V. Kumaran, born on 17 June 1966 in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, earned his graduate degree in chemical engineering (BTech) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM) in 1987 and moved to the US for his higher studies and secured a PhD in 1991 from Cornell University.[10] His post-doctoral studies were at the University of California, Santa Barbara during 1991–93 and on his return to India, he joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) as an assistant professor where he holds the position of a senior professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering[11] and heads V. Kumaran's Research Group.[1]
Legacy
Lab-on-a-chip
Kumaran's work is focused on the field of complex flows of complex fluids and he is known to have carried out theoretical and experimental researches on the stability of flow past flexible surfaces.[12] These researches, reported to be of significance in biological applications, microfluidics as well as in the marine and aerospace propulsion, were the first such studies in India and assisted him to demonstrate fluid inertia.[4] The work has also assisted in developing Lab-on-a-chip devices used in cardiovascular and pulmonary Point-of-care diagnostics.[13][14] He has documented his researches in several articles and the online article repository of the Indian Academy of Sciences has listed 48 of them.[15][note 2] Besides, he has authored a book, Dynamics of suspensions with significant inertial effects[16] and has contributed chapters to books edited by others which include Nonlinear Science and Complexity[17] and Rheology of Complex Fluids, both published by Springer.[18]
Kumaran, who has guided a number of master's and doctoral scholars in their studies and hosts many of them in his research group,[4] coordinated the research program on Granular Physics organized by Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.[19] He was one of the keynote speakers at The XVth International Congress on Rheology of the Society of Rheology held in August 2008 at Monterey, California, where he presented the theme papers on Rheology of dense sheared granular flows.[20] His research group also hosts MicroX Labs, a start-up company,[11] which won the first prize in the Tata Social Enterprise Challenge in 2013–14.[21] His associations with science journals include memberships in editorial boards of Sadhana of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian Journal of Chemical Technology of National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources and Soft Materials of Taylor & Francis[22] as well as the editorial advisory board membership of Acta Mechanica of Springer.[23] He has attended several seminars and conferences where he has delivered keynote or invited speeches[24]Chemical Engineering Colloquium of the Indian Institute of Sciences in December 2013,[25] 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers,[26][27] and 68th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics in November, 2015 feature among them.[28]
Kumaran became an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy in 2002[32] and was selected for the Swarnajayanthi Fellowship of the Department of Science and Technology of India the same year;[33] he received the J. C. Bose National Fellowship of the DST, too, in 2007. Prof. Rustom Choksi Award for Excellence in Research of the Indian Institute of Science reached him 2011[34] and he shared the 2014 TWAS Prize with Chih-Yuan Lu of Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation.[35] The American Physical Society, which chose him as the APS-IUSSTF Chair Professor in 2014,[10] elected him as a fellow in 2015[36] and the Asian Scientist magazine included him in the Asian Scientists 100 list in 2016 for his work on laminarturbulent transition of flow through soft-walled tubes and channels[37] carried out during the year 2015, placing him at 73.[9] The Infosys Science Foundation awarded him the Infosys Prize in 2016 for his research on complex fluids and complex flows and especially in transition and turbulence in soft-walled tubes and channels.[38]
Selected bibliography
Books
Viswanathan Kumaran (1992). Dynamics of suspensions with significant inertial effects. Cornell University, January.
Viswanathan Kumaran (2023). Fundamentals of transport processes with applications. Cambridge University Press, ISBN: 9781009005333.
Chapters
J.A. Tenreiro Machado; Albert Luo; Ramiro S. Barbosa, Manuel F. Silva, Lino B. Figueiredo (3 November 2010). "Impulsive Boundary Layer Flow Past a Permeable Quadratically Stretching Sheet". Nonlinear Science and Complexity. 2nd Conference on Nonlinear Science and Complexity, held 28–31 July 2008, Porto. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 191–. ISBN978-90-481-9884-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Abhijit P. Deshpande; J. Murali Krishnan; Sunil Kumar (20 September 2010). "Fundamentals of Rheology". Rheology of Complex Fluids. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 35–. ISBN978-1-4419-6494-6.
^Abhijit P. Deshpande; J. Murali Krishnan; Sunil Kumar (20 September 2010). "Fundamentals of Rheology". Rheology of Complex Fluids. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 35–. ISBN978-1-4419-6494-6.
^"Engineering Sciences". Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. 2016. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
"TWAS Prize - Investiture ceremony". Viswanathan Kumaran of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, accepts the 2014 TWAS Prize for Engineering Sciences (Flickr image). TWAS. 18 November 2015. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
