Ajay Harish

Dr. Ajay B. Harish is a Lecturer in Engineering Simulation and Data Science at the School of Engineering, University of Manchester, UK.

Research overview

Ajay has an expertise in the development of physics- and data-driven techniques for modelling fluid-structure interaction of thin-structures using high-performance computing. More information about his work is available on his group website at https://www.harishlab.com.

The computational methods developed are used in the study of two verticals:

1. Biomedical engineering:  research aimed at improving the mechanistic comprehension of the interaction between flow – elasticity – growth.
2. Advanced materials for future applications in foldable and lightweight structures using tensegrities. Tensegrities have applications ranging from space structures to biomedical devices.

Academic background

His academic background includes postdoc at Department of Civil Engineering at University of California, Berkeley; Doctor of Engineering (Magna cum Laude) in Mechanical Engineering from Leibniz University Hannover (Germany); Masters in Aeronautics from California Institute of Technology (USA); B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from NITK Surathkal (India).

Awards

He was awarded the UK-Italy Trustworthy AI Fellowship by the Alan Turing Institute (UK) for enhancing the collaboration with Italy. He was offered the prestigious Ramanujan Fellowship from the Government of India in 2022. He has received the Russel R. Vought Fellowship in 2007-08, scholarship from Continental AG in 2011-15, was honored with the Viktor-Rizkallah Award for best international researcher by the Leibniz Foundation in 2016, Best researcher in Mechanics by the Mechanics division of Leibniz Foundation in 2017, LUT Foundation scholarship in 2017 and 2019.

Industrial collaborations

He has served as an External Technology Consultant at Janssen Maritime Transport Consulting in Hamburg, Germany (2015-19); CTO of Symbosim Inc (2017-18); CEO and CTO of Engineer Materials Inc (2018-20). His past/current industrial collaborators include Optegra, Ineos Britannia, AWE, Continental AG, A*Star among others.

Academic collaborations

Over the last decade he has developed collaborations with German (LUH Hannover, UniBW); USA (UC Berkeley, Stanford, Georgia Tech); India (JNCASR, IISc, IIT Madras); Brazil (Univ Sao Paulo) among others. He has held visiting positions at JNCASR (India), Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Science at Cambridge University (UK), A*Star (Singapore).

Service

He also contributes to the community as a member on the Editorial board of Extreme Mechanics Letters. He is also a life member of the Caltech Alumni Association and contributed as a member of the German Association of Computational Mechanics (2013-19); student member of the Southern California Earthquake Centre (2008 – 09), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (2007-09). At Manchester, he is an elected member on the faculty committee at the school of engineering, departmental representative on the school board, Year 4 aerospace tutor, HPC committee lead, member of the departmental seminar organisation committee.

Teaching

At Manchester, he teaches aeroelasticity and computational fluid dynamics.