Professor Ishwar K. Puri has served as Professor and Department Head of Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM) at Virginia Tech since 2004, where he also directs the Multiphysics Research Group (MuRG). He is also a Professor in the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences.

He obtained his Ph.D. (1987), and M.S. (1984) degrees in Engineering Science (Applied Mechanics) from the University of California, San Diego after obtaining a B.Sc. (1982) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Delhi. He served as an Assistant Research Engineer at the University of California, San Diego from 1987-90. He was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in 1990, was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in 1994, and to the rank of Professor in 1999. He served at UIC as Director of Graduate of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering programs from 1994-97, and 1999-2000; as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies (2000-01) and as Executive Associate Dean of Engineering (2001-04); on the steering committee of the UIC Institute for Environmental Studies; and facilitated UIC’s micro- and nanotechnology initiatives.

Professor Puri is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He was a Distinguished Guest of the Swiss Leonard Euler Center of the European Research Community of Fluid Turbulence and Combustion in 1998 and 1999. He was a 1993 American Association for the Advancement of Science-Environmental Protection Agency (AAAS-EPA) Environmental Fellow, a 1992 NASA/Stanford University Center for Turbulence Research Fellow, and a 1991 Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He has served as a program and peer review panelist for the Department of Energy, US EPA, and NSF, and other Federal, State, and private agencies and organizations. He is an editor of the journal Experimental Heat Transfer and an associate editor of International Journal of Reacting Systems.

Professor Puri has conducted research through major grants from US federal agencies, industry and foundations. He established a European-US consortium to conduct engineering student exchanges at the undergraduate and graduate levels that was funded through the US Department of Education FIPSE program. His students are placed in major corporations and at universities. He is the author of over 240 archival and conference publications in the field of combustion and transport phenomena (e.g., related to emissions, self assembly and magnetic drug targeting, nanoscale transport phenomena, and hydrogen storage). He has edited a book on the environmental implications of combustion processes, a textbook on Advanced Thermodynamics Engineering and another on Combustion Science and Engineering. Copies of some papers can be obtained by sending Dr. Puri an email message. Some simulations and experimental observations can also be viewed.

At Virginia Tech, Professor Puri has been involved with a number of interdisciplinary and campus-wide initiatives. With his stewardship, ESM was the first department to develop a computational science and engineering program and houses the university’s graduate certificate in the area. He chairs a committee to develop a similar certificate in complex systems research. He served on the Provost’s Race and Institution Task Force and serves on the AdvanceVT campus climate committee. He has also assisted the Institute for Critical Technologies and Applied Sciences by serving on various advisory committees, and is a member of the Virginia Tech, India steering committee.