citations per year and an H-index of 46 (2013 data). He has mentored over 20 PhD and 50 Master’s students and a technology startup, E-spin Nanotech. He has been an invited/key note or plenary speaker in over 100 national and international conferences.

Ashutosh is currently an Associate Editor of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2014-) and serves on the editorial boards of ACS Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research (2013-2015) and Carbon (2014-). He has been an Associate Editor of ASME Journal of Micro- and Nano-Manufacturing (2012-2014), and a member of editorial boards of Chemical Engineering Science, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, Indian Chemical Engineer, Nanomaterials and Energy and Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering.

Ashutosh is a recipient of numerous awards including the TWAS Prize of the World Academy of Sciences (2008),Bessel Research Award  of the Humboldt Foundation (2006), Distinguished Alumnus Award  of IIT Kanpur (2007), Homi Bhabha Award of the UGC  (2007), Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (2002) and Lifetime Achievement Award of The Indian Science Congress Association (2010). The first two named awards have come to India in Engineering for the first time. More recently, Ashutosh has received Prof. C.N.R. Rao Bangalore INDIA NANO Science Award (2013), MRSI Distinguished Lecturership Award of Materials Research Society of India (2011-12) and The Syed Husain Zaheer Medal (a triennial award for Engineering and Technology) of Indian National Science Academy (2011). He is an elected Fellow of TWAS-the World Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences; the Indian National Science Academy; the National Academy of Sciences, India; and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. He has served on the boards/councils of over fifteen institutes of national importance in India and has been member of many national and international committees and research organizations/societies. He is former Chair Professor, Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur.

Ashutosh is also a Sunday artist who likes to sketch during meetings and conferences! Some of his works are displayed at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore and and many can be viewed online at: Art of Ashutosh Sharma, Facebook  and My Experiments in Mixed Media .