Welcome! My name is Suhas, and I am currently a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.

I am one of the 2022 MIT Engineering Excellence Postdoctoral Fellows in the MIT School of Engineering, a program from the MIT Engineering Dean’s office to support and train future faculty (link). I am jointly affiliated with the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics and the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at MIT. My hosts at MIT are Prof. Zachary Cordero (MIT AeroAstro) and Prof. Christopher Schuh (MIT DMSE). My work at MIT is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and focuses on testing and developing materials for extreme space environments.

I am also a visiting scholar at the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute (HEMI), Johns Hopkins University working with Prof. Timothy Weihs and Prof. KT Ramesh. My research interests encompass metallurgy, thermo-mechanical processing, and the mechanical behavior of structural materials. I am also interested in materials by design, materials for extreme environments (high strain rate, high pressure, high temperature, to name a few), sustainability, and additive manufacturing. Some of my recent projects have ventured into using data science/artificial intelligence for materials discovery and processing of structural alloys. I recently published a technical viewpoint on the topic of Materials For Extreme Environments (link) with my colleagues.

At Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute,  I have worked extensively in the Materials in Extreme Dynamic Environments (MEDE) research consortium. Through MEDE, I have focused on improving the dynamic performance of novel Magnesium alloys using experimentally validated modeling and alloy design for body armor applications. Through collaborators at Caltech, University of Cambridge, and ETH Zurich, we have showcased how one can design novel thermo-mechanical processing pathways to yield model Magnesium alloys for extreme environments (link). I won the Best Poster Award at the Mach conference for this work and was invited to write about my research in Nature Reviews Physics (link). See here for an article I wrote recently with Tim Weihs and KT Ramesh in Nature Materials, “Young Scholars Benefit from Collaboration.” We showed how NSF and other funding agencies have almost doubled their multi-PI funding and the many advantages collaboration brought to young academics such as Ph.D. students and post-docs. I am also part of the Materials Science for Extreme Environments (MSEE) research consortium, where my work has focused on characterizing metals in extreme environments.

I completed my Ph.D. (Materials Science and Engineering) at Johns Hopkins University, USA, with Prof. Timothy Weihs in January 2022. In 2016, I completed my MS in Material Science and Engineering at Arizona State University, USA. I worked with Prof. Jagannathan Rajagopalan on MEMS-based testing of nanocrystalline thin films at elevated temperatures. Before that, I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering (gold medalist) from RV College of Engineering, India. I worked for a year at the Indian Space Agency (ISRO) for my senior design project. I was part of a large collaborative team that built a MEMS seismometer to detect moonquakes for the Chandrayan Lunar mission. At the Indian Space Agency, my work also ensured that some of these MEMS devices could withstand harsh space environments (such as high temperature and shock loading).

I also devote my time to several outreach, teaching, and diversity initiatives. I won the 2020 Diversity Leadership Award and 2018 Engaged Scholar Award from Johns Hopkins University, USA. I welcome inquiries for collaboration and speaking invites to discuss my work. Please get in touch with me here.